Fraser bemoans catch-and-release courts

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Police Chief Scott Fraser is frustrated by a catch-and-release justice system that sees his officers nab suspects only to have the courts free them on bail hours later.

“Ten per cent of the people commit 90 per cent of the crimes,” Fraser told the police services board on Thursday. “It’s the same people over and over and over and over again with no deterrent because there’s no incarceration.”

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The chief used two examples to illustrate his department’s dilemma.

Last week, Brockville Police used a Taser to subdue a man in Victoria Park holding a knife to his own throat with one hand while grasping onto a woman with his other, Fraser said.

The officers coolly defused the situation – Mayor Jason Baker wrote a letter to the chief praising the officers’ professionalism and skill – but the incident shouldn’t have happened at all, Fraser indicated.

The suspect had been released on bail only hours earlier despite his long record of violating bail conditions. Fraser said the man had been released 17 times before on offences – some of them violent involving firearms – only to violate his bail conditions, and yet the courts continue to let him out.

“These people will reoffend,” Fraser predicted. “If you’ve got 17 previous offences, then 18, 19, 25 or 105 are all coming.”

Fraser’s second example involves a man who was arrested seven times in 10 days after being let out after each arrest.

The man was into stealing meat, Fraser said. He’d steal meat from one grocery store, get arrested and spend the night in police lockup, only to be released the next day.

He would go to another store, steal meat, and be arrested again to have the court saga repeated, Fraser said.

The chief said that some of the same stores were hit by the same thief several times in the same week.

“We’re arresting them, but they’re still getting out, and they still have the same drug issues as when they were arrested,” he said.

Fraser said the courts are bound by case law, which dictates that all but a few offenders are eligible for bail.

The revolving-jail-door syndrome means that police are chasing their tail, arresting the same people again and again, said the chief, adding that very few of his officers’ arrests involve first-time offenders.

A lot of the crime is linked to drugs, which climaxed in January of 2018 when crystal meth hit town, he said.

Staff-Sgt. Tom Fournier said there were 656 thefts in 2018 and one in five of those were break-ins of parked cars by thieves looking for loose change. Fournier said that almost all of those thieves were drug addicts looking for money to feed their addiction, adding that the addicts were involved in many of the other thefts, too.

One of the signs of the times is that Brockville had an Outlaw biker gang set up a clubhouse in Brockville last year for the first time in memory, Fournier said.

The only reason the bikers chose Brockville is because there’s a good market here for drugs, Fournier added.

Fournier and Fraser said the drug problems illustrate the need for a municipal drug strategy.

Several board members pointed to the need for a detox centre in Brockville.

Sonya Jodoin said the closest public detox centres are in Ottawa and Kingston and there’s a long waiting list for treatment.

Brockville people battling addiction go to those cities, spend three days in detox, and then are released onto the street, alone and in a strange city, she said.

Fournier said the drug strategy should be a collaborative effort among social agencies, police and municipalities from all over Leeds and Grenville.

wlowrie@postmedia.com