A WELCOME CHANGE
Starting next week, Alberta’s justice system will no longer use sledgehammers to swat flies. That is the metaphorical equivalent of the overkill wielded by law-enforcement officers and courts to enforce minor bylaw infractions.
When people didn’t pay tickets and overdue fines for minor, non-traffic-related infractions such as not buying a transit fare or failing to shovel a sidewalk, arrest warrants were issued to back up the penalties.
Ticketed individuals — especially those who couldn’t afford to pay fines — could end up in jail for a transgression as banal as being caught riding the LRT without a ticket.
There are currently about 200,000 such outstanding warrants in Alberta, with nearly half of them issued for minor provincial and municipal bylaw infractions.
Let’s be clear; No one condones breaking the rules or tolerating scofflaws. But the misdeed of stiffing the city a $3.25 train ticket or forgetting to pay a fine should get no one arrested and tossed behind bars, possibly in the same cell as a violent and hardened miscreant. Let the punishment fit the crime.
Thankfully, that’s the tack the Alberta government will now take. Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley announced Monday the May 1 enactment of An Act to Modernize Provincial Offences.
The changes will ensure that people don’t wind up in jail for failing to pay such fines, but that the penalties will instead be enforced through civil measures such as scofflaws being unable to renew their vehicle registrations. The legislation also includes provisions allowing authorities to garnish wages or deduct money from income tax refunds of offenders.
The new system will also free up police officers, court staff and corrections officials from the time-consuming task of issuing and processing warrants. It will give them more time to deal with serious and violent criminal offences at a time when an overburdened justice system is under pressure to deal with cases in danger of being tossed out because of trial delays.
Social agencies also decry using arrest warrants as a cudgel to enforce minor infractions because it criminalizes the poor. The old system perpetuated a cycle of poverty and incarceration where someone could be fined more than $200 for not paying a $3.25 transit ticket. If the offender didn’t pay the fine or attend court, a warrant went out for their arrest. Once picked up by police, the person could be viewed as a flight risk and jailed even when they don’t pose a danger to the public.
All that time and expense for $3.25; A sledgehammer to swat a fly.