Hard drugs more available, leading to more derivative crimes judge

New Glasgow - The increased crime in the county due to drugs is spilling over into the court system, making New Glasgow provincial court one of the busiest spots in the area.
Judge Clyde Macdonald was a provincial court judge for 19 years, spending most of the past decade on the bench in New Glasgow prior to his retirement in mid-2008. During his time on the bench, he saw a growing number of assaults and an increasing number of people taking out peace bonds, opting to go with the more immediate route than waiting for a court date that could come months down the line.
"I think police officers are indicating the peace bond option to individuals," Macdonald said. "In my court, we could get most settled in a week's time. They'd come in on a Monday and it would be settled by Friday, or as quickly as possible. People want to opt for the quick decision."
But he, too, saw a number of people parade into his court room, facing a number of drug charges.
"There were an increasing number of individuals growing marijuana, and I certainly saw the drug choices changing vastly over the years," he said. "It's the availability of the stronger drugs."
A decade ago, those synthetic heroin drugs weren't even in the Criminal Code - they weren't common enough. But now, they have their own section.
Herman Felderhof has been a senior Crown attorney in the area for 27 years. Although he's now retired, he's still filling in and prosecuting in the courts today.
He points to the drug trade as one of the key reasons he's still on the job, adding that criminal law has become much more complex as prosecutors work to convicted the people involved in the drug trade.
"Hard drugs are more available - they've moved from the cities to the towns and villages," he says "And the derivative crime - to fuel that habit - has people committing property-related crimes, like thefts and fraud. And we're seeing that in court."
That crime can range from people rifling through cars to outright thefts from local merchants, break and enters and stealing property from people's yards, like ATVs.
Crimes are becoming increasingly more violent, with more and more cases of assault with a weapon popping up on the court docket.
"We're seeing turf wars as well," he added.
While violent crimes tend to be up, the good news is the number of murders is down, at least in comparison to the 1980s, Macdonald said, based on the research he's done for some of the books he's written about the county.
"Back then, we seemed to hit one or two every year, and we haven't hit that level again," he said.
Hand in hand with drugs comes alcohol. There's rarely a docket day that goes by when someone in the county isn't arraigned on drinking and driving charges.
"It's certainly increased," Macdonald said. "A couple of years ago, I started keeping track - I had over 100 in the New Glasgow court. I believe the increased number is because of a greater police presence and a greater effort to reduce drinking and driving."
But there are other areas the courts are seeing surging over the past decade. Cyber crime is becoming more and more common, Felderhof said.
There's the classic fraud crime, where individuals try to convince people to hand over their account numbers, but there's also been more and more child porn cases popping up.
Those cases were among the hardest for Macdonald to try.
"The child porn cases were extremely distressing, because the judge would have to look at the images as well," he said. "You have to commend those officers who are dealing with that."
While it's tough to say what the next 10 years will look like in the court system, Felderhof believes prosecutors will see a growing trend towards more and more computer crimes.
"It's the computer age," Felderhof says. "People have the opportunity to commit these kinds of crimes, that's where we are right now. I can't say where we'll be in the next 10 years, but computers will likely be involved."