JUDGES WORRY CHANGES COULD LIMIT THEIR SKILLS IN 'CRAFTING' SENTENCES

Lock the losers up, eh? Throw away the key. House arrest? Gimme a
break! Serious crime deserves serious time.

The vigorous pursuit of a more punitive treatment of criminals seems
to be all the rage these days.

Stephen Harper is leading the charge. His government has introduced
legislation that would ban conditional sentences and set new minimum
mandatory terms for serious crimes.

Hugh Stansfield has heard this kind of hue and cry before and its
echoes clearly disturb him, even as he maintains a diplomatic silence
on the politics of it all.

In an interview this week, the chief judge of the B.C. Provincial
Court recalled: "When the Young Offenders Act was under review a few
years ago, there was a tremendous retributive mood in Canadian
society that seemed to be saying, 'Hit those kids harder. Send more
kids to jail for longer.'

"I was so relieved when [the changes] didn't go nearly as far as I
had feared, because I believed strongly that . . . the moment I send
them to jail the prospect of them becoming lifelong criminals just
goes through the roof."

No prizes for guessing the chief judge's private opinion of Harper's
proposal to restrict the options open to judges by mandating fixed penalties.

But, I press him, will the Conservative proposals not tie the hands of judges?

"The potential certainly exists," he says cautiously. "A great
concern is that you will be applying a cookie-cutter approach to a
human being, and it's not as easy as that."

Stansfield is fulsome in his praise of his 152 colleagues on the
Provincial Court, all of whom, he says, "worry to a degree that might
surprise you over every single sentence."

It's reasonable enough, he says, as a member of the public, to
suppose that people who commit crimes are "two-dimensional bogeymen
of whom you are right to be reasonably afraid."

"But if you don't know someone in the fullness of their person, it is
easy to discriminate against them."

It's the judges' job to discover that inner person and based on what
they find to "craft" a sentence that is most appropriate.

As an example, the judge cites the current $600 mandatory fine for a
first impaired driving offence.

What if the accused is a single parent and unemployed?

"To have to impose a fine seems to me odd," says Stansfield. "I don't
want to take food out of the childrens' mouths."

Given her options, a judge might impose an equivalent sentence of
community service, maybe even helping the offender into permanent
employment through exposure to the workplace.

"But I'm not permitted to consider that because the $600 fine is
mandatory. That's the dilemma."

Whatever new laws may be in the offing, Stansfield does not foresee a
"great change" in criminal sentencing.

For him, "the big one" is cleaning up -- and speeding up -- the
criminal court process.

More on that tomorrow.