B.C. Courts In Line With Others

By 250 News

The authors of the report, Dr. Anthony N.Doob, director of University of Toronto's school of criminology, and Dr. Cheryl Marie Webster, from the department of criminology at University of Ottawa say 69% of all Canadians and 74% of British Columbians indicated they believe sentences in criminal matters are too lenient.

The simple answer is yes…… and no.

While they discovered B.C. is more likely to hand out a jail term, the term is not necessarily the longest, or shortest handed out for a similar crime in other courts in the country.

The report’s authors say based on the most recent data they have been able to examine, that B.C. courts are  neither too lenient, nor too harsh "British Columbia does not stand out as being either exceptionally lenient or as exceptionally harsh in its sentencing practices. This is not to say that for some measures for some offences in comparison to some provinces, British Columbia is not more lenient. Nor is it to say that for some measures for some offences in comparison to some provinces, British Columbia is not harsher. We are simply concluding that – overall – British Columbia in its sentencing does not look dramatically out of line with the portion of the rest of Canada for which we have comparable data.”

You can read the full report here.

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