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Community loses with tattle-tale justice
Mar. 14, 2004|Toronto Star

Submitted by Suetaz

ALAN YOUNG
REASONABLE DOUBT

"I spy with my little eye ... something that is green."

This simple children's game has now become a tool of law enforcement. Warning of the coming Armageddon of super-evil pot growers armed with dangerous hydroponic equipment, bacterial agents and high-intensity lights, the police have now asked the public to report any homes emitting pungent odours.

Despite seeking a budget of $688 million for the coming year in Toronto alone, the police say they lack sufficient resources to combat the proliferation of grow-ops. Not willing to admit defeat, the Ministry of Community Safety and the Association of Chiefs of Police held a summit last month at which members of the public, real estate and insurance agents, and hydro officials were all recruited to help the police root out criminal horticulturalists. While the police were trying to deputize a horde of snitches, the gun violence in Scarborough continued to explode.

In principle, I embrace increased community participation in the administration of criminal justice; however, it would be far more productive for the police to foster a community response to increasing gang violence. Concerned residents must be provided with safe avenues for reporting gang activity without fear of reprisal. This is far more valuable that relying upon real estate agents to assess the moral character of their clients.

Fostering a culture of community surveillance is healthy when the community is unified in its concerns and fears. Clearly, there is a consensus about gang violence, but the debate continues over the proper legal response to marijuana. The peering eyes of a neighbourhood watch can be remarkably divisive and unhealthy if the community has mixed opinions about the dangers of the conduct under surveillance.

So to convince a community of the dangers of grow-ops, the police produce unsubstantiated statistics about fires, rotting floorboards, toxic chemicals and huge economic losses due to theft of hydro. I think the police have constructed an imaginary monster, but if they are right about the fires, the explosions, the rot and the mould, then why would they need the community to be their eyes and ears? Eventually, all the growers will be discovered with little investigative effort as houses collapse or go up in flames.

In the past few decades, the calls to increase community participation spoke to a vision of restorative justice in which compassion, authenticity and social harmony would be the defining features. Now restorative justice has been traded for tattle-tale justice, and in that trade the community can only stand to lose. A peaceful neighbourhood is unattainable when neighbours snoop on each other for signs of criminality to report to authorities for small rewards.

The real irony of this call for community surveillance is that it represents a return to a system of justice we condemned more than 150 years ago. Before the birth of professional prosecutors and professional police forces in the latter half of the 19th century, the community policed itself.

To foster an effective community response, the state exploited people's basic emotions of fear and greed. The historical fear factor is obviously represented by the fact that we publicly executed criminals for more than 350 capital offences.

The greed factor is a bit less obvious. In the early days of the common law we relied upon the concept of "hue and cry" by which every able-bodied person in the community was legally obligated to assist in apprehending the criminal. Heavy fines would be imposed upon citizens who failed to respond to the "hue and cry" of a victim of crime.

When increased mobility and urbanization fragmented communities, it became impossible to determine who was a community member for the purpose of the hue and cry. So we turned to a detailed system of rewards as the catalyst for community involvement. The roots of modern policing were founded upon a state policy of paying private citizens for the apprehension of criminals.

In the mid-19th century, professional law enforcement was established largely because relying upon fear and greed proved to be ineffective, corrupt and a recipe for miscarriages of justice.

More than 127,000 people currently work in the Canadian criminal justice industrial complex and it costs more than $11 billion annually to keep the system running. Nonetheless, the police believe they are still ill-equipped to fight the green tide of cultivation crime, so they are prepared to dish out lots of blood money for anyone who responds to their cries for help. The ancient "hue and cry" has been replaced by the modern "rat and pay."


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Alan Young is a law professor, criminal lawyer and author of Justice Defiled: Perverts, Potheads, Serial Killers & Lawyers (Key Porter).

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.

 

KMKfan

Well, they will do anything to get us in jail. If it wasn't a crime, all that money being taxed to do this would possibly be put to good use!

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peace not greed.

Higher Logic

This reminds me of a movie I watched last nigh, Judge Dredd. The entire community is rioting and crime is out of control, yet the law enforcment all agrees that they need to put more money into controlling the crime, and that's the only way possible to do it, by adding more money. It seems in this day and age it holds true, they act like the more money we pump into the system the better they'll be able to combat "crime" and help things out...

Seems to me like the more money they have, the more crime and problems that they notice. The more laws we add, the more corrupt we become. Logic and reasoning are something government is not good at, perhaps a class in philosphy, ethics, and logic would help?

Cheers.

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ReglessAss

Maybe there should be a minimum education level for these people?
Like taking some kinda degree in social studies or something?

smoking_joe_lee

Remember boys and girls, if you smell foul odors coming from a house call Dudly Doright of the Canadian Mounted Police. It could be dopers, eh. If you see a house colapsing from rot, eh, call Dudly. If I see a house burst into flames, you can find me, downwind, taking deep breaths saying, "that's bc bud, eh." Oh, yeah, I would call Dudly and Nell because they both get high, eh!