CHIEF JUSTICE PROMOTES 'COMMUNITY COURT' FOR B.C.

United States-Inspired Plan Would Deal With Low-Level Offenders Who
Have Drug Or Mental-Health Problems

On the morning after the Conservative victory, B.C. Supreme Court
Chief Justice Don Brenner rose from his breakfast and made a pitch
for a new "community court" in Vancouver to deal with low-level offences.

The idea is one born in the U.S. that envisions separating the
violent and career crook from the offender who is in court because of
a drug, mental-health or social challenge.

If you solve those problems, you can often put an end to these petty
but publicly expensive misdeeds.

Rather than processing and reprocessing through the costly criminal
legal system those who commit vandalism, small-time theft or some
other misdemeanour because of some handicap, community courts are a
way of focusing attention on those offenders and getting them back in
the saddle.

These offenders would be channeled to a single community court
building (initially in downtown Vancouver) housing the judge as well
as a cadre of social service and mental health services.

They would focus on these offenders in the belief that addressing
their health or social problems will curtail their crime.

As Brenner put it: "It's a question of what that person needs. How do
you turn that life around?"

His audience Tuesday at the Downtown Vancouver Association-sponsored
meeting was more than a score of merchants, two city councillors, a
few social-service types, a couple of city hall planners, a
choreographer from England.

There was a lot of skepticism around the room -- many had businesses
in the Downtown Eastside and they have heard a lot of promises. What
about treatment centres? they wanted to know.

Little point in having a special court with highfalutin ideas about
solving problems if you don't have the addiction facilities and other
infrastructure in place.

"You almost have to start there," Brenner agreed.

But he couldn't answer the question.

Would offenders be sentenced to community restitution in the
neighbourhoods where they committed their crime? Maybe.

Again, Brenner said that was the kind of detail to be worked out.

He opined that he liked the idea of offenders doing community service
in a special costume so people could see justice at work.

I joked that harlequin and dunce caps would be a good outfit -- maybe
have them singing, Workin' on a Chain Gang...

Brenner was horrified.

Someone with more gravitas suggested maybe that wasn't the right tack
and Brenner was eager to say that those are the kinds of issues the
community must be involved in deciding.

"There has to be the will and the community has got to decide it's
worthwhile doing," he said. "There seems to be widespread support,
but we have to keep it moving along."

To Brenner, there was no question about this issue: We have to try it
given how much current disorder, petty crime and squandered legal
resources can be traced to the same offenders.

"Yes, the issues are very challenging," he said. "But I think it's
fair to say we haven't done a great job so far."

That's what was important about his performance, I think -- there are
not many places where a chief judge gets out there to talk
shoulder-to-shoulder with the public before a morning's proceedings,
and is willing to at least engage in dialogue.

Especially on an issue this controversial.

A community court will require this province to invest in more and
different treatment services that are expensive. There will be a lot
of potholes along the way as this new system is hammered into form
and there will be no short-term political payoffs or success stories
for politicians to ride into the next election.

Brenner says the court is about the redirecting of existing resources
and will save money in the long term. It makes sense, he says.

And I think he's right.

But in the real world, that means the independent silos of government
departments -- health, justice, social services, housing -- must all
develop new ways of dealing with each other. And all for a small
constituency for whom there is little empathy.

Creating the new system will meet resistance.

And there will be foot-dragging among those who disagree with the
compassion at the heart of it -- those who believe being an addict
isn't an excuse for robbery, those who believe you do the crime, do
the time, don't blame your mum and dad.

I count the new prime minister-designate, Stephen Harper, among that
crowd; those who believe the answer is universally tougher sentences
and bigger sticks. He may prove me wrong.

Brenner didn't have many answers on specifics, because none exist
yet, and he wasn't tipping his hand if he knew there would be money
in the coming provincial budget to push the project forward.

We will see how well his former benchmate Attorney-General Wally
Oppal has sold the pilot to cabinet and Treasury Board.

Brenner seemed hopeful.

Still, I worry the province will abandon such initiatives in the face
of the new government's feared tough-love justice stance.

I guess we'll see.

By the way, in case you wondered, Brenner didn't vote Monday.

"I may have to appoint judges who will supervise recounts," he said.