Tough on Crime, Soft on Logic

In which a vaunted justice system steadfastly built over centuries gets tossed around for fleeting political points.

The doldrums of summer are upon us, but that's no reason to not give a preview of what's in store once Parliament resumes and the Conservatives push forward with their controversial justice bills. Dan Gardner of the Ottawa Citizen explains that while Prime Minister Stephen Harper likes to pose as being tough on crime, the reality is that he's merely amended superficial sections of the Criminal Code without making much in the way of systemic changes to the justice system that could be called conservative. “Harper opts for crowd-pleasers like mandatory minimum sentences instead,” says Gardner. While mandatory-minimum sentences are hardly great justice policy, they were implemented just as much by the Tories' Liberal predecessors, as Gardner points out. It's just that the Tories have spun their tweaks for populist political points instead of launching a full-scale revamp of the justice system.

Michael Chettleburgh, writing for The Globe and Mail, argues that our politicians' understanding of youth justice – incarceration vs. compassion – avoids the root causes of crime, and that prevention would make a for a much greater strategy than locking up petty criminals. “Populist politicians derive power dividends when they amplify anxiety using simplistic and exaggerated notions of youth crime and demonize the youth criminal as an amorphous arch-enemy of society, rather than deal with the seemingly intractable problems that give rise to crime in the first place,” says Chettleburgh. It's tough to argue against that. We've gotten to the point where psychologists and counsellors can easily identify which children are likely to turn into criminals once they hit adolescence. It's just a shame fewer votes can be won by pledging to address that concern (Exhibit A: Michael Ignatieff) than by promising to throw deviant teenagers into prison.

All the talk of new sentences and prisons overlooks some very simple ways to improve policing, such as buying better body armour for the RCMP, offers the National Post's Matt Gurney. “If the Harper government wants its tough-on-crime, pro-police agenda to have credibility, it can start by diverting funds away from prison expansion and arresting marijuana smokers and focus instead on making sure that our police officers have the right tools at their disposal to do their jobs safely,” says Gurney. As it stands, the RCMP only provides body armour capable of stopping shots from a handgun, but not from a rifle. Heavier armour could have saved the lives of the four Mounties killed by James Roszko in Mayerthorpe, Alta., says Gurney, but there's been little political will to invest in military-grade equipment. Instead, we get simple-minded, reactive policy instead of finding ways that might just make our already pretty-safe streets even safer.