PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen
DATE:
2003.02.17
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
News
PAGE:
A15 / Argument&O;/td>
BYLINE:
Neil Seeman
SOURCE:
Citizen Special
DATELINE:
TORONTO
ILLUSTRATION:
Photo: Vancouver Police Department / Greater penalties forgun crimes target
offenders, not law-abiding gun owners. !@IMAGES=Photo: Vancouver Police
Department / Greater penalties for gun crimes target offenders, not law-abiding
gun owners. [33651-9344.jpg];
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Armed
and dangerous: A firearms registry won't stop criminals from terrorizing people,
but a minimum sentence of 10 years for crimes committed using a gun will.
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TORONTO
- Absent in the public debate over how to reduce gun-related crimes is a serious
consideration of the most sensible remedy: stiffer penalties.
When
the Ontario attorney general recently endorsed a Criminal Code amendment that
would create a 10-year mandatory minimum for armed robbery, armed assault and
other crimes committed using a firearm, former Ontario Superior Court judge
David Humphrey bristled, saying the proposal would accomplish nothing.
"I'm
very much against minimum penalties put forward by politicians for political
reasons, as well as to address a social concern," he said. (Odd that. Don't
all laws, by definition, address a social concern?) Prominent criminal defence
lawyer Paul Calarco dismissed David Young's idea as "ridiculous"
political posturing.
But
when one examines other jurisdictions that have experimented with stricter
sentences for gun crimes, such peremptory criticisms melt away. In a number of
cities in the United States -- Detroit, Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami, Pittsburg,
Philadelphia -- the number of homicides dropped significantly after the
introduction of higher mandatory sentencing laws.
As
a general proposition, greater penalties for heinous acts deter more crimes than
do lesser penalties (all else being equal). After the passage of stronger
sentences in California's Proposition 8 in 1982, there was a decrease in crimes
covered by the amendment, but not for other crimes. Proposition 8 raised
sentences by up to five years for criminals with previous convictions such as
homicide, rape, robbery and residential burglary. But it did not cover similar
crimes such as larceny, auto theft and assault without a firearm.
In
the two years before the law passed, all of the crimes it covered were climbing
-- as were most of the similar crimes that it didn't address. In the years just
after the law passed, all covered crimes plummeted, down 14 per cent on average,
versus a three-per-cent drop for the uncovered ones. By 1985, covered crimes
were down by as much as 20 per cent, compared with an average 4.6-per-cent
increase in similar, uncovered crimes.
In
Richmond, Virginia, a 1997 initiative ("Project Exile") that set a
five-year mandatory minimum for gun crimes helped reduce homicides in that city
by more than 50 per cent -- from 140 at its inception to 69 in 2001. A recent
Brookings Institution study has questioned whether this measure was the
exclusive reason for the drop in homicides, but it seems reasonable that taking
violent thugs off the street for long periods of time helped chop crime rates.
Yet
former Ontario judge David Humphrey has argued -- rightly -- that sterner
penalties for gun crimes won't stop hoodlums from buying firearms. "We live
next to a cesspool of guns in the U.S. and, inevitably, they are going to come
here," he told reporters earlier this year. "So what is the point of
sending a lot of people to jail (in an effort) to prevent a thug from going out
and getting a gun in one hour, which he can do?" he asked.
That
our society is awash in guns only underscores the weakness of regulatory schemes
-- such as a gun registry. Since there are so many illegal guns already in
circulation, simply raising the costs of acquiring weapons -- by inspiring
crooks to invest more creativity in thwarting regulations -- will not stop such
criminals from arming themselves.
It
therefore makes sense to prosecute harshly those criminals who wield guns. This
approach should demand a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison for anyone
caught using a gun during the commission of a crime. No exceptions, not even for
first-time offenders. Anything less would make a mockery of the law and might,
as is already the case, tempt prosecutors to drop or plea-bargain away the gun
charge and focus on the underlying charge of drug possession or robbery in order
to ease the courtroom backlog.
So
obsessed, in fact, are Crown attorneys and criminal defence lawyers with
reducing this courtroom backlog that they often fail to see the larger picture.
The gun registry's $1 billion cost could have paid for enough new court space,
computers and judges' salaries to wipe out the mess of criminal trial delays in
Ontario's courts -- which Roy McMurtry, the province's chief justice, recently
described as the worst in the English-speaking world.
And
yet, many lawyers balk at the prospect of mandatory 10-year sentences for gun
crimes for fear of even greater backlogs. Here's their argument: An accused will
opt for more trials and more complex, constitutional arguments if he's worried
about getting hauled off to prison for a decade. But this concern seems
especially misplaced among lawyers -- whose overriding concern should not be to
hustle their clients into pleading guilty.
Focusing
on tougher punitive measures for gun crimes is good policy because it serves the
cause of justice; it targets violent criminal offenders, not law-abiding gun
owners. A mandatory minimum of 10 years would be especially effective since it
communicates to would-be criminals that gun-related offences will evoke firm and
consistent punishment.
Neil
Seeman is a lawyer and the senior policy analyst in The Fraser Institute's
Toronto office.