(This column was published in the North Shore News on Feb. 12, 2003)
Offenders have little incentive to change
By Leo Knight
THE howls of protest that followed B.C. Supreme Court Justice Linda Loo's sentence in the street racing case that caused the death of Irene Thorpe has focused attention on almost everyone in our justice system and the lack of punishment meted out.
Radio talk shows' callers expressed the outrage of the public at the sentence of two years less one day (a deuce less) house arrest for the young man driving the car at breakneck speeds when it climbed the curb and snuffed out the life of a 52-year-old widow taking her nightly stroll.
Some of the callers were calling for the judge's head, saying things like she would have given out a different sentence if it were a member of her family who was killed. This is unfair. I think that Justice Loo was following the legal precedents as well as the sentencing guidelines set out.
Now, having said that, I don't want to leave the impression that I agree with the sentence, far from it in fact. But the problem is not with judges like Loo, at least not entirely.
Part of the problem lies squarely with the legislators in not setting out minimum sentencing guidelines for certain offences.
Justice Loo hid behind the ubiquitous and specious phrase "within the appropriate range of sentence." That option needs to be taken away from sentencing judges in certain types of cases and with certain types of offenders.
Another part of the problem lies with governments, federal and provincial, who refuse to allocate more resources to confine individuals. If there are no places to put a convicted criminal, what then does a judge do?
The hand wringers claim that Canada already jails more people per capita than any other country other than the United States.
Well, that's just not true.
Even though the killer street racer will not see one minute in jail, his sentence is considered a "custodial" sentence. So too, are other sentences such as electronic monitoring and a host of other sentencing alternatives given out by the courts that don't actually mean jail time, but are considered "custodial." It is, you see, the great myth perpetrated by the
social engineers who believe jail is not the answer and all those poor, misunderstood people who run afoul of the law just haven't been given the benefit of a group hug.
A friend of mine is a police officer in the San Diego area. He explained to me how they treat street racing much different there. If someone engages in a street race, they are going to have their car impounded for a specific period of time measured in months, not hours as happened here with that teenager caught on the Upper Levels Highway in West Vancouver in
daddy's Mercedes.
It costs $800 US to get one's car back and that is over and above any penalty the courts might impose for the offence itself. There are no such statutory requirements here.
This may go a long way in explaining why street racing has become such a problem.
The other thing that is a significant difference in California is what happens if a street racer kills someone as a direct result of their activity.
There, a charge of murder is laid against the racer.
Yes, murder, because that is exactly what happened to Irene Thorpe. When that young punk turned his car into an uncontrollable weapon at 120 km/h, hurtling down a city street and onto the sidewalk killing an innocent person out for a walk, that is murder. And murder carries with it a penalty of life imprisonment. There's no such thing as house arrest for
killing someone there.
Here, as evidenced in the case of 18-year-old Aidin Ashkieh, the Sentinel secondary student who was quoted in the Vancouver Sun saying he doesn't care about the ticket he was given or the fact daddy's Mercedes was impounded, little or nothing happens. At least until someone is killed. Then the offender gets grounded.
Daddy, for his part didn't seem to care much either. He said his son was remorseful. His son didn't say that, daddy did on his behalf. Which probably explains the problem in a nutshell.
My buddy in San Diego cut to the chase. He said, "Obviously the problem here is poor (if any) parenting. Why does a kid have a BMW or Mercedes? Has he had to work to get it? Why do these parents believe their kid can do no wrong when he was caught in the act? Obviously the kid has never been told "no" in his life."
Personally, I'd say the kid deserves a very long overdue spanking.
This is all about consequences. The young people involved in street racing are not seeing any meaningful consequence for their actions.
A killer gets grounded. Another has yet to kill and doesn't care about his first brush with the law while street racing.
When there are no consequences, there is no incentive to change the behaviour.
It's no more complicated than that.
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