MORE COPS, MORE CRIME

The New Police Crackdown On Gangs Will Only Raise The Stakes On The Street
And Lead To More Violence

As horrifying as the recent wave of shootings has been, we have to guard
against being led down the garden path of believing an extreme situation
demands an extreme solution.

The fact is, Toronto's homicide rate is consistently lower than those in
the lawless cities of Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Fortunately, for
the past decade only approximately 30 per cent of all homicides in Canada
have been shootings. The sad truth is that far more people use guns to kill
themselves than to kill others.

Gun violence is not epidemic in Canada, but every year or two Toronto
erupts like a war zone. On October 27, 2002, four people were killed and
three others wounded in three shooting incidents, all within 90 minutes.
During the week of October 26, 2003, Toronto residents were subjected to
seven shootings, a few deadly stabbings and three armed home invasions.

As expected, these past eruptions triggered calls for a task force, a
public inquiry, stiffer sentences, specialized gun courts, more cops, more
prosecutors and more power. This broken record is being played once again
this summer.

I would agree that cowards who strut around with guns like little Napoleons
with low self-esteem deserve harsh punishment. However, the public is being
duped if they are led to believe that making the existing harsh penalties
even more draconian will curb gun violence. The institution of criminal
justice was never designed to reduce the incidence of crime - it was
designed to punish crime. There is a difference.

Severe punishment does not deter. I have yet to see a convincing empirical
study demonstrating that get-tough policies lead to a reduction in crime.
In theory, the threat of severe punishment could deter the Enron or
WorldCom type of offender, because corporate criminals calculate and factor
into their cost-benefit analysis the consequences of being caught.

But for most other criminals, the crime is just an expression of character
and circumstance, and harm is caused without any real consideration of the
looming presence of a punitive institution.

Frankly, the current empirical evidence just confirms what the anecdotal
evidence from our common law past has told us.

Until the 1830s, there were over 200 capital offences. People could be
executed for murder and rape as well as pickpocketing and stealing sheep.
Ironically, the best place for pickpockets to ply their trade was at
bustling public executions.

If the very sight of a fellow pickpocket having the life squeezed out of
his body on the gallows could not serve as a deterrent, why do we think a
modern Criminal Code would have greater impact today? The law will not
solve the gun problem, because good people will be good regardless and bad
people will continue to harm in spite of the law.

Reliance upon increasingly severe sentences to address a serious social
problem has a serious downside. First, it leaves the public with the false
impression that the problem has been solved, and in the spirit of naive
optimism we believe it unnecessary to undertake the more difficult task of
exploring the root causes of gun violence and other predatory criminality.
Second, knee-jerk reliance upon sentence severity can actually serve to
increase the incidence of crime.

For example, in a seemingly unrelated show of bravado this past month, the
feds increased the maximum penalties for methamphetamine use, production
and sale.

Like the deterrence myth, this is another example of state officials
wanting to believe, and wanting us to believe, that severity of punishment
is an effective tool for controlling what people do with their bodies.
Illicit drug use will ebb and flow from year to year without regard to
increasing criminal penalties, but greedy dealers armed with handguns
thrive in this atmosphere of get-tough criminal justice policy.

We've become so blinded by the allure of tough talk and prison as a panacea
for all social ills that we've failed to realize that getting tough on drug
crimes will inevitably lead to increases in gun violence. The formula is
rather simple: when the state prohibits the consumption of a desired
commodity or service, it plants the seeds for the growth of a black market
that relies upon weaponry to protect its investment.

Increasing the maximum penalties will only give dealers an excuse to raise
prices on the pretense of the increased risk of doing business. Greater
profits and greater risks lead to the need for greater firepower.

The police are convinced that much of the gunplay in Toronto is
gang-related. We know that gangs play a large role in the illicit drug
market and that on average 10 per cent of all homicides in Canada are
related to the drug trade. It stands to reason that eliminating, or
reducing, the black market by legalizing and regulating illicit drugs could
potentially bring about a substantial decrease in our murder rate.

Even though harsh sentences do not deter crime, there is one criminological
truth underlying the get-tough response. Empirical studies do suggest that
the certainty of punishment may be able to deter crime even if severity
cannot. If gunslingers and illicit drug users believe they will be always
be caught, this will deter pretty much all the budding criminals except the
savagely incorrigible.

This is the logic underlying the deployment of 150 new officers in
crime-ridden neighbourhoods. But 150 will not be nearly enough. The only
hope of creating crime-free zones in Canada is to construct a police state
in which Big Brother is always watching. But who would agree to that?

A strong police presence will never be an adequate substitute for community
involvement and addressing the root causes of criminal behaviour. While a
large contingent of police on the beat may be comforting for some, for
others it is reflective of a dangerous modern phenomena: too many soldiers
and not enough peace, too many laws and not enough justice, too many police
and not enough liberty.