A crime reduction board to prevent crime and ensure rights and services for victims may be a non-partisan way to get an omnibus bill to make Canadian streets, families and communities safer.

Fulfilling an election promise, the Harper government introduced amendments to the Canadian Criminal Code and other federal acts that target nine issues, including heavier penalties for sexual predators and organized crime, holding some persistent offenders in prison longer, and international aspects such as human trafficking.

In his coverage, the Minister of Justice implies that these amendments will make Canadian streets, families and communities safer and stand-up for victims of crime. His arguments for the amendments focused on important issues for crime victims, including the number of offences known to the police, such as 440,000 violent crimes, 200,000 break and enters, and 85,000 cases of impaired driving.  He drew attention to the estimates of the harm to victims of crime – $18 billion on tangible losses to crime victims, with another $63 billion in intangible losses to quality of life.

Unfortunately, there is little in the bill that will achieve significant reductions in the violent and property crimes, let alone drunk driving.  Further in terms of value for money, greater use of incarceration particularly at the end of sentences is very expensive and slow in achieving measurable reductions in crime compared to proven prevention strategies.  Victims want prevention, safety, accountability and to be heard. Other than one provision for their participation in parole hearings and the possibility of suing in terrorism cases, there is nothing else in this bill that will bring services and rights for crime victims in Canada up to international standards.

We can expect continued criticism of the bill both for its over-reliance on incarceration as a solution to crime and the costs that it will impose on provinces who will have to hire more prosecutors, build more prisons and possibly hire more police.  We know that it will ultimately lead to increases in expenditures because of more persons incarcerated federally.

The Harper government has a  majority in the House of Commons and so this bill will be approved within the 100 days that they have decided.  Only criticizing the bill is unlikely to lead to any major changes to the provisions in the bill.

Canada has many examples of effective crime prevention.  Manitoba took $20 million from their Provincial insurance agency to diagnose and solve the problems of epidemic car thefts and so has reduced car thefts and saved the insurance body and so taxpayers $80 million.  School Boards in south-western Ontario pioneered a core school curriculum called 4^th R to reduce sexual assaults by boys.  Waterloo Region and Montreal have internationally renowned municipal crime prevention strategies that are spreading across Canada.

Perhaps in place of continued criticism, members of parliament could provide one positive suggestion to support the Minister of Justice´s desire to make our streets, families and communities safer.  They could take a plank from the Blair government by adding a non-contentious section to the bill to establish a federal crime reduction board – a small leadership centre committed to getting the crime prevention and rights for crime victims that Canadians deserve.  By the way, it works for Scotland who knows that they cannot arrest their way out of crime.

In 2007, Alberta had a government task force look at the best ways to reduce crime.  They also talked to Albertans about their frustrations but discovered that it was not just with sentencing but also prevention.  The result has been a comprehensive strategy involving smart criminal justice, services for the mental ill, and youth crime prevention strategies within a sustained and long term framework.  Alberta must be doing something right as Saskatchewan announced a similar framework last week.  Why not the federal government?

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