Court grants blacks special sentencing

February 13, 2003 9:05 AM

Court Grants Blacks Special SentencingSentences for black offenders can be reduced or tailored to reflect the systemic racism that has historically plagued their community, the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled. The 3-0 judgment came in a case involving Quinn Borde, a black gunman from Toronto's seedy Regent Park area. The 18-year-old admitted to firing a gun repeatedly into the air while being chased by a gang and pistol-whipping a rival later.
posted by orange swan (15 comments total)

This sort of violence stems from poverty, not ethnicity.
posted by the fire you left me at 9:18 AM on February 13, 2003

*comments made after a quick skim of the article*

Am I the only one who get just a little confused by the article continually citing "systematic racism / prejudice" without offering one example. Awfully strong prose, and no back-up. Journalism in action.

As far as the concept this ruling promotes; I don't buy it. Furthermore, I believe it will simply further the growing belief that everyone who's had a tough life is owed something. Sorry folks, you're not. Life may not be fair, but it's not made any fairer by treating criminals with kid gloves.

The fact many crimes are committed by people with regrettable backgrounds doesn't mean we should allow these individuals to get lesser sentences. It means we should be working on ways to stop group / foster home kids from turning into criminals.

I don't know, it makes sense to me. Then again, considering this is the same country that came up with the Young Offender's Act, I'm not surprised this has happened. Why don't they just quit the pussy-footing and just turn the streets over to the criminals. It'd save a lot of ink.
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:18 AM on February 13, 2003

When I read this article I thought it odd that the sentence would be classified as taking into account "systemic racism". Seems to me it was more about taking into account that this particular 18 year old had a shitty childhood because of a deadbeat father and a mentally ill mother. This kind of thing happens to people of every skin tone - why call it "systemic racism"?
posted by orange swan at 9:48 AM on February 13, 2003

Totally insane.

Lenient sentences used to be given on the basis that a convict was useful member of the community, had strong family support, and had high odds of rehabilitation. This Ontario precedent appears to be doing the opposite -- giving leniency to those with the fewest social supports to avoid recidivism.

As I am white, I'm not privileged to assert this categorically, but I suspect that this kind of thing is really more racist in effect than longer sentences, since black criminals overwhelmingly victimize other black people.
posted by MattD at 9:54 AM on February 13, 2003

"The fact many crimes are committed by people with regrettable backgrounds doesn't mean we should allow these individuals to get lesser sentences. It means we should be working on ways to stop group / foster home kids from turning into criminals." - Exactly.

If there is systemic racism in sentencing (I'm pretty centrist, but I would say that the evidence is pretty clear on this point), then the solution would seem to be that we need to not take race into account at all when sentencing. Isn't this the goal of civil rights? How did we move from "race shouldn't matter" to "compensate people because of their race"?

Every group has been the victim of "systemic racism" at some point in history, but that's no barrier to individual achievement, is it? My Irish grandmum worked in the Lowell Mills for basically nil, but the response to that among her and her contemporaries was that they needed to work harder now to overcome this barrier, and in the future get people to ignore Irish race in their decision-making. I think that, in 2003, this is the case for Irish. I also think that decisions like the one given by the court in the article are going to make it very hard for blacks to make the same systemic shift.

This decision doesn't help minorities - it sets them back. MLK would be appalled.
posted by Kevs at 9:59 AM on February 13, 2003

Some background might be in order. The Toronto Star, a left-leaning major newspaper servicing the capital of Ontario, recently featured a series of articles back in what I believe was November indicating that the Toronto police department systemically discriminated against blacks and had been for years, including Los Angeles Rampart Squad style shenanigans. This led quite a shake-up in the police department, as one might imagine, and this ruling is at least partly a reaction to that investigative series.

I think it's obvious that one ought to take racism into account when choosing who to prosecute and how long to sentence a person for, though I'm not sure that should necessarily translate into reduced sentences. On the other hand, if you read the article, this is intended to be used mostly for non-violent drug crimes, so I find it hard to be morally outraged or worried about the dissolution of civil society.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 10:03 AM on February 13, 2003

Am I the only one who get just a little confused by the article continually citing "systematic racism / prejudice" without offering one example.

How do you offer one example of systemic racism? The whole point of the term is that it refers to the whole system, not to particular incidents. The article clearly wasn't a discussion of racism but of societal response to it.

