Criminal defence lawyer Greg DelBigio on the government's anti-crime bills
- May 8, 2007 11:33 AM |
- By Your Voice
CBC.ca welcomed Greg DelBigio of the Canadian Bar Association on Friday, May 11, to answer your questions about two anti-crime bills the government is currently debating.
Subscribe in iTunes 
- Download the audio of the interview (Runs 18:54)
DelBigio is a Vancouver criminal defence lawyer and chair of the CBA's national criminal justice section. He has represented the bar association before government committees on both Bill C-9 and Bill C-10.
Bill C-10
If passed, Bill C-10 would increase the mandatory minimum sentences for crimes involving firearms, such as robberies and attempted murder.
Currently, the minimum sentence for these crimes is one year for a first offence and three years for a subsequent offence. Under Bill C-10, the minimum sentence would be five years for a first offence, seven years for a second offence and 10 years for a subsequent offence.
Bill C-9
Bill C-9 seeks to curtail a judge's ability to impose conditional sentences — those sentences that are served in the community rather than in prison — such as house arrest or electronic monitoring.
Judges were given the discretion to hand down conditional sentences in 1996. Typically, they are imposed for property crimes, but judges have also given conditional sentences to violent criminals.
Certain cases in which judges have imposed conditional sentences have outraged many Canadians.
In 2003, a Saskatchewan man convicted of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl was given a two-year conditional sentence.
In 2007, a judge sentenced a drunk driver in Fredericton to two years of house arrest. Peter Leon Howe drank 24 beers and half a bottle of whisky before driving his car and hitting a cyclist, killing him.
Original bill changed by parliamentarians
Bill C-9, as originally proposed by former justice minister Vic Toews, would have removed the option of imposing a conditional sentence for crimes with a maximum sentence of more than 10 years. That includes certain property crimes, such as breaking and entering and auto theft.
Opposition politicians and legal experts, including the Canadian Bar Association, said the bill went too far and the House of Commons committee reviewing the bill rewrote it to remove much of its power. Now before the Senate, Bill C-9 would eliminate conditional sentences only for offences related to terrorism or gangs and crimes involving "serious personal injury."
CBC.ca wants your questions for Greg DelBigio for our new podcast called "Your Interview." We'll pick questions — perhaps combining more than one suggestion — and include them in our interview.
How to participate
Remember, when sending in your question:
- A short question is better than a long one.
- One question is better than many.
- If a question needs some context, keep it brief.
- Preference will be given to questions from those who give a full name and location.
- Questions may be edited for length and clarity.
Questions will be accepted until Friday morning. Your Interview will be available online in text and audio formats on Friday afternoon.
Thank you for joining us in this new project to make newsmakers accessible to you in audio and text, truly making it Your Interview.
Categories
All News blogs
Most Commented
Most Recommended
Your Interview
Most Commented
Most Recommended
Recent Entries
- Staying healthy: How to monitor and reduce your risk of disease
- For decades, the most popular tool for assessing a person's risk for obesity-related problems like diabetes and heart disease was the body mass index, or BMI. But some experts think physicians should focus on their patients' waist measurements, and a... Continue reading this post
- Privacy online: How to stay secure in the age of social media
- Following another round of criticism over its privacy settings, Facebook is tinkering with its policies once again. But many users are starting to ask whether it's too little, too late. The site has struggled with negative user feedback, while continuing... Continue reading this post
- Your Interview: How to talk to your kids about sex
- By Renee RamsarranSex education is an ongoing process that usually starts at home. Children learn about sex and sexuality through their parents, yet families often hesitate to talk about certain issues with their kids. How can you take an active... Continue reading this post
Comments (6)
From your practical experience do you find that criminals actually pay attention to the potential criminal punishments they could receive prior to committing an offence?
Do stiffer penalities, higher minimum sentences, etc really deter criminal activity or do they simply keep criminals off the street?
Greg DelBigio:
In my experience, people commit crimes for a wide number of reasons. Many of those people don't begin to contemplate what penalties might be available if they are caught for the crime and if they are convicted and then punished. Many people commit crimes while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. There are many people who commit crimes who suffer from many disadvantages and certainly don't contemplate penalties. There are many crimes committed on the spur of the moment.
So that then leaves a category of crimes that are premeditated. Arguably, if people are set upon breaking the law, a higher penalty is not going to deter them in any event.
