OTTAWA–The federal Justice Department pays to help publicize leading criminal justice research that frequently discredits the Conservative government's "tough-on-crime" agenda.

The most recent issue of Criminological Highlights, published last month, with federal assistance, by the University of Toronto's Centre of Criminology, blows gaping holes in several of Justice Minister Rob Nicholson's most cherished anti-crime measures.

It also provides a very timely reminder of why Canada's ongoing move toward more mandatory minimum sentences can lead to the kind of plea bargain arrangement that's created a storm of public outrage around former Conservative stalwart Rahim Jaffer.

Mandatory penalties, says the research digest, "undermine the legitimacy of the prosecution process by fostering circumventions that are wilful and subterranean. They undermine ... equality before the law when they cause comparably culpable offenders to be treated radically differently."

In other words, people who can afford good lawyers agree to backroom plea bargains to avoid harsh mandatory sentences, while the average Joe is hit hard.