BILL ON SENTENCES WILL BACKFIRE

NPA Coun. Kim Capri probably thinks about crime and punishment more
than the rest of the folks who perch around the council table. Her
resume makes her more qualified for the police academy than for elected office.

She has a degree in criminology and worked as a probation officer.
She volunteered with the Elizabeth Fry Society and was a manager with
the John Howard Society. Both organizations deal with ex-cons. So she
is no pushover when it comes to bad guys and how they should be treated.

That said, Capri finds Stephen Harper's plan to get "tough on crime"
totally wrong. By expanding the use of mandatory minimum sentences
and getting rid of conditional sentences, Harper will make matters
worse not better.

If you want a second opinion on this, you can ask NPA Coun. Suzanne
Anton. In an earlier life she was a Crown prosecutor. She looks at
Harper's proposal and says: "There is no argument that anyone can
make in favour of it."

Capri says her pals in the national office of the John Howard Society
are "shaking in their boots" at the prospect of Harper implementing
his legislation. It will take every modern notion about crime
prevention, restorative justice and accepting responsibility and turn
it on its head.

It is no wonder there was mention in the budget for more money to
build prisons and hire corrections officers. Incarceration is about
to become a growth industry.

Capri says Harper's policy feeds on an emotional need for revenge:
"You've hurt me and I'm going to hurt you." That has a lot of appeal
for a lot of Canadians. It doesn't do much for communities.

But if you want more than just the opinions of Capri and Anton,
google "mandatory sentencing." You will find yourself awash with information.

Look particularly for reports dealing with Vancouver's special area
of interest: illicit drugs.

The U.S.-based Drug Policy Alliance writes about the continued
failure of the War on Drugs. Mandatory sentencing introduced in 1986
in that country missed its mark. Instead of nailing the big guys,
small time pushers and mules took most of the heat.

Eighty per cent of the increased prison population from 1986 to 1995
is due to drug convictions. The number of women put in jails for drug
offences over that period increased by 421 per cent. Seventy per cent
of them are low-level, non-violent offenders.

While Harper plans to increase the use of mandatory minimum
sentences, legislators in jurisdictions where they have been used are
seeing the error of their ways. Thirty years ago the state of New
York was the first state to impose mandatory sentences for drug
offences. Two years ago, after a 12 year legislative battle, it
rolled them back. At that time, it was one of 22 states reassessing
drug strategy and sentencing.

Last month the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network put out a document
exploding some of the myths about the effects of mandatory minimum
sentences. It refers to a 2002 study by the Department of Justice
Canada, which found "drug consumption and drug-related crime seem to
be unaffected in any measurable way" by these sentences.

But that's not the worst of it.

Putting people in jail increases the possibility they will be addicts
when they leave. The report cites an Irish study that claims 20 per
cent of drug users began their injection drug use in prison. And,
because of shared needles, prison dramatically increases the
possibility they will have HIV/AIDS when they leave and spread it
among the general population.

This hardly seems consistent with harm reduction, or Vancouver's best
interests for that matter.

Instead we have a policy that will inevitably increase harm, all so
Harper can climb a little higher in the polls and his supporters on
this issue can have a little pay back.