Having said that, such a decision does seem to undermine the notion of fitting punishment to crime in that it fails to attach the same costs to illegal actions by one actor than another, thus unbalancing the cost/benefit to the criminal of committing a crime. Taking this further, it would suggest that there is a reduction in the value attached to losses by the victims of comparable crimes where the perpetrator is from one social class rather than another. Whilst it would be naive to suggest that social class doesn't already impact on punishment within justice systems, policies aimed at increasing rather than decreasing bias within the system seems to me to be acting to increase rather than decrease injustice.
posted by biffa at 10:09 AM on February 13, 2003

I'm am very much in favor of civil rights generally, including affirmative action, but this is a really, really bad idea. It opens up a huge can of worms that could ultimately threaten the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. People need to get the same sentences for the same crime unless there are factors specfic to the individual case that warrant disparate sentences. Once you start incorporating demograph preferences into sentencing, you undermine the rule of law by suggesting that some people are less bound by the law than others. That's a LOT different than traditional affirmative action, which is aimed at increasing economic opportunity for historically oppressed groups.

There is certainly racism in the criminal justice system (at least in the US anyway--I don't know anything about Canada), but it can be far more effectively dealt with by reforming the practices of police and prosecutors. Plus, there is always jury discretion and nullification that can accomplish the same objectives in a way that does so obviously flout the rule of law.
posted by boltman at 10:42 AM on February 13, 2003

Um, that should be "doesn't so obviously flout the rule of law."
posted by boltman at 10:44 AM on February 13, 2003

I think it's obvious that one ought to take racism into account when choosing who to prosecute and how long to sentence a person for

Wow, now there's a dangerous step towards quota's being applied on who we can and can't prosecute it. Attitudes like that are one reason why I feel it'll probably happen someday that criminals will be ignored solely because the police have exceeded their quota for the month on what color the person is to arrest.
posted by piper28 at 12:28 PM on February 13, 2003

Piper> I think you misinterpreted my remarks. I'm worried about LA Rampart Squad escapades, which used to involve things like planting illegal guns on black drug-dealers in order to be able to charge them with more serious crimes than merely trafficking. The decision whether to charge someone with possession or not in cases involving small amounts of marijuana is another problematic area. I'm firmly against quotas and in favour colour-blind justice, but I'm not entirely convinced we have that as it currently stands.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 1:18 PM on February 13, 2003

This doesn't seem like terribly good legal reasoning, and since it doesn't seem to have changed the outcome of this case, I think may just be dicta, i.e. nonbinding side commentary that isn't really part of the decision proper. Meanwhile, I have to agree with boltman on this one: this ruling, if its precedent is followed, would undermine the rule of law, not to mention the perception of equal justice under the law. Also, who is black?
posted by skoosh at 5:36 PM on February 13, 2003

I think you misinterpreted my remarks. I'm worried about LA Rampart Squad escapades, which used to involve things like planting illegal guns on black drug-dealers in order to be able to charge them with more serious crimes than merely trafficking.

So because a number of cops have on occasion engaged in illegalities to "up-frame" criminals, there should be a presumption in every case with a minority defendant that there might've been something untoward going on with the police, and that should modify prosecutorial and sentencing decisions?
posted by Dreama at 6:44 PM on February 13, 2003

First it was just mayonnaise on hamburgers, socialist taxation, Jim Carrey, then the unthinkable: they banned GWAR, and now this!

O Canada!
posted by hama7 at 8:20 PM on February 13, 2003

So because a number of cops have on occasion engaged in illegalities to "up-frame" criminals, there should be a presumption in every case with a minority defendant that there might've been something untoward going on with the police, and that should modify prosecutorial and sentencing decisions?

No. Nor is that in fact what the judges who ruled in the case said. Should you read the article and look into the ruling rather than merely rely upon the sensationalistic headline to form a knee-jerk opinion, you will see that in fact what they said was that the original intended purpose of sentencing this particular offender was general deterrence of gun crime, but that this purpose was not being served. It was recommended that in future, when using general deterrence as a justification for a particularly long sentence, they should take the cultural and racial factors of the community into account, and consider whether deterrence will actually result. Here's a Toronto Star article with more information.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 8:21 AM on February 14, 2003