Extreme cases make bad laws

"Law and Order" politics often neither orderly nor lawful

Commentary from Larry Solway

Straight Goods' own mouthpiece extraordinaire turns his thoughts to the orgy of law 'n order politics that went on before last week's federal coronation, and - surprise, surprise - has some interesting opinions on the topic. See what you think, and then have your say.

  As far back as a few weeks ago, Stockwell Day knew he had to sprint to the finish if he had any electoral hope. Carping about Chretien wasn't working. Downgrading (where's the respect?) Joe Clark certainly didn't do it. He was running out of enemies.
  Presto! Action! Law and Order! Reach for whatever political life preserver you can find. Look for familiar territory. "Return to your message."
  Ontario was key. Even though Mike Harris withheld overt support, he just happened to promote a new Law and Order issue: drug testing for everyone on welfare. And nothing arouses righteous indignation more than some undeserving wretch not just soaking up, but smoking up, your hard-earned tax dollars. Harris did it before with "beer-swilling" single mothers who also didn't start their kids' day with a decent breakfast.
  Day pulled out all the stops: "Club Fed" holiday resort treatment for arch-criminals: Karla Homolka grinning while seemingly modeling high fashion; Colin Thatcher riding his horse and playing golf. Hot-button politics always characterizes honest folks as "hard-working" and criminals as evil people sucking up luxury.
  Why, if life is so jolly for Thatcher, did he want to get out of prison? Because no luxuries, no Club Fed hedonism can compensate for the awful sound of the lock snapping shut behind you and denying you freedom. No matter how much you gild the cage, it is still a cage. Ask any con what he or she wants most, the answer is not pool tables or movies or television. It is freedom. Shame on the Liberals for getting cold feet over Karla and trying to do a public relations job by shipping her off to a "tough" prison.
  Next, Day trotted out sex offender Peter Whitmore, who had served his term and was free with restrictions. He broke the restrictions by going to Mexico. Back to an Ontario jail he went. He was paroled. He was "caught" in a hotel room with a teenage runaway. It is not for me to judge the extent of Whitmore's "danger" to the community. It may be that he was "hustled" by a youth who was, in desperation, working the "Strip" as a male prostitute. The temptation may have been too much for Whitmore. And you can be sure that he didn't ask the boy for his birth certificate.
  But Day thought Peter Whitmore was his personal Willy Horton, who, you may recall, helped George Bush (the first one) win the Presidency. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis was leading in the 1988 Presidential campaign until Bush discovered Willy Horton, who committed a rape/murder while on a weekend pass from a Massachusetts jail. But Peter Whitmore is not Willy Horton, and Chretien is not Dukakis.
  The Whitmore episode stirs up fear, anger and public demand for harsher punishment. The pedophile is, I agree, a despicable criminal. He deserves punishment. But not the kind of punishment he gets when the outlaws take the law into their own hands. People cheer for a judge-jury-executioner gang of sleazy thieves, wife-beaters, violent assaulters, bank robbers, break and enter guys and other assorted wrongdoers who have found someone lower than they are. "Send the bugger to jail," they say. "The good guys in there know what to do with him." Maim him! Castrate him! Kill him! We delegate jailhouse justice to do what our weak-kneed system won't do. Some delegation. Some justice.
  "Law and Order", as a political tool, is a load of arrant rubbish. I know, I'm "soft on crime," because I disagree that the solution is longer sentences, or a ruthless dismantling of The Young Offenders Act, or an attack on the wastrels, and drug addicts who live on welfare paid for with the hard-earned dollars of responsible taxpayers. (How's that for right wing rhetoric?).
  Extreme cases make bad laws. We're enraged at Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. But those cases are extreme in the extreme. Law (not politically-inspired Law and Order) must be beyond our "rage." Why does the scales-of-justice woman wear a blindfold? The law is not our personal instrument of vengeance and punishment. Our civil liberties and polite society and individual freedom are at stake. And don't harangue me about victims' rights. That's another issue for another day.
  There are ways of getting tough that work. Read "Fixing Broken Windows," the original work in Atlantic Monthly about four years ago that promoted vigilance and police presence and the early apprehension (often by warning) of people who perpetrated small anti-social acts like breaking windows, or urinating on the streets, or painting graffiti on subway cars. In fact. David Gunn, when he was head of the New York transit system stopped the graffiti partly by repainting those cars relentlessly so the vandals got no satisfaction.
  Crime is down for two fundamental reasons. More people have jobs, and the population is aging.
  No matter. People want more "justice." In the name of Law and Order we build super-jails which create a large, often unruly and unmanageable prison population where an underworld culture develops and where drug use and sexual depredation is rampant.
  Many researchers who are far ahead of lock-em-up politicians believe that smaller, not bigger, prisons work. They believe that state-of-the-art super-jails with a few people running the place electronically are more expensive and less effective than smaller jails where the money is spent , not on electronic wizardry, but on trained staff. Many prison guards can testify that making life tough on criminals makes them harder to handle and makes the faint hope of rehabilitation even fainter. But that doesn't sell politically.
  "Law and Order" is often neither orderly nor particularly lawful. But its shining presence is a beacon to millions who will be attracted to it like hapless moths to an invincible fire. In other words: it works. It makes political good sense. It wins the hearts and minds of the misbegotten. It resonates among voters who have never heard, or else sneer at, the expression that "extreme cases make bad laws."
  When Stock Day put that arch-fiend Peter Whitmore into the campaign he proclaimed the whole thing would never have happened if we had tougher laws. Think about it. To keep one offender in jail longer we need a law that will keep hundreds of others in jail, whether they are ready for release or not. Again: extreme cases make bad laws.
  Chalk me up as one more bleeding heart. Strange - I just can't stop caring. Punishing doesn't make me feel better. I really hurt when we are obliged, and make no mistake about it - we are obliged, to remove someone from society.

You've heard from Larry Solway. Now we'd like to hear from you.

See what criminal justice reform worker James Scott has to say.

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