TORIES ARE COPYING U.S. CRIME LAWS THAT FAILED, EXPERT SAYS

2.3 Million Americans Behind Bars

The Harper government is embracing tough-on-crime policies even as the
United States backs away from similar approaches that have produced
record levels of incarceration, huge costs and racialized prisons,
says an American expert on sentencing policy.

"We've had this get-tough movement for three decades now," says Marc
Mauer, head of the Sentencing Project, which promotes reforms in
sentencing law and alternatives to incarceration.

"If that's the best way to produce safety, we should be the safest
country in the world, and clearly that's not the case."

Mauer's observations are relevant because the federal Tackling Violent
Crime Act echoes the punitive approach to crime adopted in the U.S.

Among other things, it increases mandatory minimum sentences for gun
crimes and impaired driving and requires those convicted of three
serious sexual or violent offences to prove why they should not be
jailed indefinitely.

The Harper government pushed the bill through even though crime rates
in Canada are falling and are now at their lowest level in 25 years.

In the U.S., three-strike laws and widespread use of mandatory minimum
sentences have resulted in a record 2.3 million people behind bars --
700,000 more than China, which has four times the population.

African-Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of
whites, and now constitute 900,000 of all U.S. inmates.

The war on drugs has helped fuel the incarceration boom. In 1980, just
prior to the inception of the drug war, about 40,000 people were
locked up for drug offences. At the time, there were fewer than
500,000 people in American prisons or jails for all crimes.

Today, there are half a million people imprisoned for drug offences
alone in the U.S., many of them low-level offenders serving mandatory
five or 10-year terms.

The U.S. approach has not reduced recidivism by ex-convicts.
Two-thirds are re-arrested within three years of being released from
prison, Mauer says, and half are back in prison.

All of this is causing U.S. policy-makers to re-evaluate their
approach to crime, he says. While tough-on-crime policies are still
very much in force, "there's begun to be a shift in the political
climate and the nature of the discussion about crime policy."

Mauer says confidence is waning that large-scale incarceration,
particularly for drug offences, is effective.

"Essentially it's become a question of where do we want to go. Do we
want to be building prisons or creating opportunities for education
for our children?"