Pubdate: Tue, 09 Oct 2007
Source: Parksville Qualicum Beach News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 Parksville Qualicum Beach News
Contact:  http://www.pqbnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1361
Author: Tom Fletcher

THIS IS YOUR CRIME PROBLEM ON DRUGS

The Interior town of Williams Lake has done a good job of 
highlighting the problem of prolific offenders. Instead of playing 
down its distinction as B.C.'s crime capital, Williams Lake Mayor 
Scott Nelson has used police statistics to tackle the problem head-on.

He's put the message out forcefully the numbers are driven by a 
handful of hardcore repeat offenders. The same story could be told in 
communities around the province, and it's usually a story about what 
people will do to get drugs. In Williams Lake and elsewhere they're 
demanding repeat offenders be kept in custody until they are 
sentenced, so at least they can't rack up new crimes while awaiting 
trial. While that's an appealing idea, B.C. Solicitor General John 
Les reminds me of its major flaw.

Career criminals (and their lawyers) prefer to maximize time in 
remand awaiting trial, especially if the evidence against them is a 
slam dunk. In a time-honoured (and naive) tradition, judges kindly 
give them two-for-one credit for time served while they are still 
technically innocent.

Holding suspects creates another problem for the B.C. correctional 
system, which runs addiction programs for inmates.

"The reality is they spend more time there in remand than actually 
sentenced, and when they're there on remand, there's not much we can 
do with them, because there's the whole presumption of innocence 
thing," Les told me. "You can't impose anything on them. And then 
when they're sentenced, typically they don't spend a whole lot of 
time there anyway." Another popular notion is the threat of harsh 
sentences will deter the kind of impulsive property crime that 
plagues communities. But does it really? One sobering study done in 
1992 examined the most direct of consequences, delivered by Irish 
Republican Army enforcers to juvenile car thieves in Northern 
Ireland: kneecapping, or shooting the thief in the leg with a 
handgun. Did this reduce the number of car thefts? No.

For those desperate for drugs, fear of consequences seems an even 
more remote notion. That's why today authorities are looking toward 
the community court or drug court model for solutions.

Last week the federal government launched its latest anti-drug 
strategy, amid much squawking about a U.S.-style war on drugs, and 
the allegedly urgent need for more defeatist pest-holes along the 
lines of Vancouver's unsafe injection site. About half of the Stephen 
Harper government's $64 million anti-drug strategy is supposed to be 
directed to treatment programs. Given the Conservatives' ideological 
rigidity, that probably means abstinence-based programs, which by 
happy coincidence are the only ones that actually work.

How will repeat offenders be made to stick to programs, and how will 
the public be kept safe? Les says he'll have more to say on that in a 
few weeks.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom