Our John Geddes looks at the government’s crime policies.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson doesn’t offer up any departmental research at all to support the Tories’ major law-and-order thrust. Nor does Nicholson rely on reports by independent experts to buttress his case for telling judges how long they must lock up criminals for a slew of offences. Instead, in response to requests from Maclean’s for any analysis or data justifying the new minimum sentences, his office produced a 1,000-word memo explaining the policy. It candidly admits that research doesn’t offer persuasive evidence that mandatory minimum penalties, called MMPs for short, reduce crime. “In our opinion,” it says, “the studies are inconclusive particularly with respect to the main debate: do MMPs deter crime?”

If they can’t be shown to act as a deterrent, why put MMPs at the core of the government’s high-profile anti-crime push? Nicholson offers a list of seven other reasons … The top item on Nicholson’s seven-point list: “ensure victims feel that justice has been rendered.” And the second: “ensure that the amount of time served is proportional to the gravity of the offence” … This seemingly irrefutable line of reasoning, however, rests on the premise that the government knows sentences now being handed down by the courts are too light. In fact, they often haven’t bothered to collect that information. Nicholson’s office and his departmental officials admit they have not compiled statistics on typical sentences in convictions for most of the crimes they’ve targeted for MMPs. And it’s not always clear the new minimum terms will be any tougher than the sentences often imposed up to now.

Liberal Todd Russell, yelling in the direction of Rob Nicholson this afternoon as the Justice Minister took a friendly question about crime legislation.

“What’s the mandatory minimum for cheque fraud?”

Going back to June and including each of his answers since announcing the government would comply with a court order to bring Abousfian Abdelrazik home, here, for your enjoyment, are the last eight responses offered by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson in Question Period.

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Dan Gardner has written extensively on this stuff, but this column of his might be the most entertaining on the topic—Gardner asks the Justice department to provide the research used to support its move toward mandatory minimums, hilarity ensues.

Highlighted conclusions of a 2002 survey, conducted for the Justice department, on the deterrent value of mandatory minimum sentencing.

The evidence was mixed with regard to the impact of more generalized MMS of the “Three Strikes” variety.

Enhanced sentences for firearms infractions show some promise, although findings here, too, are inconsistent or unclear.

While the evidence overall underscores the critical role played by vigorous law enforcement and the certainty of punishment in this area [impaired driving], studies provide little reason for optimism with regard to the efficacy of tough sanctions.

Severe MMS seem to be least effective in relation to drug offences.

Drug consumption and drug-related crime seem to be unaffected, in any measurable way, by severe MMS.

MMS calling for lengthy prison terms are likely to carry massive costs.

MMS, such as the Three Strikes and federal drug laws in the US, have produced some grossly disproportionate sentences.