COURT SYSTEM WRONG REMEDY FOR DISTURBED ADDICT

Watching the B.C. Court of Appeal deal with a drug-addicted,
psychiatrically challenged offender reveals how threadbare our social
safety net has become.

These people shouldn't be in an expensive criminal court or in front
of the even more expensive high bench when they really need better
social services and mental health care.

Joanne Denise Doucette, who is 36, was born with disc problems that
produce chronic back pain and that prevents her from working.

She has intellectual limitations that compound her difficulties and
psychiatric issues for which she must take medication.

Her six children (the oldest is 18) were placed into care following
the breakdown of her marriage and subsequent move to Victoria in her
late 20s.

It was there she became homeless and addicted to illegal drugs, which
aggravate her mental health problems.

Doucette lives on a $1,300-monthly disability pension, of which $900
sometimes goes to rent.

The Crown was in the court of appeal because Doucette breached a
conditional sentence order and the sentencing judge made a mistake
when he resentenced her.

Doucette was initially convicted of trafficking in cocaine for her
role in a dial-a-dope operation. Prosecutors wanted a six-month jail
sentence, but the judge on March 14, 2008 gave her a 12-month
conditional sentence.

Doucette was to abide by a curfew during the first four months,
complete 20 hours of community work service during the first six
months and abstain from the consumption of alcohol and
non-prescription drugs.

Like so many of these offenders, she breached all three
conditions.

On Aug. 6, 2008, she violated her curfew and was arrested for drug
possession.

She remained in custody until Aug. 11, 2008, when she pleaded guilty.
She was sentenced to time served for the drug offence and released for
the balance of her conditional sentence.

On Oct. 8, 2008, a warrant for her arrest was issued when she failed
to complete the 20 hours of community work or report to her sentence
supervisor.

Her whereabouts were unknown until she was arrested Jan.
8.

Doucette remained in custody 33 days before admitting the two
additional breaches before the original judge Feb. 11.

Before her arrest on Jan. 8, Doucette had served 170 days under the
conditional sentence order. There remained 188 days or six months, of
which 33 days, or roughly one month, had been served in detention.

With five months left on her original conditional sentence, the Crown
wanted Doucette placed in custody for the remainder.

The defence wanted her sentenced to time served and the original
conditional sentence terminated.

The sentencing judge went a step further and rescinded his original
order, which unfortunately isn't one of the options he had under the
Criminal Code and necessitated the appeal.

When the Crown attempted to serve Doucette with the notice of appeal
in April, she had no fixed address. Eventually, she was served with
the document on the street.

The appeal court was told she has again obtained accommodation at a
local motel. How long she has been or intends to remain there is unclear.

Not surprisingly, when Doucette has a home, she is usually able to
comply with conditional sentence orders; she is unable to do so when
she is living on the street.

"An appropriate disposition, in my view, would be an order ...
requiring that she serve three months of the remaining five-month
[conditional sentence order] in custody and thereafter be returned to
the community for the balance of the CSO, subject only to the
statutory conditions [that she keep the peace, be of good behaviour,
report for supervision, etc.]," Justice Daphne Smith decided with the
support of her two colleagues, Elizabeth Bennett and Mary Newbury.

Unfortunately, Doucette has no plan to address her underlying
problems, so nothing is really going to change in her life when she is
released and the revolving door of the system spins her out once more.

I can't help feeling that rather than put offenders like this through
the expensive criminal courts, these addicted and psychiatrically
challenged individuals need better health services and social support.

Doctors and social workers could have made so much more difference in
her life with the money. And the community would have been safer and
better off.