Pubdate: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2011 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/letters.html Website: http://www.montrealgazette.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274 Author: Peter Blaikie Note: Several of the quotations in this article and some statistical information come from a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives analysis of the policy titled The Fear Factor. CRIME POLICY IS ALL STICK, NO CARROT Tough on Crime Is What We Get, but What We Need Is a System That Protects Society and Rehabilitates Those Who Can Be Helped A prison is a massive, bleak, depressing monument to failure. The Harper government's tough-oncrime policy will reinforce and exacerbate the failures that prisons symbolize. In every prison population, there are failures of different kinds and degrees of severity. Some inmates can be described only as evil, beyond redemption; they are surely very few in number. Others, again a small cohort, could be labelled psychopaths, sociopaths or dangerously paranoid; the Norwegian killer, Anders Breivik, would appear to be some combination of these traits. The vast majority of prisoners represent individual failures of various kinds but, also, failures of family, community and, more generally, society in its broadest sense. How else to explain the hugely disproportionate number of aboriginal inmates in our jails? A civilized, effective system of justice should have two overriding objectives: to protect society, perhaps forever, from the truly dangerous and, while punishing the others, using every possible effort to rehabilitate them, turning them into productive citizens. The government's approach, in effect and almost certainly in intention, reverses these objectives. It is all stick and no carrot. It even abandons the highly successful, self-sustaining, centuryold program of prison farms, which taught generations of inmates critical life skills. It is based on the 2007 Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety, described by Conrad Black, no bleeding-heart liberal, and with significant personal knowledge, as: "the self-serving work of reactionary, authoritarian palookas, what we might have expected 40 years ago from a committee of Southern U.S. police chiefs." Were he asked, the brilliant and courageous American political comedian/satirist, Bill Maher, would call the tough-on-crime policy, "dumb-ass stupid," a term of endearment he applies to the right-wing zealots of the Republican Party. He would be right. In fact, Stephen Harper and his cabinet puppets would be comfortable having tea and crumpets with that group. What are the basic elements of the tough-on-crime policy? Most importantly, it greatly increases the number of mandatory minimum sentences from the already more than 40 which now exist. It eliminates the practice of allowing two days of a sentence for each one day spent in pre-trial custody. It must be kept in mind that people in remand have not yet been convicted of any crime; that many will never be put on trial or will be acquitted; and that experts consider remand custody conditions far more severe than those in prisons. As regards the next element, it should be kept in mind that those convicted in Canada of first-degree murder spend, on average, 28.4 years in prison, 10 years longer in jail than similarly convicted Americans, and more than 15 years longer than in many other advanced Western countries. Under the "faint hope" clause, such a convicted person could, after 15 years, and by way of a long and difficult process, apply for parole. The "faint hope" designation is reminiscent of "forlorn hope," the name given to Wellington's troops who led the assault on French fortresses during the Napoleonic Wars in Spain. The chances of release in one case, survival in the other, were similar - slim to none. Even the faint hope is to be extinguished, an example of naked vindictiveness. The Harper government wants to send more Canadian young offenders to jail and for longer periods of time, no doubt creating more recidivists. One twice-jailed young offender had the following comments on the legislation: "For the most part, harsh sentences do not deter crime and actually work against rehabilitating offenders. My brief time in incarceration only ensconced me more deeply in the criminal culture." Even more absurd are the changes with respect to drug laws, described by one expert as "a wonderful gift to organized crime." Since, once again, more Canadians will be jailed for longer periods, especially as regards marijuana-related offences, one can only conclude that the Harper government would like to imprison half the population of British Columbia. One comical feature of this legislation is that the length of the mandatory prison sentence will depend on the number of marijuana plants grown, and whether they are grown in a prison or near a school. One can easily imagine the following comments by an arresting officer: "Pothead, if you had grown 197 plants instead of 203, and more than 150 yards from the local school, you would be spending far less time in jail." Dumb-ass stupid. Why is the tough-on-crime policy so appallingly bad? Perhaps most bizarrely, it runs counter to all the statistical evidence of significantly falling crime rates over the past 25 years. It rejects not only the expert evidence of those involved in the criminal-justice system directly, including the Correctional Service of Canada, but also that of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and others. It takes a direction that even the Americans, whose criminal-justice system is notoriously dysfunctional, have been abandoning for some years. It is based not on evidence and research, but on what the French would call la science infuse or la verite absolue. Perhaps God talks directly to Stephen Harper. Shades of Mackenzie King! More specifically, mandatory minimum sentences, by imposing a straitjacket on judges, limit their ability to differentiate as regards the same offence with respect to what might be completely different circumstances. Judges are human and might on occasion err; however, they are highly educated and highly trained, far better equipped to determine appropriate sentences than our members of Parliament. Furthermore, mandatory minimum sentences have been conclusively established to have no deterrent effect. The criminal's thought as a crime is being committed is not "How long am I going to spend in jail?" but "Will I be caught?" In the face of mandatory minimum sentences, the accused might decide to fight ferociously, rather than plead guilty to an offence, thereby further clogging the court system and increasing costs. Finally, in the face of mandatory minimums, history has proven that police, prosecutors and juries act in ways to avoid a minimum sentence they consider to be inappropriate, sometimes called "swallowing the gun." With the faint hope extinguished, there will be far less incentive for prisoners to set and follow rehabilitation goals, or even accept prison rules. It is also inevitable that prison violence will increase, since a reason for good behaviour will have vanished. Similar or related flaws apply to every aspect of the tough-oncrime policy. No aspect of the policy will act as a deterrent, and every feature is likely to produce greater violence in prisons and lower rates of successful rehabilitation. In addition to the human cost of the tough-on-crime policy, the financial costs will be enormous, involving many billions of taxpayers' dollars annually. Either the Harper government has no idea what the additional cost of more prisons, more inmates and longer jail terms will be, in which case it is incompetent, or, equally disrespectful of Canadians, it does know and refuses to admit them, thereby being dishonest. As it has in the past, for example in its repugnant attack ads against Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, the Harper government has brilliantly, but dishonestly, manipulated public opinion and raised the level of fear. Tragically, neither the Liberals nor the New Democratic Party has had the courage to act as a responsible opposition; they, too, have succumbed to political fear. Also sadly, or perhaps thankfully, before the true human and financial costs of the tough-on-crime policy are felt by Canadians, the prime minister and his government will have passed into the dustbin of history. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.