Prolific offenders are committing an outsized amount of crime in B.C. What can be done to solve the problem?

In a Port Coquitlam, B.C., courtroom two decades ago, a defendant named Roy Gene Hopkins stood before a judge and predicted the future with a surprising degree of accuracy.

In February 2002, Hopkins was 36 and already had a lengthy criminal record fuelled by addiction to heroin and cocaine. 

He begged the judge for a three-year prison sentence.

Hopkins said he knew the system, knew the law and knew a "lousy, stinking 27 months" wasn't enough for him to get the programs he needed to deal with the fact he was "very angry at the world."

"I want to deal with my anger issues. Those are things that I can't deal with in 27 months. And if everybody expects me to walk out of prison and start dealing with them, they're sadly mistaken," Hopkins told the judge.

"I'm going to be back in front of you within a month of being released from prison, looking at maybe a life sentence, because I wasn't able to get the help that I think I need."

He was right.

Fast forward to 2022 and Hopkins has 117 convictions under his belt, most recently for possession of stolen property.

A Court of Appeal decision describes him as a "prolific" offender — the kind of person committing an outsized amount of the crime currently testing the tolerance of B.C. communities.

Their offences range from theft to manslaughter. They regularly breach probation. Driven by addiction and mental illness, many are a tiny, but significant part of the homeless population.

The scale of the problem has visibly worsened during the pandemic, leading the B.C. Urban Mayors Caucus to plead with Attorney General David Eby for action on what they call the "catch-and-release justice cycle."

Last week, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Peter Juk responded to complaints about the justice system's seeming inability to keep repeat offenders off the streets.

"The system is not broken," Juk said in a written statement, detailing the role federal legislation and the Supreme Court of Canada play in forcing judges and police to ensure bail "is the rule and pretrial detention is the exception."

Juk said he welcomed "public scrutiny, informed discussion and reasoned debate" — warning against "uninformed or inaccurate public statements."