Three Strikes

The federal government has introduced legislation to increase significantly the sentences of criminals convicted of their third violent crime or serious sexual assault. As expected, criminal lawyers, academics and prisoners' rights advocates have lined up to denounce the plan. It seems the liberals among us just can't give the criminal enough rights and to hell with the victim. The hug-a-thug crowd insists it breaches the Charter and that such "three-strikes" laws elsewhere have proven useless in lowering crime. I'm not sure where they are looking for proof. There is plenty of evidence, despite critics' claims, that "sentence enhancements," such as three-strikes, do indeed reduce crime, in some cases substantially.

California, whose three-strikes law is the most famous, saw a 27% reduction in crime in the first nine years after it enacted its law in 1994, which translates into 815,000 fewer crimes, including as many as 1,000 fewer murders. According to the American National Bureau of Economic Research, laws that "require courts to lengthen the sentence of repeat offenders in cases of wilful homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault and burglary of a residence" led to a noticeable reduction of serious crime, up to 20% in the first five to seven years after passage. Also, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council, the 10 states that increased their criminal sentences the most in the 1990's saw their serious crime rates fall an average of 19%, while the 10 with no increases or only small ones saw an average increase of 9%.

PM Stephen Harper, with the backing of police officers' unions and victims' rights organizations, explained his government wants criminals convicted of their third serious crime to spend at least seven years in prison, preferably longer. Vic Toews, the Minister of Justice, introduced a bill that would automatically deem third-time repeat criminals to be "dangerous offenders" ineligible for parole for a minimum of seven years, unless they can convince the sentencing judge there is no risk of their reoffending.

Louise Botham, president of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association, called this "fundamentally unfair" and confidently predicted the courts would strike it down. At present, the Crown must prove the accused is a threat to the general public and should be locked away indefinitely. There is nothing wrong with reversing the onus and putting it on the accused to prove he is not a threat. Criminal sentencing has three objectives: general deterrence of criminals as a whole, specific deterrence of the criminal being sentenced and his rehabilitation. The Conservatives' three-strikes proposal offends none of these principles, nor does it interfere with judicial discretion. Judges would remain free to accept an accused's evidence against being named dangerous. Even if this so-called "reverse onus" test might offend the Charter, it ought to be justifiable under Section 1. Someone found guilty for a third time of any of the 11 extremely serious crimes on the list, among them murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault and rape, would have had the full benefit of the Charter's protection against wrongful detention on his two previous convictions. And remember, we're talking convictions here. How often does the criminal have to repeat the same crime before we can remove him from society. The left wing would have us believe in forever and a day.

We are constantly told that the vast majority of crimes are committed by a small minority of especially violent offenders. If this is so, then locking up more of these offenders, for longer, will cut down on their chances to commit crime. It may be true that the academic literature on three- strikes is unclear on such laws' deterrent effect, but it is also quite clear that their "incapacitation effect" is noticeable. Three-strike laws may or may not deter other criminals from robbing, beating, killing or raping, but they incapacitate those responsible for most crime (by keeping them in prison longer), and that is where the crime reduction comes from.

Repeat offender laws work, and the federal government is right to pursue one. To hell with the hug-a-thug crowd.