Post #276
1150 words; 5 minutes to read
On Sat, Sept 6, on Page A12, the Globe and Mail ran two pieces about criminal justice ‘reform’. One was a news piece by Laura Stone and Jeff Gray – ‘Carney to introduce tighter bail legislation’. The other was an opinion column by Marcus Gee, ‘It’s time for visible action on crime; eroding faith in public safety is dangerous.’
Each piece in its own way illustrates how media coverage both shapes and distorts public understanding of crime and criminal justice, leading people to be fearful or angry, and to support policies that have long been shown to be ineffective in improving public safety.
Let’s start with the news piece by Stone and Gray. Mostly this piece reports what was said by PM Carney and Premier Ford, as well as Pierre Polievre. It also quotes one other person – the president of the Toronto police union.
Here’s what it does not do: It does not give any facts about crime or bail in Canada, or cite anyone who actually has expertise on these issues, or cite any of the research on the topic, or refer to the several Supreme Court decisions that said that bail is too HARD to get in Canada, not too easy.
There is a brief mention that ‘some criminal defence lawyers’ are concerned, like the Supreme Court, that it is already too hard to get bail, meaning that ‘people – accused but not yet convicted of crimes and so presumed innocent’ are being held in jail. Then the presumption of innocence is tossed aside in favour of comments by both Ford and Carney suggesting that people accused must be guilty, never mind a little thing like a trial, and so should be jailed. But the facts don’t accord with this.
Opinion piece
Marcus Gee’s opinion piece says that the public is losing confidence in the justice system and that people are feeling ‘vulnerable and frustrated’. He cites no evidence that this is so. There is evidence that in most western countries, public confidence in all institutions – including journalists – has declined substantially over a couple of decades. Maybe if the media did not constantly run stories about crimes, and especially the worst (and generally the rarest) crimes, people might not feel so vulnerable given that actual crime rates in Canada are fairly low and much lower than 30 years ago. Gee is right that fear of crime can have dire political consequences, but should we not expect our media to help us know the facts, instead of instilling more fear?
Gee also notes that a large share of crimes are committed by a fairly small number of people, but he does not connect this important fact to issues of substance abuse, homelessness and inequality that are powerful factors here. In every field – criminal justice but also health care or education – a small number of people with high needs consume a large share of attention and resources. Nobody has found an effective way to solve this problem, though it is one that merits more attention.
Gee says that police and courts need to be ‘better funded’. He is correct that our courts and jails are very crowded. Provincial jails have often been excoriated by independent reviews for their awful conditions, including a very high number of deaths, which is why judges in sentencing give extra ‘credit’ for time served. If more accused persons insisted on their right to a trial, instead of often pleading guilty, the system would collapse completely. Putting more people in jail and keeping them there longer will make all these problems worse, and cost a lot of money.
Picking the worst examples leads to bad policy
Both articles cite examples of recent shocking crimes, and cases in which someone on bail was charged with another crime. But if a handful of cases like this is solid grounds for a change in policy (and the old saw in law is that ‘hard cases make for bad laws’), surely the opposite – people being wrongly charged – should also lead to changes in policy – because that happens a lot.
Just recently we had the Zameer case, in which a man was charged for killing a police officer and held without bail for months. When he was eventually granted bail, that decision was publicly attacked by then-Mayor Tory and Premier Ford. Yet it turned out that Mr Nazeer was innocent and that the evidence of the police was simply not believable.
The Zameer case is not unique. Similar cases happen regularly. In fact, at least 40% of all criminal charges in Canada, including for violent crimes, do not end up with a conviction. Tens of thousands of Canadians are arrested every year, fingerprinted, held in a police cell, often held in jail for days and sometimes weeks or months, forced to pay for a lawyer, only to be released later– with no compensation of any kind.
Many wrongful convictions
On top of that, we have regular cases of wrongful conviction, in which people spend years in prison for crimes they did not commit. There is a broad recognition among those who study this problem that there are many more such cases that never get corrected. Up to now, Canada has had no organized process for bringing these in justices to light.
We also know that even a short period of imprisonment can lead to very bad long-term consequences, such as job loss, loss of housing and even loss of custody of children. Yet these clear violations of justice by over charging people or through wrongful convictions never seem to lead to political calls for change – or any consequences for the people who messed up.
The facts
Here are a few other easily verifiable facts that neither article mentions:
– Crime is not getting worse in Canada; over the long term it has decreased very significantly.
-The proportion of provincial jail prisoners who are on remand has increased dramatically in Canda for yeas, meaning that fewer people are getting bail. And those who are held are disproportionately from poor, marginalized communities.
– There is abundant evidence that more and longer imprisonment does not reduce crime, and may increase it.
– One of the strongest findings in criminology is that people ‘age out’ of crime. For most people, keeping them in prison for 20 years or more does nothing for public safety but does cost a huge amount of money. A good chunk of the billions of dollars spent on jails and prisons could be reallocated to other important purposes.
– In the area of youth justice, which Premier Ford mentions specifically in the article, Canada has seen both a big decline in crime by youth and a big decline in numbers arrested and jailed, showing clearly that more punishment is not the answer to crime.
Canada has some outstanding researchers and scholars in this field, many of them cited in posts on this blog. Surely we should expect our media to pay attention to expertise when writing stories on issues that generate a lot of emotion. Just as in court, the public deserves a fuller understanding of the whole range of evidence before coming to a verdict.
The John Howard Canada blog is intended to support greater public understanding of criminal justice issues in Canada. Blog content does not necessarily represent the views of John Howard Society of Canada. All blog material may be reproduced freely for any non-profit purpose as long as the source is acknowledged. We welcome comments (moderated) and suggestions for content. Contact: blogeditor@johnhoward.ca
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