Pubdate: Wed, 21 Sep 2011
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2011 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Ethan Baron

CHILD RAPIST TO GET LESS TIME THAN POT GROWER

BC Jail Overload: Incarcerated Weed Offenders to Skyrocket

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is getting tougher on pot growers than 
he is on rapists of children. Under the Tories' omnibus crime 
legislation tabled Tuesday, a person growing 201 pot plants in a 
rental unit would receive a longer mandatory sentence than someone 
who rapes a toddler or forces a five-year-old to have sex with an animal.

Producing six to 200 pot plants nets an automatic six-month sentence, 
with an extra three months if it's done in a rental or is deemed a 
public-safety hazard. Growing 201 to 500 plants brings a one-year 
sentence, or 1 1/2 years if it's in a rental or poses a safety risk.

The omnibus legislation imposes one-year mandatory minimums for 
sexually assaulting a child, luring a child via the Internet or 
involving a child in bestiality. All three of these offences carry 
lighter automatic sentences than those for people running 
medium-sized grow-ops in rental property or on someone else's land.

A pedophile who gets a child to watch pornography with him, or a 
pervert exposing himself to kids at a playground, would receive a 
minimum 90-day sentence, half the term of a man convicted of growing 
six pot plants in his own home.

The maximum sentence for growing marijuana would double from seven to 
14 years, the same maximum applied to someone using a weapon during a 
child rape, and four years more than for someone sexually assaulting 
a kid without using a weapon.

Here in B.C., if police and prosecutors don't rebel against the new 
laws, we're going to be hit with massive jail costs, says Simon 
Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd. The new marijuana 
legislation will increase the proportion of pot criminals in B.C. 
jails from less than five per cent to around 30 per cent, at a cost 
of $60,000 to $70,000 per inmate annually, Boyd says. "Why put people 
who are not violent in jail?" Boyd asks. "People who commit serious 
violent crime are already dealt with pretty harshly, and crime rates 
are down, not up."

Harper's U.S.-style war on drugs ignores our southern neighbour's 
expensive failed effort. "Eight states -- including New York, where 
laws were the most punitive in the nation -- have repealed most of 
these mandatory-minimum sentences, and dozens of other jurisdictions 
are considering repeal or reform," a February report from Human 
Rights Watch says.

Even the government's own Justice Department questions the use of 
mandatory minimums. "There is some indication that minimum sentences 
are not an effective sentencing tool," reads a 2010 report from the 
department. "They constrain judicial discretion without offering any 
increased crime-prevention benefits."

Provincial jails -- where most people convicted under the new laws 
will end up -- provide far fewer rehabilitation programs than federal 
prisons, leading to higher rates of re-offending, says Stacey Hannem, 
chairman of the policy review committee at the Canadian Criminal 
Justice Association.

"There's a real revolving-door problem in our provincial 
institutions," Hannem says. "If you're going to throw even more 
people in there, you can bet that the recidivism rate in the 
provincial system is likely to go up.

"If you want to get tough on crime, that's fine. But don't sell it as 
increasing public safety. That's just not true."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom