So What Is The Solution, Then?

Criminal psychologists and academics are all blasting Canada's latest attempts to reach some kind of reasonable accommodation between state punishment for crimes committed, and sentences meted out that hardly seem to fit the seriousness of the crime committed. Our new Conservative government promised in its pre-election platform to get tougher with criminals rending the fabric of social life. And have produced a new 'get-tough' crime bill. No doubt it is lacking in many ways, but it does attempt to make some inroads in justice; at least from the perspective of the vast number of law-abiding Canadians.

We've had more than enough drunk driving manslaughter cases with laughable sentences meted out to unrepentant repeat DUIs. We're horrified at the rate of youth-upon-youth murders, at increasingly earlier ages of commission. We're thunderstruck at the vulnerability of our school-age children in our trusted institutions where armed intruders have been able to take innocent lives in the commission of their demented fixations, their social dementia demonstrating their irrational hatred of those so unlike themselves.

It's time the punishment to fit the crime. That increasingly earlier lifting of minimum sentences, earlier parole dates are benefiting the criminals and leaving the victims incredulous at the lack of interest our government and our justice system demonstrates on their behalf hardly does justice to the victims of crime. It's time and past time that some meaningful alterations in the criminal justice system be undertaken. Changes that speak to the temper of the times, and the expectations of Canadians to be able to live in unchallenged peace in the privacy of their lives.

Yet, dammit, here is the crime bill that increases mandatory minimum sentences for various violent offences, as a partial answer, we think, to the present conundrum. One supposes it's the inclusion of a rather different, reverse onus provision that would have repeat offenders prove that they do not represent a further and ongoing threat to society that has defenders of the criminal class on edge and crying foul.

The critics contend that our legislators are taking the quick and easy direction in attempting to deal with criminal activity in the country. Rather, they say, than looking for root causes and effective ways to deal with crime. Would it help if the government issued an executive order declaring that crime is not permitted in Canada; would that compel would-be malefactors to cease and desist? What would these critics recommend as more effective ways to deal with the situation?

Well, enlisting the entirety of the country at every level of governance and civic infrastructure, to ensuring that every child is given equal opportunities throughout their formative years, perhaps? Making certain that decent living arrangements are available to low-income families, good nutritious food on the table, an evenly-proven education ending with good job prospects? I'm all for it. How do we solve the very real problem of a genetic disposition to psychopathy?

How can we legislate parental responsibility? Since, after all, it's the child's earliest exposure in the home situation, to emotional support and responsibility that really sets him or her up for the future direction they select. Many would argue, and I'd support them, that ensuring that every family has their elemental needs assured in a humane society might be a workable first step. But there are no guarantees even in this; individuals who don't make the most of their opportunities abound, regardless of how gently society attempts to support them.

What is the "different strategy" that these academics talk so convincingly about? We do happen to have great swaths of disadvantaged groups in this country; every society has. Some people simply do not have the emotional wherewithal, the physical stamina and determination, the cerebral capability, to haul themselves into the middle class, thus giving their children a more level platform from which to launch themselves into the future.

It's the diversity of humankind. We are gifted differently. Our genetic endowments vary widely. Our social and economic circumstances differ, setting us up to inhabit specific social and cultural, economic and pluralist spheres in society. Lethargy may keep us there. Misfortune and lack of opportunity fall more heavily on the disadvantaged; it is why and how they are disadvantaged. Their early exposure to available options, their social class, ethnic roots.

We have a huge Aboriginal population whose presence in institutes of criminal detention far outweigh that of the average; whose presence in the education system at high levels is markedly lower than that of the average; whose addictions to spirits and recreational drugs is more compelling than that of the average Canadian. Who perceive a very real bias against them, and rebel against it, to their own continued disadvantage.

We have immigrant ghettos, whose inhabitants start out at a disadvantage, all the more so when they are black bringing their often assimilable social mores with them; one of absent fathers and a gang culture. We've more than enough social ills and unworkable social solutions, and hang-wringing. But in the final analysis, we are all imbued with free will. The freedom to choose between what is acceptable and what is not.

Resentment against a society that does its best to be inclusive and whose justice system ensures that we enjoy great freedoms and protections, creates defiance and social obstruction. When violence occurs as a result, any social system closes ranks and isolates its criminals. Teach us a better way.