Pubdate: Mon, 24 Feb 2003
Source: Clearwater Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003 Clearwater Times
Contact:  http://www.clearwatertimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1448
Author:  Keith McNeill

SPEAKER CALLS FOR LEGAL SYSTEM REFORMS

"Some people can't understand why British Columbia has more hydroponic grow 
operations than anywhere else in North America. Why is that? It's because 
B.C. has the laxest laws and softest sentencing."

That's the evaluation of Serge LeClerc, a motivational speaker who appeared 
at local schools last week to talk about drug awareness. LeClerc gave 
students some tough talk about his time as a drug dealer and the 21 years 
in jail he spent as a result, but he saved some of his toughest comments 
for a luncheon with the executive of Clearwater Crimestoppers on Monday.

"You have the worst judges and the worst prosecutors in Canada," LeClerc 
told the local executive members.

"I know how the system works. I've been through it on both sides," he said.

He gave as an example a recent court case in which a person was caught with 
a large grow operation and two loaded firearms in his house. The accused 
received a suspended sentence. In any other province the punishment would 
have been a minimum of five years in jail, he said. In the United States, 
the sentence would have been even more severe.

Judges and prosecutors should be elected, as they are in the U.S., LeClerc 
believed.

Citizens should volunteer to serve on Courtwatch organizations. These 
groups are found in various jurisdictions.

Their members spend time in the courtrooms, making notes of what happens 
and making sure the public knows if there are problems. "The judges and the 
lawyers like people to think they are not welcome in court," he said.

"They want you to feel that you need them and that no one can understand 
what they do. They don't want people to see the deals being made. They 
don't want people to see the judge asleep on the bench, or taking 
instructions from the prosecutor."

Looking back at his own career in crime, LeClerc said it would have been 
better for himself and for society if he had received a 20 year sentence 
for his first offense.

The primary purpose of prisons should not be rehabilitation or deterrence, 
he believed. Instead, the first reason for incarceration should be 
protection of the public by placing the criminals where they cannot hurt 
others.

"As long as that guy is not in your community, he's not committing a 
crime," he said.

LeClerc was born in Toronto as the result of a rape of a 14-year-old Cree girl.

He was a young offender and a prison inmate while battling a drug addiction 
for over 20 years.

He has been alcohol and drug-free since 1986, and was released for the 
final time from prison in 1988.

He now has three university degrees and works as a substance abuse 
therapist. In 14 years of making presentations across the continent, he has 
spoken to over 3 million people, two-thirds of them young people.
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