Interesting story today in the National Post. Seems like the big sweep of the Driftwood Crips street gang has choked the downstream criminal justice system, a point I made in my book in respect to the disadvantages of this form of gang suppression.
In a sharply worded ruling yesterday, Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer indicated that the constitutional rights of several of the accused snared in the police sweep were being violated because their bail hearings had not been conducted within three days of their custody, as is required under the Criminal Code of Canada. Indeed, Judge Nordheimer indicated that he may even be prepared to release the defendants if they did not receive their bail hearings by July 3, some 20 days after being taken into custody.
Many will no doubt assert, "Who cares? They're gangsters and they don't deserve the rights that law abiding citizens do." However, they are all innocent until proven guilty and as such, there is no excuse for not according them the rights that we all enjoy, the rights that lie at the foundation of our criminal justice system.
Rather than lament Judge Nordheimer's actions and threats, why not critically assess the value of the massive gang sweep? Should we continue to employ expensive, intermittent sweeps that jam the criminal justice system and lead people to claim the system is "broken" or that "liberal" judges are too easy on criminals? Or do we take a targetted approach to street gang suppression, constantly culling the most dangerous gangsters from the streets in a manner in which the capacity of the downstream criminal justice system is not stretched to its breaking point?
We will no doubt see more and more sweeps in the coming years, but as the financiers of this suppression strategy, we ought to maintain a critical eye as to their overall efficacy.
Mike, we are holding our first College Pro/Action reunion in September. If you want to attend, send me an e-mail. It would be good to touch base after all these years. Andy
Posted by: Andy Lennox | July 20, 2007 at 04:23 PM
Your opinion is a breath of fresh air in a world of catchy cliches and empty promices by polititians. Police knew that most of the charges wouldn't stick when they pulled off this witch hunt they called a 'buss', knowing fully well that public blame for these people would souly rest on the court system and not on their shoulders, which is counter productive to EVERYTHING they claim to want (bridging the gap between them and the community they surve.
Posted by: Jus B. Inreal | November 26, 2008 at 02:54 PM