Vancouver judge: Community court works

An article published in todays edition of The Chronicle Herald:

By The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — It's the personal anecdotes that tell the story of Vancouver's community court for judge Thomas Gove [pictured].

One year after opening Canada's first court to fully integrate the legal process with health, housing and social services, Gove measured the project's success Thursday by recounting the impact on a drug addict who was nudged into a residential detox program while doing street cleaning as community service for theft.

Gove also spoke about a chronic offender, approaching 60 years old, who was in court on a theft charge.

With the assistance of court workers, he has held down a full-time job for the past six months and not committed any further crimes. Keeping that man away from crime is probably saving $100,000 a year in the cost to merchants, police, the court system and prisons, the judge said.

He recounted details, as well, about a case earlier this week that reflects how different the community court is from a traditional courtroom. The offender broke down in tears after the judge made a strong personal appeal to her.

``Don't you understand, all the people here are trying to help you?'' Gove recalled saying to her. ``What is it we are not doing right? What more can we do? What is missing?''

Vancouver's community court, located in the heart of the city's drug-infested, poverty-ridden Downtown Eastside, was opened one year ago with considerable fanfare.

The jury is still out on the new system. Statistics for the first year of operations have not yet been compiled.

James Threlfall, the acting chief justice of the provincial court, said Thursday an analysis of the impact of the community court on the court system will be completed later this fall.

But Gove, the presiding judge who has been involved with the project since it began, was positive about the court's track record so far.

The court has achieved ``real successes,'' he said in an interview. More cases are resolved sooner, offenders are required to make fewer court appearances, more appearances happen on the day they are scheduled, crime is reduced in downtown Vancouver and, he believes, the rate of reoffending has been reduced.

He was ``frustrated'' that more housing, detox centres and mental-health services were not immediately available for offenders, but he was reluctant to be critical.

The organizations are going in the right direction, he said, adding that more housing has become available in recent months.

Gove could not really think of anything the court should have done differently over the past year.

``The first year has been the experiment - how do we do this? The next year is going to be whether we really (pass) the test - how much impact are we going to have?'' he said.

Cases involving theft from autos, stores and homes, mischief, assaults, drug possession and shoplifting are heard in the community court, while more serious crimes remain in the traditional court system.

Gove said the court saw about 2,000 people in its first year. Around 25 per cent, according to a rough estimate, were repeat offenders.

Multidisciplinary teams devise a plan that is intended to respond to the offender's underlying problems, whether it is mental illness, drug addiction, homelessness or poverty. The court enforces the plan as an alternative measure to traditional court-imposed penalties.

In the first 10 months, 568 people were involved with social, health and mental-health programming, 209 received housing. Offenders did 6,055 hours of community service.

Photograph by Sam Leung, The Province.

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