Vic Toews Gets A Jump On Halloween

The proposed legislation would require third-time offenders convicted of serious violent crimes to explain why they should be set free once they’ve served their sentences. No more would the Crown have to make a case to take away a citizen’s right to liberty. The citizen would now have to face off with the leviathan that is the Crown to have a basic right reinstated. Of such stuff have revolutions been made. This is no small change, and one likely to get a severe testing in the courts. Yet to hear the Conservatives tell it, it is vital to threaten such a fundamental pillar of our legal system because violent crime is out of control, due in large part to lenient sentencing and the kid glove treatment of criminals. Middle-class Canada is scared, after all, and if the Conservative message says anything, it’s that they should be. The problem is that the government’s own statistics say otherwise. While news reports saturated with all the worst society has to offer paint a picture of a Canada akin to A Nightmare on Elm Street, much of what Statistics Canada is finding suggests violent crime is not going up, but down, steadily. Over a ten-year period (1994-2004), sexual assault and other sexual offence rates fell over 30 per cent, attempted murder rates fell 30 per cent, abduction rates almost fifty per cent, and robbery rates 14 per cent, to name a few. While most will point (rightly) to the beneficial effect of an aging population, the statistics still clearly show that what is going on outside the average Canadian’s front door does not mirror what they are seeing in their living rooms. Even amongst that scary demographic, 12–17-year-olds that inspire images of gun-toting rappers waving gang signs, the fact is that 75 per cent of their crimes are non-violent, which would be hard for Joe Canadian to know given that over 90 per cent of media reports related to youth crime focus on violent crime, at least according to statistics offered by Toews’ own department. Again, there is a skewed perception that seems to be fuelling Conservative efforts to crack down on youth crime, with tougher overall sentencing guidelines, including serious crimes receiving adult sentences. Victims’ rights groups, police associations, and terror-stricken voters with too many hours logged watching late night re-runs of “Cops” are all clamouring for tougher sentencing to help stop a problem that generally seems to be ebbing all on its own. It’s a call for good-old-fashioned tough love, despite all reason, and despite all research that says such cold-hearted justice gets nowhere. By all accounts, “Three Strikes” legislation, adopted in 26 American states, has been determined to be at best a non-factor in crime prevention, and at worst a colossal waste of money and manpower sunk into an ever-booming prison industry. And the logic of imposing longer, more punitive sentencing to curb violent crime, much of it passionate and far from premeditated, can only politely be deemed counterintuitive. Clamping down on youth crime without initiatives to help juveniles avoid or move away from criminal activity promises little more than giving budding young criminals extra time in jail to polish their criminal skills. But the Conservatives, like all good marketers, see a niche and are exploiting it. Scared people are easily used people, after all. If the Conservatives can pander to that fear, then all the better for Harper and company, a group looking to solidify what support they have, and distract attention from the problems that are keeping them from building on it. Of course, a five dollar Halloween mask and a well timed “Boo!” might be just as effective, and a whole lot cheaper. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 23, 2006]