Prolific offenders panel already on hot seat
Label itself stigmatizes people and sets them up for further criminalization, critics say
An expert panel hired by the province to look at the problem of repeat offenders is coming under fire before its work gets underway.
Some community advocates say the label “prolific offender” stigmatizes people and ignores their mental-health and substance-use issues. On the other hand, the B.C. Liberals say the fourmonth study is time wasted as violent criminals “terrorize” communities.
Attorney General David Eby told Postmedia on Wednesday that while he understands the frustration of communities grappling with violent, unprovoked attacks and property crimes, it's clear “we're not going to be able to arrest ourselves out of the situation of people with serious mental-health and addiction issues.”
If someone is arrested for smashing a window, sending the person to jail for a month is not going to address the underlying causes, Eby said.
That's why he asked Doug LePard, a former police chief in B.C., and Amanda Butler, a Simon Fraser University criminologist with experience in mental health and corrections, to focus on how to reduce property crime and attacks on random strangers.
Some of the measures the panel will look at include giving the courts the power to force an offender to do mandatory treatment as part of their sentencing, and requiring chronic offenders released on bail to wear electronic monitoring devices, Eby said. They're also to consider what constitutes a prolific offender and whether there should be a dedicated prosecutor to deal with them.
Meenakshi Mannoe, the Pivot Legal Society's criminalization and policing campaigner, said labelling people with complex needs “prolific offenders” sets them up to be further criminalized.
She's also concerned about the prospect of mandatory treatment for people with mental-health and substance-use problems.
“The attorney general is saying we can't arrest our way out of this. We certainly can't institutionalize our way out of it because people have autonomy,” Mannoe said. “They have the ability to consent to health care. That's not something that can be imposed on people.”
LePard and Butler will talk to police leaders, Crown prosecutors, community groups, mental health and substance use experts and First Nations agencies as they look into ways to reduce property crime and random stranger attacks. They will report by September.
Hiring them was a response to an April letter from 13 city mayors imploring action on the failed “catch-and-release”
system that allows prolific offenders to offend again and again.
Eby said he'd prefer to see a “catch-and-treat” model “where the individual is getting
the support that they need to interrupt that behaviour.”
However, the panel must look into whether forced treatment violates people's Charter rights against involuntary detention.
Some judges in B.C. are already ordering treatment as an alternative to jail.
Offenders struggling with homelessness, addiction and mental-health problems in Victoria, Vancouver and Kelowna can be referred to an integrated or community court. In that system, the prosecution, defence and judge work together to come up with a personalized bail or sentencing plan that's based on input from community agencies working with the individual.
The court often comes up with alternatives to jail such as addiction treatment or community programs.
Victoria criminal defence lawyers Michael Mulligan said even if judges could sentence people to mandatory treatment, there simply aren't enough treatment beds to accommodate them.