HARPER GOVERNMENT'S ANTI-CRIME PACKAGE UNNECESSARY

Crime Rates Have Long Been in Decline, Tougher Punishments Don't Deter
Offenders, and U.S. Proves Imprisoning Social Problems Too Expensive

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is about to embark on an aggressive
legislative agenda that includes justice initiatives he should reconsider.

The mandatory sentences and the supposedly tough-on-crime measures
pioneered in America that his party likes don't actually work.

So why embrace them? He should take note that the conservative U.S.
Supreme Court acknowledged last week that it's simply too expensive to
imprison social problems.

More nuance is required.

The American Supremes ran up the equivalent of a lawand-order white
flag, ruling it was okay for California to free an estimated 37,000
criminals because the state with a $10-billion budget deficit cannot
afford to keep them housed and healthy.

In spite of the cost, Justice Antonin Scalia argued in dissent that
the continued incarceration was necessary for most of the people
affected by the ruling.

"Most of [those released] will not be prisoners with medical
conditions or severe mental illness; and many will undoubtedly be fine
physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping
iron in the prison gym."

He might be right: California's independent inspector general found
that about 1,500 offenders were improperly released recently as a
result of the over-crowding issue, including 450 who "carry a high
risk for violence."

Yes, but it's important to keep in mind also that most of the inmates
didn't need to be behind bars.

Setting aside Justice Scalia's not-unreasonable paranoia, most were
imprisoned under a sentencing regime that cost taxpayers too much and
didn't make them any safer.

Crime rates have been declining for a long time and we are less
victimized irrespective of what governments have done in America or
Canada.

We don't need the Tories' anti-crime package. The sparethe-rod-spoil-the-child
conservative legal ideology doesn't correlate with lower crime rates
or safer neighbourhoods. Across the continent, it's getting safer
(unless you're in a Mexican drug zone).

And Harper should also take note: It isn't just California whose
taxpayers can't bear the cost of the prison system required to support
mandatory sentences; several states are similarly buckling. We need
not repeat those mistakes.

That doesn't mean we don't have to be tough on those who deserve it.
It's important we jail the violent. No question. And others who
require incarceration should receive it.

But those engaged in non-violent crimes, especially driven by a drug
addiction, need to be treated as individuals with a problematic health
issue.

Prison should be a last resort. And judges need discretion to parse
the situation, any situation, and to levy the appropriate punishment.

Mandatory sentences are a way of driving up prison populations, not a
sophisticated response to social issues.

But therein lies the problem. The Conservatives' rhetoric needs more
subtlety; witness their response to Insite, the supervised injection
clinic on Vancouver's east side. Why does Ottawa maintain its
resistance to this medical experiment?

Similarly, the Tories have proposed legislation that treats
identically a guerrilla gardener and a Hells Angels puppet.

One might deserve six months in jail, but does the overly enthusiastic
kid with a green thumb down the block need that behind-the-bars experience?

The perception is the prime minister and his party are judicial
Neanderthals blinded by a single idea -retribution. Harper should fix
that.

He has long complained Canada's legal regime is dominated by a
constellation of concerns around rehabilitation and the reclamation of
the offender; the victim given short shrift, and that it is time to
redress the situation.

Many of us would not disagree.

But let's not aid victims at the expense of those who made a
mistake.

Let's not turn the legal system into a debate over folk aphorisms.
Justice isn't either/or.