NEW INITIATIVES TO FIGHT STREET GANG VIOLENCE ARE DOOMED TO FAIL

Instead Of Passing New Laws, Government Should Enforce Existing
Statutes

British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell has packed away his Dirty
Harry rhetoric, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's police photo ops are
over, the cabinet boys are back from their whirlwind tour of Ottawa
and the gang violence continues unabated.

What did you expect?

Nothing announced by the federal government last week will have an
impact on the current urban gang problem. Sorry. But true.

And I'm skeptical the newly appointed "public-security commissioner"
to lead the province's fight against gangs will help.

David Morhart, who has been B.C.'s deputy solicitor-general since
2005, doesn't fill me with confidence given the government's record --
an abysmal Lower Mainland policing arrangement and out-of-control gang
violence.

The federally promised murder statute changes are nothing more than
legislative legerdemain -- gang killings always have drawn
first-degree murder charges.

They get plea-bargained away in many cases -- and that's exactly what
will continue to happen.

The new offence of drive-by shootings carrying a minimum four-year
prison term, with the possibility of up to 14 years behind bars, is
similarly a headline-grabber that will have little effect.

Right now, they can hit gangbangers caught doing drive-bys with
charges that draw similar time. The bad guys don't care because they
rarely (read: never) get caught.

As for the mandatory sentences for drug-related offences -- the U.S.
tried that approach and is abandoning it.

The Tory anti-drug crime bill, for instance, includes a maximum of 14
years in jail for growing cannabis and a two-year mandatory prison
term for cultivating more than 500 plants.

Those penalties are way out of step with the threat the substance
poses.

These measures won't help; they'll simply increase the price of pot by
driving up the risk premium producers charge.

As everyone keeps saying, end the prohibition against cannabis and
you'll take away the bulk of the money that keeps gangs operating,
you'd raise millions in taxes and you could improve health care and
more effectively fight juvenile use of the drug.

Meanwhile, B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal and Solicitor General
John van Dongen returned empty-handed from Ottawa, professing
disappointment.

It could have been foreseen.

They were looking for Criminal Code amendments to make it easier for
police to breach our constitutional right to go about life free of
state monitoring.

There are good reasons for updating the wiretap law adopted in the
1970s to apply to 21st-century technology. And it is a measure that
would certainly help combat gangs.

But those changes must be carefully thought through and the balancing
of rights carefully weighed. The feds realistically can't move quickly
on that.

Sadly, the truth of the matter is we can't bust these gangs without
wiretaps, informers and undercover cops infiltrating them at grave
risk.

That kind of insidious but necessary policing unfortunately is also
expensive.

For the state to engage in these operations requires time, resources,
loyalty and long-term commitments. We don't have that in the current
policing system in the Lower Mainland.

The other items Oppal and van Dongen were looking for -- changes to
disclosure requirements (to speed up trials) and an end to two-for-one
credit for time served -- were completely wishful thinking.

The Supreme Court of Canada is the author of the current demands on
the Crown to show its hand in criminal cases.

Disclosure requirements are based primarily on fundamental
constitutional rights as the court sees them (not something Parliament
can easily mess with) and that is not going to change anytime soon.

Neither is the two-for-one credit for time served, which is dictated
by the provincial court of appeal.

The reason the court has told judges to use that as the norm is the
B.C. jail system is overcrowded and prisoners in remand receive
rougher treatment than those serving their sentence.

It's an issue of fairness and what's right, nothing
else.

Regardless, neither of these issues is an impediment to charging and
prosecuting gangs.

That's what was wrong last week with all the political events around
gang issues. They so missed the point -- we want charges laid for
blatant cold-blooded crimes, not excuses and promises of new laws.

We've heard it all before.