@noel.semple7 Ford’s New Pay-to-Walk Bail System: Public Safety is not a Game
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When I was a kid, I loved the game Monopoly. But the one thing about it that never made sense to me was the Monopoly criminal justice system. Okay, so if you get caught committing a crime and this guy blows the whistle on you, then you’re going to jail, which makes sense.
But then the rules say that if you’re in jail and you pay 50 bucks, you get out. And this made no sense to me at all, because if this guy did something bad enough that we had to put him in jail, then why are we letting him out just cause he has 50 bucks?
And conversely, if he doesn’t have 50 bucks and we were gonna let him out otherwise, why would we keep him in just cause he doesn’t have $50?
Fortunately, my dad was a lawyer and he explained to me that in real Canadian jails like this one behind me here, that’s not how bail works.
In Canadian bail law, for 50 years, the law has been that who has to stay in until their trial and who gets out is based on things like how likely are they to reoffend when they’re out, how likely are they to actually show up for their trial, and how serious was the crime of which they’re accused?
Money could be involved in the bail process. So if the judge, for example, is not quite sure whether you’re going to necessarily reappear for your trial, or re-offend, but they’re not convinced it’s serious enough
that you definitely have to stay in jail while you’re still presumed innocent, then they might set a cash penalty.
So for example, the most common crime in Canada is assault. Let’s say someone is involved in like a bar room brawl fight. They might be arrested but then let out on bail until their trial. And the conditions might be things like you can’t go back to the bar, you gotta stay away from the person you beat up and you can’t consume alcohol, things like that.
And another term might be that if you breach any of those conditions, you have to pay $2,000 So the person who’s been let out knows that if they do breach the conditions, there’s a very good chance they’ll be caught. And if they’re caught, then they are gonna have to pay that money. And if the person doesn’t have money, then a surety might be involved, which will be typically a friend or a family member
who will make that promise to pay the amount if the person breaches their terms.
So it’s just an extra disincentive to try to make sure the person respects the terms, shows up for trial and faces justice.
Until this week, because the Doug Ford government has introduced the Monopoly cash bail system to Ontario. The Bail Act now says that everyone who is let out on bail has to pay money within two business days. And that will be no problem at all for successful drug dealers and fraudsters and other criminals who have money. But for everyone else, whether they get out out depends on their affluence and whether they have wealthy relatives.
This is almost certainly unconstitutional. One judge has already refused to apply this new law in a bail decision they made on Wednesday. But a bigger problem perhaps is that this is likely to undermine public safety. Who stays in and who gets out of these doors should not depend on who has money.
It should depend on what risk does this person pose to the public. And if you want a public safety system that actually keeps the public safe instead of one that’s based on board game economics,
then you need to demand a better provincial government.