by Elisabeth A L Burgess, QC Chair

The Street Crime Working Group (SCWG)¹ was created by the Justice Review Task Force (JRTF) in March 2004 to propose justice reforms that would alleviate the problems associated with street crime in the downtown Vancouver peninsula.

The SCWG spent a year conducting consultations with the public, justice system personnel and service providers; analysing available data on street crime; and examining approaches used in other jurisdictions to address similar problems.

Street crime generally includes highly visible crimes that affect the community by a gradual erosion of the quality of life. In Vancouver these include:

• property crimes generally
• theft from autos
• theft of autos
• break and enter
• drug offences
• nuisance offences

The SCWG also looked at disorderly behaviour such as panhandling, binning, public urination, and sleeping on the streets. These are not necessarily criminal offences, but they are of significant concern to the public.

A small number of individuals are responsible for most of the street crime and disorderly behaviour in Vancouver. Many of these chronic offenders have addictions, mental illness, are homeless, or have some combination of these problems. The criminal justice system attempts to deal with them through court orders and sanctions that have little meaning for people who are struggling with these serious health and social problems.

Public confidence in the ability of the justice system to deal with street crime and disorder is low. Residents say that street crime and disorder are having a negative effect on their quality of life; business owners say that street crime and disorder is having a negative effect on their businesses; and those who work in the criminal justice system seem equally as frustrated and numbed by the large volume of street crime cases in the courts.

The lack of co-ordination between the Health, Social Services and Justice systems is a barrier to developing effective responses to street crime issues.

The SCWG recommendations are aimed at reducing crime and increasing safety in the community. This will require a new approach by the criminal justice system and a new level of collaboration between justice, health, social services and the community. The SCWG is proposing a wide range of recommendations which will allow the health, social services and criminal justice systems to be more responsive to the underlying causes of chronic offending and which will hold offenders accountable. The success of the recommendations will depend on the existence of adequate services to support them. Without those services, the cycle of crime will continue, unchanged by interventions of the justice system alone.

The SCWG submitted its final report and recommendations to the JRTF in March 2005. The report will be publicly released in October 2005.

¹ The SCWG includes Ministry of Attorney General (Chair), B.C. Corrections, youth justice, Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver Police, Canadian Bar Association, Law Society, Chief Judge, Vancouver Agreement and Department of Justice.

This article was published in the October 2005 issue of BarTalk. © 2005 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.