U.S. MAY BE TOO TOUGH ON CRIME, SACPA TOLD

In just over three decades the U.S. prison population has skyrocketed
from 300,000 to 2.3 million and a Lethbridge professor believes
Canada could be headed down a similar path if crime legislation is
driven more by "get tough" politics than actual need.

Malcolm Greenshields says the U.S. accounts for about five per cent
of the world's population, but has 25 per cent of the world's prisoners.

"The United States, quite shockingly, in the last 30 years has become
the world's leading jailer," he said, adding the cost to society has been dear.

Greenshields, a University of Lethbridge history professor, told
members of the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs that mass
incarceration in the U.S. and the subsequent release that inevitably
follows, has created a "new society."

"The punishment of U.S. prisoners doesn't stop at the prison gates," he said.

Offenders can't collect welfare, access public housing or student
loans, finding employment is difficult and in all but 15 states
prisoners can't vote.

"You're dealing with people who have very few avenues but one of
them, of course, is more crime," he said. "One in every 15 Americans,
at the present rate, will serve time in prison."

Greenshields says the trend to lock up offenders began in the 1970s
with mandatory minimums, longer terms, less parole and Nixon's war on drugs.

"All of these things together brought the American prison population
from about 300,000 in 1970 to about 2.3 million now," he said.

In Canada there are approximately 100 to 110 prisoners per 100,000
people. Britain is slightly higher with 130, but other democratic
countries, such as Denmark and India, sit at 60 and 30 respectively.
And while "the sky is not falling" with the Harper government's crime
bill, Greenshields suggests the U.S. prison system should serve as a
cautionary tale for Canadian lawmakers.

"Be careful what laws you make, because the American prison system is
the result of legislation that was driven mostly by politics rather
than by need.

"We have to watch that we're not simply doing a get-tough rhetoric,
because once you start the get-tough game, you have to be tougher
next year than you were last year and your opponent will always try
to be tougher than you are. It removes itself from the actual
question of crime and starts to be about politics and who's the toughest."