A tough-on-crime approach to justice.

• Date: 01 January 2009
• Author: Morton, James C.

In a season of tough talk on crime, I propose a challenge to our political leaders. In Canada, one group of criminals commits a disproportionate number of crimes that we could easily reduce with more coercive sentencing. However, our usual form of coercion--imprisonment--doesn't work for them. They need a different kind of sentence. But to make that happen--and to significantly reduce the number of crimes they commit--would require will and wisdom that our legislators can't seem to muster.

The legal system refers to these men--they are almost all men--as chronic offenders. What everyone knows, but the justice system doesn't acknowledge, is that they are also drug addicts, hooked on heroin or crack cocaine. They steal not for gain but to support their addiction, to pay for their next fix.

This has nothing to do with getting high. For an addict, the point is to avoid the effects of withdrawal, which in the case of heroin can include cramps and muscle spasms, fever, cold sweats and goose bumps (hence the phase "cold turkey"), insomnia, vomiting, diarrhea and a condition called "itchy blood," which can cause compulsive scratching so severe that it leads to open sores.

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