| |
Posted Nov 5, 2022, 3:55 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 15,431
|
|
This article looks like it was removed from the Sun website?
Quote:
Understaffed Vancouver community court struggles to keep up with nonstop crime
Court's services are proven to reduce crime, but waiting times take a toll
Author of the article:Sarah Grochowski
Publishing date:Nov 05, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 7 minute read • Join the conversation
Muffled sobs filled the small waiting room of Vancouver’s Downtown Community Court on a Tuesday afternoon.
Stephanie Boodhan clutched a colouring book, pink and purple markers, and a copy of “Girl Interrupted” in her hands while sobbing over her case.
The 38-year-old missed her trial in provincial court that morning. She said she thought proceedings were later in the day in the adjacent community court, where she is a client.
“I just want this all to be over with,” cried Boodhan, who is facing an assault with a weapon charge for a 2021 incident involving her and another woman in the Downtown Eastside.
“She was the dealer who sold my 14-year-old sister the fentanyl that killed her,” she said. “She’s the only witness — it’s her word against mine.”
As a result of Boodhan’s failure to show up, a bench warrant was issued for her arrest.
Jayde Neifer, a defence lawyer of the community court, was quick to intervene. She worked with Crown counsel to include Boodhan in the afternoon’s proceedings as defendant No. 105.
By 1 p.m., Judge James Bahen told her the warrant had been vacated.
“You don’t need to be taken into custody, but please keep in touch with your lawyer,” he said.
It’s a similar story for many chronic offenders downtown. Many, given homelessness, disordered substance use and mental illness, often fail to show up in court several times before their case is heard.
The community court was set up in 2008 to try to stop Vancouver’s revolving door of prolific offenders by addressing their health and social needs.
It handles most crimes committed downtown, sentencing offenders no differently than the adjacent provincial court.
The difference is those who plead guilty are eligible for case management services, including housing, employment, mental health and drug treatment, once they are released on probation.
Modelled after a successful court in Brooklyn, its case management team — made up of police, corrections officers, Crown prosecutors, health-care workers and social service staff — creates personalized plans for close to 10 per cent of clients, those identified as having the most complex needs and prior convictions.
The team works to get these clients on track. Their welfare cheques are forwarded to court staff who ensure they immediately don’t blow the money on drugs.
Judges also have the option to arrange alternative measures agreements, which can involve community service and recommendations for the offender to attend treatment information sessions.
Those who plead not guilty in the community court go to trial in the adjacent provincial court.
The goal of the community court is to nudge those who commit crimes such as shoplifting, auto theft, mischief, drug possession, impaired driving and assault, away from reoffending.
The role of the court has come under growing scrutiny after several of its clients, including Mohammed Majidpour, were let out on bail after being charged with assault. The 39-year-old Majidpour, who has several convictions, is alleged to have struck a 19-year-old on the head with a pole in a random assault.
A September report from retired Transit Police chief Doug LePard and SFU criminologist Amanda Butler found the diversion court is plagued by funding cuts, staff shortages and an increase in cases of violent crimes.
The pair recommended B.C. restore its funding and staff, while increasing health and social service programs so the court can rehabilitate repeat offenders.
“We don’t have places to send them, a probation order won’t do it,” LePard and Butler were told by prosecutors in the provincially commissioned report.
“While they were primarily dealing with low-level property crime before the pandemic, they are now regularly dealing with violent assaults,” says the report.
Leo Fumano, a longtime defence lawyer, said of the thousands of people who commit violent crimes downtown each year, a majority get released on bail and comply with their conditions. “Only a few don’t and reoffend.”
Recent changes to federal legislation have made it harder for judges to keep those accused of violent crimes in custody awaiting trial, said Fumano.
“Some of them are too mentally gone to understand what they’re being charged with. The court is frustrated it has to deal with the criminal side of it when it’s clearly a medical issue.”
Butler and LePard’s report says court staff are frustrated by the lack of housing and licensed detox and substance use treatment programs.
“If we ramped up proactive resourcing on substance use and mental health support, it wouldn’t be a coincidence to see these offences go down,” one Crown prosecutor told the pair.
For those under case management, Fumano has witnessed “remarkable turnarounds” in clients who go from running around shoeless, screaming on DTES streets, to holding down a job.
But waiting times for clients to be seen by the court’s mental health team have increased, he said. “Some are spending a week behind bars before being assessed.”
