Pubdate: Wed, 04 Feb 2009
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Pete McMartin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)

COMMUNITY COURT TRIES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN FIRST 100 DAYS

Yesterday was the 100th day of Vancouver's community court, an 
occasion which caused Judge Thomas Gove to peer over his glasses at a 
prisoner's file in front of him, then make a face that was somewhere 
between exasperation and wonder.

He nodded as if ticking off a list: He was doing some quick sums. 
Then he remarked that the prisoner, who was in a holding area and 
visible on the courtroom's TV by remote feed, had an "overwhelming 
record that went back 18 years." By his calculations, Gove said, the 
accused had probably spent more time in jail than he had spent out of 
it, and the last time the prisoner had appeared before him, he had 
released him, whereupon he left the court, smashed in the window of a 
woman's car parked just blocks away and made off with her purse. He 
was pursued and caught, and here he was again. The revolving door was 
to turn once more. The accused was a crack addict.

He was just one of a dozen or so cases Gove would hear on his 100th 
day. He sees a steady parade of the most pitiful of the downtown's 
denizens, many of them caught in the law's eddies, and you wonder how 
this endless, soul-wearying parade hasn't stomped out any hope Gove 
harbours for the court's future. It has not.

The case load is enormous: In its first 100 days, the court has dealt 
with some 985 files and had 685 people before its bench. As a judge, 
Gove has the power to expedite like no other.

"With the staff we have here," Gove said, "a case processed in 
community court in 15 minutes might take four hours in regular court."

These are cases that won't enter the already arthritic regular court 
system, to everyone's benefit. The speed of the community court isn't 
Gove's primary concern, though. Its greatest asset, he said, is the 
court's ability to deal with cases on an individual basis and respond 
to the person's needs.

The court's patience does have limits. Gove has sentenced 94 people 
to jail time. Usually, though, the court looks for the remedial 
solution -- detox, drug rehabilitation, community service. So far, 
Gove said, 275 people had successfully completed their sentences of 
community service, work that might include litter detail or 
volunteering in soup kitchens.

"One of the things we try to do is get people out of the criminal 
justice system. If they've made a single mistake, like shoplifting or 
drunkenness, and they don't have a prior record, we want to get them 
out of here and not hanging around where they might make the wrong 
kind of friends."

As Canada's first community court, it has attracted attention inside 
and out of the province. As its spokesman, Gove has made himself 
available to the press to a degree rarely seen among the judiciary, 
and publically shared all court statistics and costs.

He has entertained delegations from Nanaimo, Victoria, Kelowna, 
Calgary and Toronto. He doesn't see the Vancouver experiment as a 
template that can be transplanted to other jurisdictions: Each city 
would have to tailor a community court to its own needs. And he sees 
room for a community court that might handle, say, nothing but 
domestic abuse cases.

Is the court making a difference?

It is, he said. The court has tracked people getting away from the 
street life, though the numbers are small and progress slow.

"We're still feeling our way."

It has made him aware of the court's limitations. The remedial 
resources available to him are spread thin: the numbers who need 
those resources, like detox centres, are growing.

That prisoner whose record Gove had wondered at, for example? He had 
begged Gove to put him into supportive housing for drug treatment. He 
wanted to kick the habit, he said.

Gove held off. The man may have been able to get treatment in 
supportive housing, he said later, but probably not the supervision 
and follow-up he needed.

Instead, Gove said, he would order a pre-sentence report to see if he 
was ready for treatment, and if he was, he would try to get him into 
a real program that could help him.

There was in that order hope the revolving door was slowing.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom