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Commit the crime, do the time

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Last week, federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler contradicted his party leader, Paul Martin, on an important part of the Liberal anti-crime platform -- mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.

On Thursday, Mr. Cotler told The Toronto Star he would not be "pressured" into introducing mandatory sentences. When he was a law professor, he explained, he once thought minimum sentences should work to deter crime. But after studying the literature, he became convinced they "are neither a deterrent nor are they effective."

By Friday, though, Mr. Cotler was insisting to the National Post that he and his PM were on the same page -- that while minimum sentences might have no practical effect, they send an important message of "denunciation" to those who might murder, rape or mug.

Ah, yes, that old liberal belief in symbolism over substance: Simply send the right message and human behaviour will be altered. Wag our collective finger at drug dealers and murderers and they will stop.

Shame on you, bad men. Shame, shame, shame.

Never mind that Mr. Cotler believes the empirical evidence proves the uselessness of minimum sentences, he would implement them anyway because the social message behind them might disgrace hardened criminals into not committing their crimes. (And because promising to implement them might re-elect his party.)

Frankly, I doubt the academic studies on mandatory sentences are as conclusive as Mr. Cotler asserts.

In June, a bibliographic analysis conducted by the Library of Parliament for Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz concluded, "There is little research dealing with the effectiveness of mandatory minimum sentences in Canada." Neither Mr. Cotler's own department nor Statistics Canada could point to any proof that the sentences worked or didn't work. Indeed, in an exhaustive study conducted for Justice in 2002, the authors argue for more research "which examines the patterns of use of mandatory minimum penalties, their effects on sentence length, incarceration rates, crime rates, levels of recidivism ... levels of public awareness of existing penalties and cost/benefit analyses."

When Mr. Cotler and the criminologists and prisoners' rights advocates who oppose minimum sentences tell the public the research shows they don't work, there is probably a lot of circular reassurance going on. Liberal politicians don't want them, so they point to academics and advocates who say they don't work. Advocates say the academics have shown them to be ineffective and crow that few enlightened politicians will implement them, while academics cite the advocates who say there is no proof of their effectiveness and point to political opposition.

I, too, doubt that minimum sentences will do much to reduce gun crime, but not for the reasons cited by Mr. Cotler and his experts. In several jurisdictions where hard-nosed politicians have passed them, implementation has been thwarted by liberal judges and prosecutors who have found clever ways around them.

The key is not sentencing gun criminals to long periods in jail. Anyone can do that, including Liberal justice ministers who don't believe doing so will be effective. The key is keeping gun criminals in jail longer.

There are already lots of laws against gun use during crimes, such as five years for pointing a gun during a crime, and up to 14 years for shooting it. The problem is, these added charges are often plea-bargained away by Crown prosecutors eager to get guilty pleas to the underlying charge such as murder or robbery. Worse yet, a decade ago, Ottawa and the provinces made a conscious decision to reduce dramatically the number of criminals who go to jail in Canada. Now, only about one in five convicted criminals will actually spend any time in prison, and most of those will spend less than six months.

Two-thirds of the adults accused of murder in Canada in 2004 already had criminal records. Seventy percent of those had committed a violent crime before. And 8 had previous murder convictions. Had they still been in jail for their earlier crimes, there is no way they could of committed new ones.

Mandatory minimum sentences are nothing more than a political sideshow if there is no truth in sentencing. So long as criminals know a long sentence means only a few months of jail time, if that, all the get-tough sentences in the world will do nothing to cut down on gunplay in the streets.