GETTING TO THE ROOTS OF STREET CRIME

A Committee Will Try To Find Alternatives To Jail

VANCOUVER - Stopping street crime in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside by
addressing its root causes is the goal of a new 12-member committee
unveiled Monday by B.C. Attorney-General Geoff Plant at B.C.'s busiest
courthouse.

The Street Crime Working Group is being asked to recommend better ways to
deal with repeat offenders, especially the drug addicts and mentally ill
people who are continually committing crimes such as mischief, drug
dealing, theft and burglary.

By March 2005 the committee of justice system insiders and senior
bureaucrats is to propose "a new criminal justice response to street crime"
that identifies which offenders would benefit most from treatment programs
and alternatives to court.

When reporters questioned Plant at the government-organized news conference
in a courtroom at 222 Main, Plant refused to be pinned down on exactly what
kind of new treatment programs he envisions. The only example he pointed to
was a two-year-old drug treatment court in Vancouver that allows cocaine
and heroin users to avoid jail if they go through a treatment program and
offer drug-free urine samples.

Nor would Plant make any specific funding commitments for new or expanded
treatment programs, or say whether he favours mandatory treatment programs.

"It's too soon to speculate on any particular initiative," he said.

But the attorney-general was clear on the kind of offender he wants the
Street Crime Working Group to focus on.

Unfurling two rolls of paper so long they reached the floor he said:

"This is the criminal record for a man we'll call David," Plant declared.
"It's someone who is in his mid-30s. He's not Bonny or Clyde. He's not
Butch Cassidy. He's not the Great Train Robber. He's an unemployed man,
mentally ill, with serious substance abuse problems."

According to Plant, that man already has 81 convictions for property crimes
and has also faced another 30 property-related charges that were later
"stayed" or dropped by prosecutors.

"The police deal with him almost on a daily basis and the courts deal with
him far too often," Plant said.

"He is, unfortunately, the perfect example of the kind of chronic offender
that judges deal with in their courtrooms over and over and over again.
David is caught in a cycle of drug addiction, mental health problems,
crimes, courts and incarceration."

Plant claimed the criminal justice system imposes appropriate sentences on
most criminals.

"But the fact is, the courts are not always the most effective place to
find long-term solutions for the problems that lead to criminal behaviour,"
he said. "In many cases, the best way to to improve public safety is to
develop additional tools and alternatives to court."

The B.C. government-selected committee is supposed to find those new
"tools." The committee members are:

Chief Provincial Court Judge Carol Baird Ellan, Elisabeth Burgess, of the
attorney-general ministry's criminal justice branch, criminal lawyer Ian
Donaldson, Isobel Donovan of the Vancouver Agreement on the city's hard
drug problem, Vancouver Police Inspector Val Harrison, Heather Hay of the
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, lawyer Peter Leask, of the Canadian Bar
Association, Alan Markwart, an assistant deputy minister in the B.C.
children and family development ministry, Dan Mulligan of the
attorney-general ministry's criminal justice branch, Allan Schoom of B.C.
Corrections, Stuart Whitely of the federal justice department and David
Winkler, an assistant deputy minister in the B.C. attorney-general ministry.

Baird Ellan, the chief judge of the provincial court system that deals with
about 90 per cent of all of the criminal charges in B.C., said the courts
alone cannot deal with the problem of repeat offenders who have substance
abuse, mental health and other complex personal problems.

"Most repeat offenders spend a lot of time in jail," she said.
"Unfortunately, jail does not deter or rehabilitate many of them."

Vancouver Councillor Tim Stevenson, who attended the news conference as
deputy mayor, suggested Victoria shouldn't wait one year for the
recommendations.

"In the meantime, we've got a real problem on the streets, and crystal meth
getting worse every day and the government has made huge cutbacks," said
Stevenson, who spent a decade in the Downtown Eastside as a church minister.