Talk, as they like to say, is cheap. Or can be. Particularly when it comes to judges giving the big tough talk to criminals, only to follow up by sentencing them to a slap on the wrist.

Two recent examples illustrate the point.

Last week, Ontario Court Justice Dianne Nicholas verbally castigated James Westcott, a 67- year-old former kindergarten teacher - who was acquitted in a highly publicized trial in 1999 on charges of sexually assaulting his students - and who pleaded guilty in September to a charge of invitation to sexual touching for twice having “allowed” a two-year-old girl - that’s two years old - to touch him sexually.

Westcott admitted to police he had made a “gross error in judgment” and said he let it happen again because he was “stupid and crazy” and “wasn’t thinking.” Worse, he said he thought the little girl was “curious” and didn’t think it would be harmful to her. Imagine.

The judge said, “I do not for an instant believe that this man succumbed to the will of a two-yearold. This is precisely the distorted thinking that pedophiles can engage in either to explain, diminish, or excuse their deviant actions.

“As a father of many children, a practicing Catholic of great faith ...and as a lifelong teacher, who better than him would know how inappropriate, shocking and criminal his actions were,” she said.

“This was no error in judgment. This was a crime.”

So what, after such tough (and totally appropriate) talk, did she give this creep? Wait for it.

She gave him two-for-one credit for a month of pre-trial custody, which leaves him six months left to serve - six months! - plus two years of probation and a few other minor stipulations, explaining that his guilty plea was a significant mitigating factor.

Yeah, sure. That’ll teach him, eh?

Then, of course, there was the widely reported remarks by Justice Gordon Campbell in Prince Edward Island in sentencing sex attacker Alan Wade White after his conviction for sexual assault, i.e. for raping a little girl over a period of about four years, from the time she was seven until she was 11 years old. At the time of his crimes, White was in his early 30s.

Judge Campbell caused a considerable stir in the criminal justice society when he declared that sentences for such heinous crimes were far too low and he decided to correct that situation in White’s case. He had surveyed similar cases in PEI and discovered, to his horror, that the average sentence as between nine and 18 months in prison - think about that.

And so, in a judgment which had many criminologists wringing their collective hands and furrowing their brows over the “severity” of the sentence, Judge Campbell sent White away for - tada - twoand a-half years.

That’s 30 months for those of you who are counting, 30 months for repeatedly raping a little girl. And that’s considered far too harsh by many in the justice field, none of whom, I’m sure, would take that position had it been their daughter being victimized.

And, of course, he won’t actually spend anywhere near 30 months in built-in system of paroling or outright jail, given our built-in system of paroling or outright releasing criminals well short of their sentence.

The fact is that across Canada, the average sentence for a major sexual assault against a child is about four years. Four years, that’s all. And, once again, they usually don’t serve much more than half of that time before they’re back out on the street again.

The Criminal Code allows judges to sentence these serious sexual predators to up to 10 years in prison but, despite all the tough talk from the bench, that never happens.

Yet most people involved in the criminal justice system - along with most of the mainstream media - continue to perpetuate the myth that we’re tough on crime and continue to demean any politician who dares suggest otherwise.

Tell that to the parents of the children involved in the two instances outlined above. Tell them that the violation of their children isn’t really worth more than several months in jail, all the better to let the creeps back out into circulation where the chances are exceedingly high - almost predictable - that they’ll reoffend.

If judges want to continue to give soft sentences, well, that’s one thing.

But they could at least spare us the tough talk if they’re not going to deliver with an appropriate sentence.