Pubdate: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2004 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Glenn Bohn GETTING TO THE ROOTS OF STREET CRIME A Committee Will Try To Find Alternatives To Jail VANCOUVER - Stopping street crime in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside by addressing its root causes is the goal of a new 12-member committee unveiled Monday by B.C. Attorney-General Geoff Plant at B.C.'s busiest courthouse. The Street Crime Working Group is being asked to recommend better ways to deal with repeat offenders, especially the drug addicts and mentally ill people who are continually committing crimes such as mischief, drug dealing, theft and burglary. By March 2005 the committee of justice system insiders and senior bureaucrats is to propose "a new criminal justice response to street crime" that identifies which offenders would benefit most from treatment programs and alternatives to court. When reporters questioned Plant at the government-organized news conference in a courtroom at 222 Main, Plant refused to be pinned down on exactly what kind of new treatment programs he envisions. The only example he pointed to was a two-year-old drug treatment court in Vancouver that allows cocaine and heroin users to avoid jail if they go through a treatment program and offer drug-free urine samples. Nor would Plant make any specific funding commitments for new or expanded treatment programs, or say whether he favours mandatory treatment programs. "It's too soon to speculate on any particular initiative," he said. But the attorney-general was clear on the kind of offender he wants the Street Crime Working Group to focus on. Unfurling two rolls of paper so long they reached the floor he said: "This is the criminal record for a man we'll call David," Plant declared. "It's someone who is in his mid-30s. He's not Bonny or Clyde. He's not Butch Cassidy. He's not the Great Train Robber. He's an unemployed man, mentally ill, with serious substance abuse problems." According to Plant, that man already has 81 convictions for property crimes and has also faced another 30 property-related charges that were later "stayed" or dropped by prosecutors. "The police deal with him almost on a daily basis and the courts deal with him far too often," Plant said. "He is, unfortunately, the perfect example of the kind of chronic offender that judges deal with in their courtrooms over and over and over again. David is caught in a cycle of drug addiction, mental health problems, crimes, courts and incarceration." Plant claimed the criminal justice system imposes appropriate sentences on most criminals. "But the fact is, the courts are not always the most effective place to find long-term solutions for the problems that lead to criminal behaviour," he said. "In many cases, the best way to to improve public safety is to develop additional tools and alternatives to court." The B.C. government-selected committee is supposed to find those new "tools." The committee members are: Chief Provincial Court Judge Carol Baird Ellan, Elisabeth Burgess, of the attorney-general ministry's criminal justice branch, criminal lawyer Ian Donaldson, Isobel Donovan of the Vancouver Agreement on the city's hard drug problem, Vancouver Police Inspector Val Harrison, Heather Hay of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, lawyer Peter Leask, of the Canadian Bar Association, Alan Markwart, an assistant deputy minister in the B.C. children and family development ministry, Dan Mulligan of the attorney-general ministry's criminal justice branch, Allan Schoom of B.C. Corrections, Stuart Whitely of the federal justice department and David Winkler, an assistant deputy minister in the B.C. attorney-general ministry. Baird Ellan, the chief judge of the provincial court system that deals with about 90 per cent of all of the criminal charges in B.C., said the courts alone cannot deal with the problem of repeat offenders who have substance abuse, mental health and other complex personal problems. "Most repeat offenders spend a lot of time in jail," she said. "Unfortunately, jail does not deter or rehabilitate many of them." Vancouver Councillor Tim Stevenson, who attended the news conference as deputy mayor, suggested Victoria shouldn't wait one year for the recommendations. "In the meantime, we've got a real problem on the streets, and crystal meth getting worse every day and the government has made huge cutbacks," said Stevenson, who spent a decade in the Downtown Eastside as a church minister. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom