“Bad Law”

In Thinking About Crime, social scientist James Q. Wilson cautioned against focusing on the “root causes” of disorder. Public policy, Wilson argued, should not try to remake society but instead concern itself with what’s practical and possible: incapacitating chronic offenders, creating clear incentives, and providing structure for those who can’t control themselves.

The root-cause mindset has long driven ineffective mental-health policy. The belief that addressing adverse social conditions would prevent mental illness has put mental-health professionals at the center of social reform, with a broad mandate of addressing crime, dependency, and other complex problems. It hasn’t worked.

Self-appointed advocates too often prevent the most gravely disabled from accessing care.

I’d like to put a name to why we so badly need to reform our legal approach to treating the severely mentally ill. That name is Rebecca Smith, an elderly homeless woman who lived in lower Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s. Friendly and talkative, she developed relationships with people passing by on their way to work and was well-known in the area. Those in the neighborhood sometimes gave her food or money. She received formal public benefits from New York City for a while but, like many homeless people, struggled to clear the bureaucratic hurdles necessary to maintain that status. Smith’s daughter, having lived with her mother’s schizophrenia since childhood, worked for more than a decade to get her off the streets, to no avail. Smith spent much of her time in a cardboard box.

OTTAWA — Canadian smokers who are trying to save a few bucks by purchasing contraband cigarettes may not realize that they are participating in a growing illicit industry that is now surpassing legal sales of tobacco in some parts of the country.

According to a new study commissioned by the Convenience Industry Council of Canada (CICC), which represents retailers and convenience stores across the country, contraband tobacco now accounts for 29 per cent of the market in Alberta, 38 per cent in Nova Scotia, 45 per cent in Manitoba, and a whopping 52 per cent in New Brunswick.

A civil liberty group is sounding the alarm after British Columbia’s New Democratic Party (NDP) Premier David Eby announced a forthcoming new law that would permit the government to take away one’s property or goods prior to being charged with a crime.

The soon-to-be introduced “unexplained wealth order” (UWO) was announced by Eby on Sunday as part of a broader “public safety plan.” The government says the law is intended to target gangs and criminals who “profit on misery,” but experts warn that such a law would be a severe “infringement” on one’s constitutional rights as defined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It’s unanimous: If you kill someone while you are extremely intoxicated, you’re not criminally responsible for your actions and can’t be convicted of an offence in court.

That is not something Canadians would likely unanimously agree to, but it was the conclusion of a 9-0 Supreme Court of Canada decision released last week. At issue were a trio of trials involving defendants who were accused of committing offences, including manslaughter, while drunk and high to the point of being in a state of “automatism.”