DRUG COURTS

VICTORIA - The solution to rampant property crime, small-time armed
robberies and street-level drug dealing lies in a community-based
system of justice and not in stiffer jail sentences for repeat
offenders, B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal says.

Speaking at a recent Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce lunch,
Oppal said drug-related crime is a social problem that has to be
addressed by the community as a whole, not only the justice system.

Oppal, a long-time judge who moved from the B.C. Court of Appeal to
provincial politics last year, said his ministry to developing a
community court system modelled on similar programs in more than two
dozen locales in the U.S. and Canada.

By combining the penalties under the justice system with mandatory
addiction counselling, mental health treatment or other
rehabilitation tools deemed appropriate, cities such as Reno, Nevada
and Portland Oregon have achieved dramatic reductions in car theft
and other forms of property crime.

"It's not a soft approach. If people are not amenable to that type of
situation, they would feel the full force of the law."

Statistics show that about 90 per cent of property crimes are
drug-related, and the bulk of those are the work of repeat offenders.

It will be at least six months before he can attach a timeframe to
the initiative.