Bill MacEwan, the court’s lead psychiatrist, doesn’t dispute the LePard-Butler findings. He agrees that more staff is needed to address the court’s caseload and wants case management for more clients.
”We could do better,” said MacEwan, who sees court clients with diagnosed mental illnesses and those referred by staff, including sheriffs and social workers. “If I could get three more outreach workers and a full-time nurse, we could increase patient volumes.”
In recent months, those referred to the court’s mental health program — which assesses clients in jail, treats them while they’re out on bail, and makes recommendations for case management — had no psychiatric nurse to conduct intake evaluations.
“Our treatment plans help those on probation stay mentally stable so they can have their charges stayed,” the doctor said. “But our lack of staff limits us in terms of evaluation and planning, like ordering certain medications.”
MacEwan and a new, part-time nurse are the only ones qualified to administer injectable antipsychotics.
While the court is designed to process 60 clients a day, the average number it saw in the 15 months leading up to December was 66 a day. Before the pandemic, it was 74.
MacEwan is concerned about a lack of emergency housing for clients who are released downtown.
“Last week, a man who committed a high-profile stranger attack was released on bail and forced back onto the streets because there wasn’t any shelter space,” he said. “We were worried he’d end up back in jail, or hospital.”
While the court clinic has several beds reserved at downtown shelters, most of its clients are homeless. “If we had a place for people to stay overnight and get some support, that would be a different kettle of fish,” said MacEwan.
Butler’s and LePard’s recommendations include establishing a committee to collect court data so that independent evaluation can be commissioned.
However, the researcher who conducted the court’s last evaluation in 2013 doubts B.C. will take steps to reestablish data collection.
Julian Somers outside Vancouver’s Community Court.
Julian Somers outside Vancouver’s Community Court. PHOTO BY NICK PROCAYLO /PNG
Julian Somers, a health sciences professor at SFU, helped create B.C.’s inter-ministry evaluation database — used to analyze data from the community court and other pilot programs, beginning in 2005 — but the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General ordered him to destroy the portal last year, squashing the possibility of long-term analysis.
“All data must be destroyed and all media storage devices that housed ministry data must be sanitized. This includes backup copies,” reads a March 2, 2021, letter to Somers and his team.
“B.C. took an urgent command and control approach,” said Somers.
Leigh Greiner, research director for B.C. Corrections, wrote that while Somers’ analyses helped guide public safety, health, and housing decisions for those involved in the criminal justice system, the province was moving to an in-house database.
“It will allow us to make data linkages and partner with other social ministries whose data was not previously available,” said Greiner.
Somers’s 2013 evaluation examined 250 clients sentenced in the court’s first three years. It found those with the support of a case management team — less than 10 per cent of all court clients — committed nearly half the crimes in the following year than a comparison group from the neighbouring provincial court.
“The community court shows us that big reductions in crime are achievable, but we learned from case management staff that there were many more clients with these needs but limited resources,” he said.
Boodhan, who rose to face Bahen in the small Gore Avenue courtroom, was told her next court appearance, to reschedule her trial, was Nov. 1. It was later rescheduled to Nov. 9.
“Thank you,” she said to the judge.
Boodhan said in the year since she was charged she has moved out of the DTES, been prescribed a pharmaceutical alternative to opioids and started working as a grocery store cashier.
“I don’t want to be a prisoner to fentanyl anymore,” she said while standing outside the courtroom. “It feels so good to be working again. I want to get better so I can see my kids more and am heartbroken that I haven’t been able to be there for them.”
What she fears most is returning to jail. She’s worried being locked up might cause her to backslide on the progress she’s made toward reintegrating into society.
“When I was younger and grew up in foster care, I got in a lot of trouble with the law. When I was 18, they transferred me to the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women. After serving six months, I never want to go back.”
The jail does not have medical support for her withdrawal from opioids and the number of hours she spent in a cell wreaked havoc on her mental state, she said.
“I had to wait two weeks until the psychiatrist was in to talk to somebody,” said Boodhan, who is currently on probation for a previous conviction for assault with a weapon.
Her conditions include not making contact with the victim, not possessing any weapons and to “keep the peace.”
“If I stay on good behaviour for these two years, my charges will be stayed.”
|
|
|
|
Prev
If that were a love one of mine who was assaulted, the judge would be doing me a favor by releasing him...
Linear Mode
