Will sentencing certain offenders to minimum sentences be effective?

The Canadian government is determined to continue permitting the criminal courts to sentence certain criminals to mandatory minimum sentences as a form of punishment and as a deterrent for their crimes. Mandatory minimum prison terms are given for drug crimes, gun crimes, robbery and drunk driving and of course for murder.

Mandatory minimum sentences are awarded for certain offences committed with a firearm, pursuant to the Firearms Act, S.C. 1995, c. 39. For example, the four-year mandatory minimum sentences for manslaughter with a firearm and several other firearms-related offences came into force in 1996, as a result of the Firearms Act. The mandatory minimum sentence is focused on offenders who decide to arm themselves to commit offences of violence.

There are two federal studies that have suggested that say such laws don't work, and are increasingly unpopular as crime-fighting measures in other countries. One Report said in part; "Minimum sentences are not an effective sentencing tool: that is, they constrain judicial discretion without offering any increased crime prevention benefits.

A 2002 report - Mandatory Minimum Penalties: Their Effects on Crime - also compiled for the department while the Liberals were in power offers a similar view: "Harsh mandatory minimum sentences (MMS) do not appear to influence drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way."

Years ago, a Canadian couple returned to Canada and drugs were found in the woman’s luggage. She didn’t put it in her luggage. She didn’t even know it was in her luggage. Her boyfriend put it in her luggage. She was sent to prison for seven years. That was the minimum sentence at that time for importing drugs into Canada. Later her boyfriend confessed that it was he that put the drugs in his girlfriend’s luggage. She was released from prison and he was sentenced to the minimum of seven years. The judge said that he wished he didn’t have to send the young man to prison for that length of time but he said his hands were tied as the seven-year-minimum was the penalty for importing drugs into Canada. That law certainly constrained the judicial discretion the trial judge would have liked to have had in that particular case.

Despite such conclusions, the government of Canada unveiled legislation in December 2007 to create mandatory minimum prison terms for drug possession, production and trafficking.

The automatic minimum jail terms range from six months for growing and selling a single marijuana plant to three years for producing any quantity of coke or crystal meth in a home lab.

A clause in the bill would allow judges to exempt certain offenders from prison if they pass a court-monitored drug treatment program but this would only apply to those who could convince the court that they are addicted users.

It has been suggested by criminologist Thomas Gabor at the University of Ottawa, and Nicole Crutcher at Carleton University that mandatory punishment is a concept "as old as civilization itself." The biblical expression, an eye or an eye, a tooth for a tooth, "was mandatory, leaving little room for clemency or mitigation of punishment."

In a 2002 study, it was suggested that in modern times, “mandatory minimum sentences do not appear to deter crime, for a variety of reasons: they bar judges from using their discretion to sentence individuals. As a result, prosecutors and police take up the discretionary role, often choosing not to charge people with offences that would automatically land them in jail.

The authors of the study also suggested that the threat of such sentences sometimes lower conviction rates, as juries refuse to convict accused people facing automatic but seemingly unfair prison terms.

They admit that while they show success in deterring firearms or drunk driving crimes, particularly among repeat offenders, they appear to have no impact on drug crimes.

In 1983, for example, Malaysia imposed a mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking. Two decades later, although more than 100 executions had been carried out and hundreds more death sentences imposed, drug use and trafficking remained serious problems.

In 1986, the United States imposed a five-year minimum jail term for possession of small amounts of cocaine, and a minimum 10 years for larger amounts. A decade later, cocaine use and cocaine-related crime remained a serious problem in the U.S. Unfortunately, that information is flawed because it doesn’t take into consideration the fact of drug addiction on these unfortunate people. In addition, most U.S. prisoners ensnared by the system were low-level, first-time offenders, not the high-level dealers targeted by the MMS statutes.

Severe MMS seem to be least effective in relation to drug offences," said the 2002 study. "MMS are blunt instruments that provide a poor return on taxpayers' dollars.
A 2005 report by University of Oxford criminologist Julian Roberts reviewed mandatory minimum sentencing trends in Canada and other common-law nations, including the U.S, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
His main conclusion was that outside Canada, mandatory prison terms for offences other than murder were generally seen as ineffective and increasingly unpopular.

He wrote; "After a decade in which a number of common law countries enacted mandatory sentencing legislation, there is clear evidence that several jurisdictions are now either repealing or amending these punitive laws.: "The experience with mandatory sentencing legislation in a number of countries has shown that these laws do little to promote public confidence in the sentencing process."
"Drug trafficking, grow-ops, a whole host of activities, have become much worse in recent years."

The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that an excessive or disproportionate sentence is not cruel and unusual punishment. This covers the range of mandatory minimum sentences. Before a sentence is found to offend section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it must be characterized as to be so grossly disproportionate that Canadians would find it abhorrent and intolerable, and so excessive as to outrage standards of decency.

I think sentencing an offender to a minimum of one year in prison for growing and selling a single marijuana plant would constitute an excessive or disproportionate sentence and certainly outrage citizens with respect to their concept of decency and what is fair.

Nevertheless, it is my personal belief that mandatory minimum sentences should be awarded in certain offences, especially those involving the use of firearms for criminal purposes and trafficking in drugs. I don’t know if it will deter all such criminals or even if it will deter many of them but it will definitely keep the offenders convicted of such crimes off the streets for a while.