Doin' time for the crime...

Our criminal justice system is far more broken than we would perhaps like to admit. I don’t doubt for a moment the tremendous talent of the many people who work within the esteemed institutions of our country that uphold the important democratic principle of the rule of law. Yet justice seems to becoming all the more decoupled from any sense of public morality or, it seems, public safety. Many will applaud the demise of the former, but the latter, which is the purpose of this brief reflection, situates justice, or at least the criminal justice system, as either naïve or willfully reckless.

Or maybe it is society that is both naïve and willfully reckless for it clings to some silly notion which reduces justice to “doing the time for the crime.” Perhaps society needs to understand that 98% of citizens who are incarcerated do get out of prison so it is up to other aspects of society to absorb the formerly incarcerated.

Today I listened to lawyers argue over the details of a joint submission to Judge William Digby of the Provincial Court in Nova Scotia. With the admission of guilt the Crown and defence agreed that the equivalent of 541 days served met the legal threshold, a DNA sample was ordered, forfeiture of a laptop upon which over 4400 child porn images were found, Sex Offender registry and a s.161 imposed “Until you are dead,” to quote Judge Digby. The use of “for life” could have worked for sure but “until you are dead” certainly underscored the seriousness of the criminal history of the offender. After court the Sheriffs escorted the offender through the release process.

Shortly thereafter he is a free man (with court ordered conditions), although he described himself as terrified as we walked down Spring Garden Road in hopes of securing a bed at the Out of the Cold Shelter. He received no programming in jail to help him with his child porn addiction.

Some may delight that a penniless man, a convicted sex offender, has no home thus potentially hastening the finality of the judge’s darkly prophetic “until you are dead” statement. Today, however, as he battled the bitterly cold wind, wearing only a thin shirt, jeans and sneakers justice was imposed and a cold, terrified man left the courthouse.

I am left underwhelmed by my sense of justice in all of this.

I don’t blame the judge, the Crown, the defence or the police. This problem is far bigger and one we – community – must take seriously unless we retreat into the naïve, reckless mediocrity of justice as simply being doing time for the crime.