TOUGHER SENTENCES: PUBLIC IS READY

Now that tougher sentencing rules for serious crimes have been
introduced as legislation, rather than just promised during an
election campaign, the whole notion is getting a more critical look.

One of the Conservative government's two new bills would ban
serve-at-home sentences for a variety of violent crimes, major drug
offences and crimes carrying a penalty of 10 years or more. The other
sets mandatory minimum sentences of one to 10 years for specific
gun-related, or gang-related, crimes.

Critics make two arguments against the tough-on-crime package. A)
Violent crime has been decreasing in Canada for a decade and the new
laws are unnecessary. B) Longer sentences don't deter criminals or
reduce crime rates, but do add to prison populations, driving up costs.

If both those claims were entirely true they would carry real weight
in the debate. However, they still wouldn't offset all the reasons
why Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government
proposed this anti-crime initiative.

Are they true? In part, but simple statements like "violent crime is
falling" don't reflect the complexity of the situation.

Statistics Canada figures show that nation-wide, the violent crime
rate dropped five per cent from 1998 to 2004. But that is a measure
of all violent crime. Gun-related crime has risen, particularly in
the past five years. Toronto last year had a record 52 shooting
deaths, well above its previous high of 33 in 2001, even though the
city's overall murder rate was stable. What is happening is that more
young men are carrying guns and shooting people, often in public places.

That disturbing trend was what prompted both the Conservatives and
Liberals and even, to a lesser degree, the NDP to build a
law-and-order element into their recent campaign platforms.

Do mandatory minimum sentences work? Critics who say "no" tend to
point to experience in the United States, where the idea became
popular in the 1970s. Many U.S. states have since backed off somewhat
as prison populations swelled and it became clear that many sentences
were too harsh.

But that argument applies mainly to "war on drugs" legislation dating
back to the Ronald Reagan years. Most mandatory sentencing laws were
aimed at drug offenders. In New York state, anyone caught with four
ounces of cocaine was sentenced to 15 years to life. Yet drugs
continued to be sold, and many non-violent, first-time offenders
ended up with life sentences. That minimum range was recently rolled
back to eight to 20 years.

The current Tory bills deal only with violent crime (although tougher
drug laws are said to be coming). And there is evidence that harsher
sentences work on gun-related crime. In 1998, the state of Florida
adopted minimum sentences of 10 years for any crime committed while
carrying a gun, 20 years if a shot was fired, and 25 years to life if
someone was injured or killed. Florida Department of Corrections
figures show violent crime dropped 30 per cent over the next six
years. During that same period in Canada, violent crime was down five per cent.

Longer sentences for violent criminals and those who carry guns
aren't the only answer. Experience in high-crime areas of U.S. cities
shows that. Boston had success when clergy worked directly with black
youths in poor neighbourhoods. Chicago cut its murder rate by 26 per
cent in three years, in part by counselling parolees. Similar
initiatives are needed here, and in some cases are already underway.

But whether longer sentences reduce crime rates is not the only
issue. Many criminals who use guns are not going to go straight. If
they are taken off the streets for 10 years instead of four (the
current longest mandatory minimum for a crime less than murder), the
public will be safe from them for those extra six years.

There is strong public awareness of that reality, and support for its
application. If it costs more to keep violent offenders in jail
longer, people are willing to pay that cost.

Harper's minimum sentence proposals are milder than what was in the
Conservative election platform, and much more reasonable than the
"drug war" approach in the U.S.. They should be applied.The details
may change, but the principle should apply.