Community Court set to open in DTES

British Columbia is mobilizing its judicial system for a major blitz against crime, drugs, and homelessness in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Judge Thomas Gove has announced the creation of a “community court” that could deal with up to 80% of the crimes committed in Vancouver’s infamous neighbourhood.

This court system, which is a novelty in Canada, (there are approximately 30 similar courts already operating in the U.S.) plans to use a multi-faceted approach to deal with drug charges, petty thefts, minor crimes, and repeat offenders.

The community court will receive support from social and health services when dealing with offenses such as shoplifting, theft from autos, mischief, assault, and drug possession in the downtown area. It will not necessarily deal with the crime itself, but with the reasons for which it was committed, namely: poverty, homelessness, drug-addiction, and mental illness. Access would be provided to re-hab and other medical facilities.

Individuals who are charged with a crime in the DTES, must plead guilty in order to qualify for access to these new services.

I repeat: this court will require you to be “guilty”.

This is a frightening thought, as the community court will essentially bypass the judicial system in order to push people into the already over-strained social services.

Addicts and the mentally ill who plead not guilty will not have access to treatment.

Onsite, the detox center attached to Insite – Canada’s only safe-injection site – is currently operating at capacity and has a 30+ person waiting list. There are similar waits at other facilities across Vancouver and nearby Victoria.

How will the community court ensure access to the promised services? Judge Gove has admitted that B.C. doesn’t have the necessary resources to support the current demand, let alone the influx of individuals that will arrive at their doorstep when the court opens its doors in a couple of weeks.

The answer to this question may be hidden in another facet of the court that Judge Gove did not overly advertise: displacement. “Some people” – an incredibly vague term – could be sent out of town as part of the court’s decision.

This community court, which seems - at least on paper - to have so much potential, may be twisted by the government of B.C. to begin the mass exile of the poor and marginalized who are presently living in the DTES. This program did not start because of a desire to help or to do good – it was initiated to “clean up” the neighbourhood for the 2010 Winter Games. Judge Gove stated that he would define success as being able to walk down the street in two years and not see any crime. That is a lot different than other types of success: getting addicts off of drugs, providing homeless with access to shelter, the mentally ill with access to health services, facilitating job creation, community safety, and individual empowerment.

“The world will come calling” during the 2010 Olympic Games and Vancouver needs to appear clean, safe, and respectable. Apparently solving this issue is important enough - not for Vancouver residents, B.C. residents or even Canadian residents – but only for our distinguished international visitors.

Sigh.

Judge Gove, with this attempt at a community-based approach appears content to hide the “problem” and pass it on to other Canadian areas. This is truly unfortunate. A judicial system that incorporates the increased input and aid of the social and health services could do a lot of good for a lot of people, but this looks to be more of a janitorial project than anything else.

The court opens its doors on September 10th.

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Further reading:

Vancouver Province: Differences between “regular court” and “community court”
Joey Thompson, Vancouver Province: Not enough services
Official Site

Contact:
CommunityCourt@gov.bc.ca
604-660-9722