Pubdate: Wed, 28 Nov 2012
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Barbara Kay
Page: A15

PUNISHING THE CRIMINAL, TREATING THE ADDICT

In his latest Saturday column, Conrad Black wrote: "Let us abolish 
imprisonment for all non-violent offences except the briefest 
periods, the most egregious offences, or the chronic recidivists. 
Instead of building more prisons, let us focus on community service 
and rehabilitation for the non-violent.... Prison is futile and 
destructive and hideously expensive, and is done only because it has 
always been done."

Mr. Black is hardly the only prominent Canadian advocating such 
reforms. Another is former Ontario attorney-general Michael Bryant, 
who writes on this subject in his new book, 28 Seconds.

The most newsworthy aspect of 28 Seconds has been Bryant's narrative 
of his 2009 surreal encounter on Toronto's Bloor Street with the 
aggressively menacing Darcy Sheppard, a stoned bicycle courier. The 
stand-off resulted in Sheppard's accidental death, swiftly followed 
by Bryant's unjustified incarceration and immediate tumble from 
political grace. The charges against him were all eventually dismissed.

But the book's more lasting significance, one Lord Black is 
particularly well-placed to understand, lies in Bryant's passage from 
a privileged man's complacent faith in the justice system to a 
hounded man's contempt for its failings. In Bryant's case, his clash 
with the justice system joined with his triumph over alcoholism to 
illuminate the symbiosis of addiction and the justice system.

Alcoholism is the worst of substance addictions for "respectable" 
people such as Bryant: the easiest to fall into without censure; the 
most compatible with an upscale social life; the most physically 
traumatic to withdraw from.

Bryant was a long-time high functioning alcoholic. Finally, realizing 
that drinking was stunting his marriage and parenting, and with 
support from AA, he stopped drinking altogether. A chastened, 
compassionate Bryant became a social activist with a worthy cause. 
His nemesis Sheppard became his spiritual brother: He discovered that 
the criminal justice system is overrun with Sheppards.

The human and financial cost of alcoholism in Canada is staggering. 
Some suffer its ill effects before they are even born. About 3,000 
Canadian babies are born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder every 
year. Darcy Sheppard was one of them.

Bryant presents some grim figures. Half of Canadian offenders say 
substance abuse is the cause of their crimes. In Saskatchewan, a full 
93% of provincial offenders have a substance-abuse problem. An 
assessment of the entire prison population of Maine found that almost 
90% had a substance-abuse problem.

But "the criminal justice system is blind to addictions," Bryant 
writes. Most problem drinkers who habitually commit crimes rotate 
through prison and a precarious street life.

Bryant would like to see almost the entire justice system taking a 
therapeutic approach to addicts, in effect creating a default "drug court."

Such courts steer criminal offenders into rehab as an alternative to prison.

And yet the annual federal budget for drug courts for six cities is 
only $3.5-million, 0.027% of Canada's overall criminal services 
budget, less than is spent on upgrading luggage security at airports.

A comprehensive drug court system would involve a rethinking of 
addiction-related crime from a "conviction machine" to "an addiction 
recovery system of hope." Some conservatives will reflexively scoff 
at this therapeutic model as sappy, one that is "soft on crime." Not 
at all. Serious crimes involving life and limb would require 
incarceration. But most addiction-related crime is not that serious. 
And recovering addicts will benefit more from restitution through 
community service than by passive incarceration that does nothing to 
reset their human compass.

Above all, an intelligent justice system would support early 
intervention before addiction sets in. Such a model exists in Toronto 
- - the Pine River Institute - and Bryant has lent support to it. It 
deserves multiple replications. Bryant's recommendations merit 
serious attention by influential Canadians. Over to you, Lord Black.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom