COMMUNITY COURT TRIES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN FIRST 100 DAYS

Yesterday was the 100th day of Vancouver's community court, an
occasion which caused Judge Thomas Gove to peer over his glasses at a
prisoner's file in front of him, then make a face that was somewhere
between exasperation and wonder.

He nodded as if ticking off a list: He was doing some quick sums.
Then he remarked that the prisoner, who was in a holding area and
visible on the courtroom's TV by remote feed, had an "overwhelming
record that went back 18 years." By his calculations, Gove said, the
accused had probably spent more time in jail than he had spent out of
it, and the last time the prisoner had appeared before him, he had
released him, whereupon he left the court, smashed in the window of a
woman's car parked just blocks away and made off with her purse. He
was pursued and caught, and here he was again. The revolving door was
to turn once more. The accused was a crack addict.

He was just one of a dozen or so cases Gove would hear on his 100th
day. He sees a steady parade of the most pitiful of the downtown's
denizens, many of them caught in the law's eddies, and you wonder how
this endless, soul-wearying parade hasn't stomped out any hope Gove
harbours for the court's future. It has not.

The case load is enormous: In its first 100 days, the court has dealt
with some 985 files and had 685 people before its bench. As a judge,
Gove has the power to expedite like no other.

"With the staff we have here," Gove said, "a case processed in
community court in 15 minutes might take four hours in regular court."

These are cases that won't enter the already arthritic regular court
system, to everyone's benefit. The speed of the community court isn't
Gove's primary concern, though. Its greatest asset, he said, is the
court's ability to deal with cases on an individual basis and respond
to the person's needs.

The court's patience does have limits. Gove has sentenced 94 people
to jail time. Usually, though, the court looks for the remedial
solution -- detox, drug rehabilitation, community service. So far,
Gove said, 275 people had successfully completed their sentences of
community service, work that might include litter detail or
volunteering in soup kitchens.

"One of the things we try to do is get people out of the criminal
justice system. If they've made a single mistake, like shoplifting or
drunkenness, and they don't have a prior record, we want to get them
out of here and not hanging around where they might make the wrong
kind of friends."

As Canada's first community court, it has attracted attention inside
and out of the province. As its spokesman, Gove has made himself
available to the press to a degree rarely seen among the judiciary,
and publically shared all court statistics and costs.

He has entertained delegations from Nanaimo, Victoria, Kelowna,
Calgary and Toronto. He doesn't see the Vancouver experiment as a
template that can be transplanted to other jurisdictions: Each city
would have to tailor a community court to its own needs. And he sees
room for a community court that might handle, say, nothing but
domestic abuse cases.

Is the court making a difference?

It is, he said. The court has tracked people getting away from the
street life, though the numbers are small and progress slow.

"We're still feeling our way."

It has made him aware of the court's limitations. The remedial
resources available to him are spread thin: the numbers who need
those resources, like detox centres, are growing.

That prisoner whose record Gove had wondered at, for example? He had
begged Gove to put him into supportive housing for drug treatment. He
wanted to kick the habit, he said.

Gove held off. The man may have been able to get treatment in
supportive housing, he said later, but probably not the supervision
and follow-up he needed.

Instead, Gove said, he would order a pre-sentence report to see if he
was ready for treatment, and if he was, he would try to get him into
a real program that could help him.

There was in that order hope the revolving door was slowing.