Mr. Speaker, I have listened to some of the speeches from members opposite and have heard various references to specific cases and the suggestion from members opposite that a general or sweeping conclusion can and frankly should be drawn from an analysis of simply a few cases or a few situations. Drawing sweeping conclusions as a result of only a few situations is always risky and is, with respect, intellectually rather shallow.
Having practised law for 25 years prior to my election to this distinguished House of Commons in June 2004, I represented many individuals who were charged with various criminal offences. I obviously cannot breach solicitor-client privilege by referring to specific names, but I can certainly indicate that I have observed non-custodial sentences work for the benefit of society, for the benefit of the victim, for the benefit of the offender's family and for the offender himself or herself.
I am referring to individuals who were charged with a criminal offence, in some cases a serious criminal offence. They appeared before the presiding judge and, following a plea of guilty or a finding of guilt, the presiding judge then obviously turned his or her mind to the issue of sentence or penalty.
It is important to recall the edict of a most distinguished counsel and later jurist, the late G. Arthur Martin. Mr. Justice Martin served with distinction for many years on the Ontario Court of Appeal and was widely regarded in his time as the pre-eminent authority with respect to criminal law throughout Canada. Mr. Justice Martin and many others have commented that the overriding principle of sentencing is to determine what this particular offender deserves by way of punishment for this particular offence. The reality is that human behaviour does not lend itself to a simple or computer driven analysis and it is too simplistic to conclude that there will automatically be a deterrent effect if the sentencing bar is only set high enough or harsh enough.
I can think of many cases in which an offender, a family man, received a non-custodial sentence as a result of a finding of guilt against him. The non-custodial sentence allowed him to, for instance, maintain his job and thereby continue to support his family. It allowed him to continue to parent his children. It allowed him to, as a result of maintaining employment, make restitution or compensation to the victim or victims. It allowed him to attend for counselling and other treatment ordered by the sentencing judge.
Simply put, the non-custodial sentence worked to the benefit of everyone, as these individuals have not returned to the criminal justice system, have truly learned from their mistakes and have rounded the proverbial corner.
I appreciate that it is tempting to view the criminal justice system as a system which should be driven by formulae and by the principle that harsher penalties will automatically reduce the rate of crime. However tempting that may be, it is short-sighted and is not consistent with the experience that we have had in Canada with our current system.
The point has been made by many others, but it must be borne in mind that the crime rate in Canada is on the decline and that there is no compelling evidence to indicate that incarcerating more people truly works as a deterrent. If there were a clear link between increasing incarceration rates and decreasing crime rates, then an argument could logically be made for more persons to be incarcerated. However, the conclusion is otherwise. The rate of crime in Canada is on the decline.
Certainly the former Liberal government recognized that some serious crimes should be dealt with in a certain fashion and, hence, the policy of mandatory minimum penalties. The Criminal Code already contains some 42 mandatory minimum penalties and the majority of these are, quite properly, for offences involving firearms. Ten serious offences committed with a firearm carry mandatory minimum penalties of four years to a maximum of 14 years or life. Weapons trafficking and related offences carry minimum penalties of one year to a maximum of 10 years.
When an accused person appears before a judge, he brings with him, figuratively, to the door of the courtroom, his background, his life experiences, his challenges, his intellectual deficits, if any, his own at times scarred or abusive upbringing, his economic disadvantages, racial prejudice or stereotyping that he may have been exposed to, and various other factors. For instance, any reasonable observer knows that a disproportionately large number of aboriginal Canadians are incarcerated. To simply incarcerate individuals without providing them with counselling and treatment which will alter their behaviours on a long term basis is myopic.
This is not to sound as if I or others are soft on crime, but is simply to reflect a considered view that Mr. Justice Martin and others are correct in concluding that the overriding principle in sentencing is what a particular offender deserves by way of punishment for the particular offence he or she has committed. It is naive to think that building more prisons will reduce the crime rate. It is irresponsible to build more prisons instead of devoting more money to seniors, to aboriginals and to the disabled.
A crime prevention strategy involves more than imprisonment. The former Liberal government took many steps which were aimed at decreasing criminal activity across Canada. We increased funding for the national crime prevention strategy. Since its launch in 1998, the national crime prevention strategy has helped provide communities with the tools, the knowledge and the support communities need to deal with the root causes of crime at a local level. This strategy has supported more than 5,000 projects nationwide, dealing with serious issues like family violence, sexual abuse, sexual assault or drug abuse.
In my riding of Brant, there have been several successful projects under the NCPS. These projects are aimed at engaging youth in the community. One project, administered by the Sexual Assault Centre of Brant, developed a youth theatre project. This project engaged students in identifying, discussing and raising the awareness of important social issues.
It is obviously important that our streets and our communities be safe. It is vital that our criminal justice system ensure the safety of each member of society. It is critical that our criminal justice system provide long term solutions to the continued reduction or decrease in the rate of crime.
As others have noted, the ultimate rehabilitation of the individual offers the best long term protection for society, since that rehabilitation ends the risk of the continuing criminal career. There is simply no compelling or persuasive evidence that increasing the number of mandatory minimum penalties will reduce the rate of crime in Canada. As was noted by Cheryl Webster and Anthony Doob of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Toronto:
The literature on the effects of sentence severity on crime levels has been reviewed numerous times in the past twenty-five years. Most reviews conclude that there is little or no consistent evidence that harsher penalties reduce crime rates in Western populations. Indeed, a reasonable assessment of the research to date--with a particular focus on studies conducted in the past decade--is that sentence severity has no effect on the level of crime in society.
Would that the issue of crime lend itself to a simple answer, a simple answer such as “let us only make the penalties harsh enough and the crime rate will automatically be reduced”. Whether we like to admit it or not, the complexity of human behaviour and identifying causes for human behaviour do not lend themselves to simple answers.