Let the Judge Be the Law (from "My Short Stories (Book One)") - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on an article in the Toronto Sun, August 2007)

What would you say if someone asked you whether criminals should be rehabilitated or incarcerated?  Would you be thinking about the public good, or would you be thinking like a politician – that it costs way too much money to lock up criminals?  According to the politician, it’s so much better to release certain criminals into rehab programs and hope like hell they don’t re-offend.   To a politician, the safety of society has to take a back seat to the need of the criminal who deserves so much help to get back on the road to becoming a law-abiding citizen.

Yet, criminals do re-offend, often many times.  And, society ends up paying a very heavy price in lost property and lives.  Not to mention that the criminal himself can then spend his time laughing at the judge (also an elected official) who refuses to take the lead and make an example of him (or her, as the case may be).  Indeed, if the criminal is smart enough, he will learn how to use the justice system to his advantage, knowing that if he knows his rights, he will be the one who will usually come out on top. 

Don’t we need stronger, more decisive judges who will make the hard decisions regarding the criminals who visit their courtrooms?  Yes, we need judges who will give the harsher and longer sentences to the most violent criminals -- the ones who hurt and kill others -- without the possibility of parole, whenever the nature of the person’s crime makes it necessary to do so.  We don’t need tougher laws – we need tougher judges – those who will stand up for what is needed to protect society from the uncontrolled actions of people who only have their own interests at heart, not anyone else’s. 

In the Criminal Code of Canada, the maximum sentences for the most serious crimes – murder, manslaughter, rape, gun crimes, assault with a weapon, and sexual abuse -- are, indeed long enough.  The real trouble is with the sitting judges who seem to be unwilling to apply these laws the way they were meant to be applied.  A judge, after all, is appointed to his or her position, and will, no doubt, want to stay in that position.  However, if the judge, who should administer the law properly, doesn’t do this, he or she is sending a message to the criminal:  that society’s need to be protected is secondary to the criminal’s need to be rehabilitated.  The questions now become:  Can the persistent criminal be rehabilitated?  If not, why not?  Why do many judges act as if it’s a better idea to try to rehabilitate habitual criminals than to protect society by locking these people up?

Apparently, it all started back in the early 1970’s.  Liberal and Conservative Party politicians, alike, had the philosophy that the rehabilitation of criminals was much more important than protecting society.  This attitude was born due to chronic underfunding and overcrowding of the courts and prisons.  Federal politicians, complaining in Parliament about the very high costs of keeping criminals behind bars, felt that society’s need to be protected was being given far too much emphasis compared to criminal rehabilitation.  They felt that, from that point on, the need to rehabilitate the criminal was going to have to come first.  Today, this philosophy is still embedded into the psyche of most modern federal and provincial politicians.  To prove this fact, if it weren’t for the extensive plea-bargaining that goes on today, it is widely thought by those who use the court system on a regular basis, that the justice system would fall apart and be unsustainable.  The real problem is that the criminals themselves know this and use the justice system to their advantage.

Given that politicians ultimately decide who should be appointed a judge, is it any wonder that these judges, who tend to be drawn from the ranks of defence attorneys, are soft on crime?  Defence attorneys are themselves fans of soft sentencing and easy parole.  That is their bread and butter, so to speak.  These former defence attorneys, who are now sitting judges, have the same lenient attitude to crime and criminals as the politicians who appointed them.  Whenever our esteemed prime minister, Stephen Harper, makes the obvious point that the criminal justice system is soft on crime, “hysteria erupts among the senior judges, opposition politicians, liberal media, academics, and prisoners’ rights groups.”  And, it is then thought that the judiciary’s independence (in the courts) is under attack.

But, of course, that isn’t really the case, is it?  It’s the law-abiding citizen whose right to be protected who is actually under attack.  And, if these same citizens happen to live in high-crime areas, it’s even more obvious that they are under attack.  Why?  They’re under attack because the criminals being processed by the justice system are too often released back into these high-crime communities, even before the police have finished their paper work on them.  So, what chance does a law-abiding citizen have of being protected from these newly-released criminals?

Do we need more Liberal judges or more Conservative judges?  No, we just need more competent judges who will take a no-nonsense attitude to crime and criminals.  However, since they are currently appointed in a political arena, the competent judges that are currently sitting are more of an accident of Fate than a deliberate product of the system, but they do exist.   If only the system were not so interested in appointing judges based on a political bias or agenda, then perhaps, competent sitting judges could result that are both willing and able to apply the law justly to the criminals who most deserve that justice. 

Judges should quit coddling the criminals and do the right thing by protecting society from the heavy costs of crime.  They should take a “lock ‘em up and throw the key away” approach to dealing with habitual criminals, in particular.  Criminals would then know that they cannot use the system to their advantage, and might even think twice before committing serious crimes for which they will be held accountable.  Let the Judge be the Law, not the criminal.  Let the Judge do his or her job by applying the law properly and not letting the criminals run the justice system.

published by Authorhouse, copyright 2011, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.