THE LIBERAL THEOLOGY ON MANDATORY SENTENCES

Last week, federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler contradicted his
leader, Paul Martin, on an important part of the Liberal anti-crime
platform -- mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.

Cotler told the Toronto Star he would not be "pressured" into
introducing mandatory sentences. When he was a law professor, he
explained, he once thought minimum sentences should work to deter
crime. But after studying the literature, he became convinced they
"are neither a deterrent nor are they effective."

A day later, Cotler was insisting to the National Post that he and
his PM were on the same page -- that while minimum sentences might
have no practical effect, they send an important message of
"denunciation" to those who might murder, rape or mug.

Ah, yes, that old liberal belief in symbolism over substance: Simply
send the right message and human behaviour will be altered. Wag our
collective finger at drug dealers and murderers and they will stop.

Shame on you, bad men. Shame, shame, shame.

Never mind that Cotler believes the empirical evidence proves the
uselessness of minimum sentences, he would implement them anyway
because the social message behind them might disgrace hardened
criminals into not committing their crimes. (And because promising to
implement them might re-elect his party.)

Frankly, I doubt the academic studies on mandatory sentences are as
conclusive as Cotler asserts.

In June, a bibliographic analysis conducted by the Library of
Parliament for Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz concluded, "There is
little research dealing with the effectiveness of mandatory minimum
sentences in Canada."

Neither Cotler's own department nor Statistics Canada could point to
any proof that the sentences worked or didn't work. Indeed, in an
exhaustive study conducted for Justice in 2002, the authors argue for
more research "which examines the patterns of use of mandatory
minimum penalties, their effects on sentence length, incarceration
rates, crime rates, levels of recidivism ... levels of public
awareness of existing penalties and cost/benefit analyses."

When Cotler and the criminologists and prisoners' rights advocates
who oppose minimum sentences tell the public the research shows they
don't work, there is probably a lot of circular reassurance going on.
Liberal politicians don't want them, so they point to academics and
advocates who say they don't work. Advocates say the academics have
shown them to be ineffective and crow that few enlightened
politicians will implement them, while academics cite the advocates
who say there is no proof of their effectiveness and point to
political opposition.

I, too, doubt that minimum sentences will do much to reduce gun
crime, but not for the reasons cited by Cotler and his experts. In
several jurisdictions where hard-nosed politicians have passed them,
implementation has been thwarted by liberal judges and prosecutors
who have found clever ways around them.

The key is not sentencing gun criminals to long periods in jail.
Anyone can do that, including Liberal justice ministers who don't
believe doing so will be effective. The key is keeping gun criminals
in jail longer.

There are already lots of laws against gun use during crimes, such as
five years for pointing a gun during a crime, and up to 14 years for
shooting it. The problem is, these added charges are often
plea-bargained away by Crown prosecutors eager to get guilty pleas to
the underlying charge such as murder or robbery. Worse yet, a decade
ago, Ottawa and the provinces made a conscious decision to reduce
dramatically the number of criminals who go to jail in Canada. Now,
only about one in five convicted criminals will actually spend any
time in prison, and most of those will spend less than six months.

Two-thirds of the adults accused of murder in Canada in 2004 already
had criminal records. Seventy per cent of those had committed a
violent crime before. And eight per cent had previous murder convictions.

Had they still been in jail for their earlier crimes, there is no way
they could have committed new ones.

Mandatory minimum sentences are nothing more than a political
sideshow if there is no truth in sentencing. So long as criminals
know a long sentence means only a few months of jail time, if that,
all the get-tough sentences in the world will do nothing to cut down
on gunplay in the streets.