Restorative justice good for offenders, not for victims

A new face is heading our city police service today, and it seems that it is his wish to "hit the ground running" as soon as is humanely possible. New Police Chief Vernon White announced yesterday that he has two issues that he seems to want to work on right away: 1) re-examining the City of Ottawa crack pipe distribution program and, 2) doing something about enhancing (I think) the "restorative justice" program.

First of all, Chief, once you "educate yourself" on the crack pipe program, remain true to the one code you are sworn to uphold: the Criminal Code. This federal law makes it a criminal offense to possess or distribute drug paraphernalia. How the City of Ottawa and its saintly program has managed to duck under that radar for so long, I have no idea. Perhaps I should convert my computer sales business into a custom crack pipe discount warehouse while the going's good... the margins have to be better in that business!!!

I digress - I have been fully opposed to spending precious municipal dollars on what the Criminal Code defines as criminal activity while watching City Council annually cut services, raise user fees or property taxes. When I heard that Chief White would try to do something about this "program", I was overjoyed.

There was, however, a hitch in my appraisal of Chief White's arrival. Details are sketchy but it seems that he is a fan of the "restorative justice" program. As far as I'm concerned, this so-called program is great for people who are embarking on the first leg of their new journey in crook land and is horrible for victims of their crimes. Why?

About two years ago we started noticing that small quantities of money were disappearing at the agency where I work. For years we stored a petty cash wallet in a drawer, and for years we had no problems whatsoever. I had been to the bank to replenish the money supply one Friday afternoon and it wasn't until the following Thursday that I needed to grab some cash to pay for a small expense. I think there was $15 in the wallet and I could have sworn at that very moment that there should have been closer to $300.

Did I forget to go to the bank? No, the cheque cleared. Hmmm... what could I have purchased? I couldn't remember. I waited for the weekend to pass and for my director to return from two weeks of holidays on the following Monday. I sheepishly admitted that I must have made a few hundred dollars disappear - who else could I blame?! Because I had been employed by the same agency and boss for the better part of seven or eight years, I was allowed to remain employed (!) and asked to be more careful... or something along those lines.

A few months passed and all was forgotten until it happened to dear old boss. She had replenished the money supply one day, only to have it vanish on her watch some other day. It was nice to see that I hadn't lost or squandered the money after all. Some detective work later I discovered that my hidden margarine tub that once held pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters had nothing but pennies in it (banks hate taking loose change in deposits so I hang onto whatever's left and roll it once annually.) We started to suspect our cleaner so we "seeded" the wallet with $80 before leaving for the night and - lo and behold - only $10 remained the next morning.

To make a long story short, the work logs the cleaner himself maintained and the in/out alarm records made it very much an open and shut case. The detective who took the report told us that the case should be a slam dunk based on a number of reasons. Unfortunately, because the cleaner had no previous record, he apparently was a prime candidate for this "restorative justice" program. The result? No guilty plea, no guilty verdict. All that was required of him (more or less - I wasn't there so I cannot be sure) was that he write my organization a letter of apology and that restitution be made. We received a cheque from a local law firm that covered 40-50% of what was actually taken.

That's not the end of it.

Despite assurances from a detective that the thief had been caught and despite the fact that an admission had pretty much been made, acknowledging that something wrong had been done, the company contracted by the City of Ottawa refused to dismiss the employee. Their position was that because there was no conviction, there was no proof that something untoward had been done. Even worse, the City refused to immediately terminate the company's contract despite numerous complaints about quality of work done and a theft!!! That's a story for another day.

The bottom line is this - the new Chief of Police may think that the restorative justice program needs additional attention from the powers that be. I suggest to the Chief that he speak with some victims of crime who have essentially been slapped in the face after having the person who committed a crime against them let go with little more than a promise of "I won't do it again".

Now that I think of it, I'll try calling the Chief myself and see what he has to say.

More to come...