Pubdate: Thu, 30 Oct 2008
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: John Martin
Note: John Martin is a criminologist at the University College of the Fraser
Valley.

SOCIETY SHOULD ERADICATE CERTAIN BEHAVIOUR RATHER THAN CONDONE IT

Over the course of several years we tend to witness what was once
considered anti-social or deviant behaviour become routine and accepted.

Attitudes and values change over time. Legal definitions and social
norms are rarely forever etched in stone and typically vary from one
decade to the next. Until quite recently, same-sex relationships,
unwed mothers and racially mixed marriages were met with aghast.
Today, they barely warrant a ripple of interest or concern.

But there's a danger in normalizing behaviour that we should be
seeking to eradicate. Drug addiction and homelessness are well on
their way to becoming accepted as alternative lifestyles.

Normalizing these has become a rallying cry for so-called
"progressives" who believe the answer to all social ills is to
legalize and accept them. Activist judges, no longer content to
preside over questions of law, are usurping governments' authority to
manage these issues.

This past summer, B.C. Supreme Court Judge Ian Pitfield ruled that
Insite, Vancouver's supervised drug injection site, can stay open
indefinitely because it provides a form of health care to which drug
users are entitled.

More recently, Justice Carol Ross found that due to insufficient beds
in Victoria's shelters, homeless people have no choice but to sleep
outdoors and struck down the city's bylaw that prohibited camping in
public parks.

While both decisions prompted much celebration and giddy high-fiving
among a select group of lawyers and self-proclaimed activists, they
are part of a disturbing trend.

Slowly but surely, the emphasis on addressing and combating drug
addiction and homelessness is giving way to the legal strategy of
establishing the right to be an addict or vagrant. Policies and
legislation that interfere with this "right" will continue to be overturned.

We saw something similar in the 1980s when various legal consortiums
challenged mental-health legislation that allowed governments to
confine the mentally ill. The result was massive deinstitutionalization
with people being dumped on the streets to fend for themselves without
their medication or any support structure.

As Willard Gaylin and Bruce Jennings, authors of The Perversion of
Autonomy, explained, "Mentally ill patients were granted their freedom
to defecate, urinate, sleep, starve, freeze, murder and be murdered in
the streets of our larger cities."

Mind you, it was a great legal victory that affirmed the rights of the
mentally ill.

No one denies governments aren't doing enough to address drug
addiction and homelessness. But incremental courtroom victories that
legalize and normalize these are counterproductive.

Scoring partisan political points and establishing legal precedent on
the backs of some of the most desperate and marginalized citizens is
hardly cause for celebration.

Other than bolstering a few lawyers' resumes, it's difficult to
identify how these decisions help anyone.

John Martin is a criminologist at the University College of the Fraser
Valley.
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