ADDICTION TO JAIL MISFIRES

Putting drug addicts and the mentally ill behind bars repeatedly for petty
crimes is a waste of time, money and human resources. By investing money in
treatment, we could all save money.

Recidivist: one who relapses into crime. Reading in this week's Vancouver
Sun that a 26-year-old man had been convicted 94 times of minor criminal
acts during the last 13 years, one is mightily tempted to think that the
Concise Oxford could live up to its name by simply printing his picture next
to the word. (Printing the full litany of his rap sheet would be no
ecological savings and make for a dull, repetitive read.)

Dull, maybe, but not cheap. Just under a hundred convictions, each one
requiring the time of police officers, appearance before a judge and stays
in jail ranging from one day to six months at a whack. The bill would not
end there either, unless he is the unluckiest man in captivity, caught and
convicted every single time he broke into a house or car (as charged in this
latest case.) Assume a clean getaway only half the time, then add in costs
for upwards of 200 smash and grabs.

Obviously this man needs jail and lots of it. Or does he? The obvious often
deserves a second look.

For one, by definition, we can hardly say he "relapsed" back into a life of
crime the record plainly indicates he never left. Except, of course, during
those minimal sentences which evidently have not rehabilitated him, and
which can cost $75,000 per year. Not much savings there. Jail, in many
cases, is a pricey and ineffective solution. That is one reason judges are
instructed by the Criminal Code to consider every reasonable option for
sentencing other than jail. Even so, in the Western world Canada lags behind
only the U.S. in incarceration.

Still, 94 convictions. What other option is there? Consider some other
numbers: In December The Sun cited studies which estimated 20 per cent of
prisoners in Lower Mainland jails suffer from a serious mental illness. (A
man facing three robbery charges and rearrested Wednesday after committing
three more robberies within an hour of making bail is mentally ill, his
lawyer told the court.) Closures put the majority of these people on the
street, many treating their illness with cocaine and heroin and compounding
their troubles. The provincial government has made 13 cells in the Vancouver
pretrial centre a mental health centre, an admission of the problem.

Not all the estimated 6,000 addicts in the Downtown Eastside are mentally
ill but the statistical rule-of-thumb is that each addict commits up to 200
crimes a year, mostly break-and-enter or petty theft, for drugs. What is the
real cost of 120,000 crimes, including lost peace of mind and security?

Just as with the mentally ill, jail does not much help addicts, or by
extension the rest of us. Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh, Mayor Philip Owen
and Vancouver police all support drug courts to divert junkies from prison
to court-supervised treatment programs. Unfortunately, treatment and rehab
facilities are as uncommon as mental health facilities and without them drug
courts cannot work.

A likely solution will be one recognizing this: Rehab does more good than
jail for many addicts, treatment is imperative for the mentally ill and jail
a good answer only for real criminals, dealt with by police and courts
concentrating on the job they were intended to do.