GLOBE EDITORIAL: Harper right to propose scrapping the bloated, inefficient gun registry
Date: Jan 7, 2006 10:18 AM
PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL
DATE: 2006.01.07
PAGE: A18
SECTION: Editorial
EDITION: Metro
WORD COUNT: 517

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Crime and punishment

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The problem is crime. The politicians are paying attention. On Thursday,
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced a move to better co-ordinate
the activities of police and Crown prosecutors in tackling criminal acts
by gangs. He listened to Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and prosecutors
last month and, on Thursday, phrased his reaction succinctly: “It became
apparent to us that we’re going to have to do more with respect to
providing more support, more resources, more personnel to our police,
prosecutors and courts.” Accordingly, the government will accelerate its
timetable for hiring and deploying police officers and prosecutors. It
is a simple recognition that those branches tackling gun and gang
violence have been understaffed for a complicated task, and that the
nature of gang offences, including the intimidation of witnesses, calls
for dedicated courtrooms that can tackle such cases quickly and with
adequate security.

Also on Thursday, federal Conservative Leader Stephen Harper embraced a
tough law-and-order platform, some parts of which are valuable.

He is right to propose scrapping the bloated, inefficient gun registry
and putting those resources to better use. While the rigidity of his
proposed three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy will require further study,
he is right to deplore the revolving-door syndrome that has allowed some
extreme criminals to commit one violent crime after another without
being tagged as dangerous offenders. And his proposal that all
14-year-olds convicted of serious crimes be sentenced as adults would
fix a vexing anomaly. In 2003, the Youth Criminal Justice Act lowered
the threshold of eligibility for (modified) adult sentences to 14 from
16, but Ottawa agreed this would apply only to provinces that signed on.
(Quebec was leery of treating 14-year-olds as adults.) Offenders
shouldn’t be subject to huge discrepancies in their legal treatment
solely because of the province they live in; Mr. Harper’s move would
bring national uniformity.

At the same time, the sheer weight of his platform suggests a desire to
throw everything at crime and hope something sticks. There are real
problems in the system — a tendency to give parole too easily to those
serving life sentences, an underestimation of how often sex offenders
reoffend when released — that tougher measures can address. But
increasing mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes — to between five
and 10 years, up from the current one to four years — will pack the
prison population without necessarily making society safer. Here, as in
his tougher approach to parole, Mr. Harper would remove discretion from
judges and boards with little acknowledgment that the wildly varying
circumstances of crimes don’t lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all
solution. The Conservatives should be commended for taking a clear,
strong stand. The devil, as always, is in the details.