Who Profits from Crime?

Abstract

Challenging Public/Private Divide: Feminism, Law and Public Policy. Ed. Susan B. Boyd. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Images of Justice. Dorthy Harley Eber. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997. Policing Risk Society. Richard W. Ericson and Kevin D. Haggerty. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Crimes, Laws and Communities. Eds., John McMullan, David Perrier, Stephen Smith and Peter Swan. Toronto: Fernwood Publishing, 1997. Mounties, Moose and Moonshine: Patterns and Content of Outport Crime. Norman R. Okihiro. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Law and Markets: Is Canada Inheriting America's Litigious Legacy? Eds. John Robson and Owen Lippert. Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 1997. Blaming Children: Youth Crime, Moral Panics and Politics of Hate. Bernard Schissel. Toronto: Fernwood Publishing, 1997. The Role of Law in Natural Resource Management. Eds. Joep Spiertz and Melanie G. Wiber. VUGA, Netherlands, 1996. Making Good: Law and Moral Regulation in Canada,1867-1939. Carolyn Strange and Tina Loo. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Race, Rights and Law in Supreme Court of Canada: Historical Case Studies. James W. St. G. Walker. Waterloo: The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History and Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1997. These fine books on aspects of law and criminality support platitude that crime does not pay - except for lawyers, criminologists and insurance companies. Canadian criminals put in more time in jail per dollar stolen in other countries, although these statistics predate conviction of Alan Eagleson. Another statistic, even less likely to stir patriotic pride, is that Canadian youth, as Bernard Schissel points out, have highest per capita rate of incarceration of any country in world. If crime rates in Canada have dropped off in recent years, corresponding to diminishing ratio of youth in Canadian population, we still have a lot more lawyers. Prior to Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians had less than half as many lawyers per capita as Americans but now we approach two-thirds of American ratio (Law and Markets 77-81) creating the danger of supply-driven and socially harmful increases in litigation(85). Virtually, all of contributors to Law and Markets bemoan Canada's increasing litigiousness; none defend very quality that brought one of Canada's most honoured citizens to jail. The Fraser Institute has brought together an interesting volume that seems to bear message of Adam Egoyan's movie The Sweet Hereafter; namely, that lawyers as ambulance-chasers are bad news. Law and Markets is concerned not with corporate criminality but with prospect that enterprising lawyers, instigating class action salts on contingency fees, will be able to dupe civil juries, and cut into profit margins. Indeed, Richard Hazelton, CEO of Dow Corning which filed for bankruptcy because of silicone breast implant suit, tells a cautionary tale for Canadian businesspeople. Contributors point out that jurors lack competence to assess scientific and technical evidence about toxic emissions, risks to health, relationship of causality and legal accountability; prejudices about dioxin spills may skew assessment of personal injury caused by spillage. The one exception to anti-litigation view of 17 contributors to Law and Markets is Mark Mattson, an environmental litigator, who argues convincingly that Canadian Environmental Protection Act needs radical revision or abolition. Mattson argues that federal government should either enforce environmental standards or leave private litigators like himself to engage in civil ligation against environmental polluters. Mattson recommends that public interest groups and their lawyers split fine levied on offending corporations or municipalities (135). …