I am primarily concerned that our society focuses on the best methods of reducing the incidence of crimes, particularly violent crimes. To me, focusing on catching and punishing criminals only makes sense in those cases where the result will be a significant reduction of the incidence of crime, not just increased capture and punishment.
Will either of these measures be likely to result in a significant reduction of these types of crimes? What is the evidence that potential criminals will be deterred by the potentially more severe penalty? What is the evidence of Canada’s “Department of Corrections” ability to alter the future behaviour of a convicted individual by keeping them in the system longer?
Greg DelBigio
If a person has demonstrated him or herself to be a lawbreaker, so long as the person is in custody, the person is not on the street breaking the law, and in that way, a prison sentence can alter behaviour.
In most instances, most people get out of jail somewhere along the line. What is their behaviour going to then be? Is jail going to either deter or reform the person, such that when they get out they aren't going to break the law anymore? Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.
It is well known that there are people who get out of jail and break the law again. They are not deterred and they are not reformed. There is both an economic cost and a social cost associated with having people in jail. That needs to be balance against whatever benefits there might be.
Does it work to put more people in jail for longer periods of time? That is very much an ongoing debate.
According to Statistics Canada, crime is actually at a 30-year low. Isn't it pretty irresponsible to change the laws when they are plainly working well?
Greg DelBigio
That is a question that feeds directly into an ongoing debate. Is there a need to change the laws? Are the existing laws not working? And if the existing laws are not working, are these bills the fix that is needed?
There are statisitcs that suggest that crime is on the decrese. How, on the other hand, as long as there is crime, it is worthwhile to continue to reduce the crime rates within Canada. Public safety requires that this be an ongoing question.
Will these bills do it? There are a number of people who think that stiffer penalties is not going to reduce the crime rate.
Are not bills C-9 and C-10 the public's mandate brought forward through our politicians to admonish and limit the oligarchy that control our criminal legal system?
A handful of people (lawyers, special interest groups and judges) berates the public for their belief that someone should be held accountable for their crimes. The public routinely hears of lazy prosecutors, over zealous defence lawyers (the charter! the charter!), judgements that boggle a person's sensibility (time served for murder anyone), and a penal system that provides more licence (drugs, rape, assault) to convicts.
Do you not agree that it is the public’s perception of the incompetence or systemic rot in the legal system that has brought forward this legislation to right an errant course?
Greg DelBigio
There does seem to be a perception or impression within certain segments of the public that existing law is not working.
People have a right to be safe, there's no doubt about that. The question, though, becomes "How is that accomplished?" The second question is "If there is an impression that the existing laws are not working, are those impressions accurate?" What does it mean that the laws are not working? Are there, in fact, more crimes being committed today than ten years ago? Are there more serious crimes being committed today than ten years ago?
Will stiffer sentences make things better? And the answer is "maybe," but it's not obviously correct that they will.
"Circumstances alter cases" I assume that juries and judges will determine cases on the actual facts, and that a plea in mitigation should always be heard, if not necessarily accepted. Do "Mandatory Sentences" have any place in a decent justice system? Maximum limits I can understand, but "mandatory" strikes me as nothing more than political grandstanding with no basis in research.
Cheers,
dba
Greg DelBigio
Existing criminal law in Canada has some mandatory minimum sentences, so it's not the case that this is brand new.
But mandatory minimums have always been contentious. Some argue that a judge who hears the circumstances of a case and who hears the circumstances of an offender is best placed to decide what is an appropriate punishment in the circumstances. The risk with a mandatory minimum is that it is applied without regard to any particular details, and the risk is that it could be a more severe sentences than would otherwise be warranted.
Why is it that time and time again these "get tough on crime" initiatives make their way through Parliament when it's been proven by various studies that they just don't work? I'm more than uncomfortable with the knowledge that these bills even make it to a first reading when there is no factual support for them.
Also, since its clear longer prison sentences are not the solution, can you suggest more effective sentence management ideas?
Greg DelBigio
The introduction of conditional sentences in Canadian law [in 1996] was an attempt to address just that. It was an attempt to add options to a sentencing judge that would allow a sentence to be punitive and yet more constructive than simply warehousing people.
But conditional sentences have never sat well with certain segments of the Canadian population. People have questioned whether a conditional sentence is punishment at all, whether it addresses any of the principles of sentencing.
I am of the opinion that the more options that the more options that are available to a sentencing judge, the better a sentencing judge is able to create a sentence that effectively addresses the principles of sentencing.