Jarrod Bacon sentenced to 12 years in prison for trafficking

SURREY (NEWS1130) – Red Scorpion gangster Jarrod Bacon has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy to traffic cocaine.

But with credit for time already served, Bacon is slated to spend just over seven years behind bars.

“He appears committed to a criminal lifestyle,” said BC Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Austin Cullen as Bacon sat in the prisoner’s box, dressed in red prison garb.

When Cullen asked Bacon if he had anything to say before he sentenced him, the 29-year-old uttered, “No.”

Cullen said Bacon appears remorseless for his crimes and has few prospects for rehabilitation.  He noted when Bacon was arrested, he was out on bail for other offences.

He also pointed out Bacon had a turbulent family life. Older brother Jonathan was shot dead in Kelowna last August, and younger brother Jamie is in jail facing murder charges in connection with the Surrey Six massacre.

Bacon and his former girlfriend’s father, Wayne Scott, were arrested in 2009, charged with conspiracy to traffic up to 100 kilograms of high-quality cocaine from Mexico into Canada.  The pair was caught in a reverse undercover police sting.

The Crown had asked for Bacon to serve up to 21 years in prison while his defence argued eight years behind bars was appropriate.

Cullen said a 12-year sentence for trafficking cocaine was on the high end of the crime and he rejected prosecutors’ higher prison time, saying their sentencing references were based on punishment for importing cocaine, deemed a more serious crime than trafficking.

The judge noted neither Bacon nor Scott actually possessed the drugs and Bacon testified he simply planned to rob the undercover informant.  Cullen called Bacon’s testimony during his trial incoherent and flawed with imaginary facts.

After he was sentenced, Bacon nodded to a few people in the courtroom as sheriffs led him away.  

Wayne Scott is to be sentenced in June.

How has this sentence changed the world of Lower Mainland gangs?

“I think the landscape has already changed quite significantly,” explains criminologist Rob Gordon. “These guys have been pretty much out of action for some time.”

With one Bacon brother dead and two behind bars, the industry does not wait around. “I’m pretty sure the reins of power have been passed on to another bunch of people.”

He’s quick to point out that getting gang members off the street is good for society, but not always effective. “The problem is that what it does is create vacuums which are promptly filled by other individuals. Sometimes those folks will slug it out with each other in order to get the market share.”

Gordon adds that seven years is potentially not the end of Bacon’s criminal lifestyle.

“Bear in mind, he’ll come back. He’ll be released eventually. Also bear in mind that just because they go off to prison doesn’t mean that they are necessarily out of the scene completely,” he tells us.

The release of other gangsters has shown it’s often not long before violence surrounding them returns.

Gordon thinks the police probably know who the new big gangsters are, but unlike some of the gangs before them, they probably aren’t looking for the publicity and notoriety, preferring to lay low out of the spotlight.