HARPER'S TOUGH ON CRIME STANCE

Tough On Crime Is A Passion Coming To A Parliament Near You.

Stephen Harper's increased use of minimum sentences sailed through
the House with all-party support and is now law. There was no one who
stood up to say that these minimum sentences are an idea whose time has passed.

The Harper agenda also includes curtailing statutory release,
imprisoning large numbers of drug offenders, and the construction of
super-prisons.

In opposition to this agenda, an audience gathered on May 6 at Saint
Paul University in Ottawa to discuss the problem of crime from a
different perspective. The meeting was sponsored by the Church
Council on Justice and Corrections and the John Howard Society. The
question addressed was "Should Canada import failed U.S. criminal
justice policies?" Does the evidence justify such a loaded question?

Let's see.

Currently, Canada incarcerates 107 people per 100,000 population. The
U.S. rate is 751. And the 107 is high by European standards. Is the
U.S. seven times safer than Canada? Au contraire. The United States
is number one, but it is hardly a matter of pride.

It leads the world in the rate of incarceration, with one per cent of
the population behind bars. It has more people imprisoned than any
other country in the world.

With under five per cent of the world's population, it comes close to
having a quarter of its prisoners.

Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project in
Washington, told the audience that the Conservatives are driven not
by facts but by ideology.

He pointed out that crime rates in Canada have been steadily
decreasing since the 1990s and are lower today than at any time in
the last quarter century.

There are a variety of causes, with incarceration policy having
limited impact. The decline in the number of young males as a part of
the population, changes in drug use patterns, and other social
factors are more important.

Harper's response?

He urges people to trust their own experiences rather than the
statistics. This is fear-mongering. Perhaps the experiences to which
he is referring are the law-and-order dramas that clog our television screens.

But the facts that Harper wants to ignore are clear.

In addition to the decline in crime generally, youth crime has been
falling since 1999, and gun crimes fell 16 per cent in 2006, with
stabbing deaths exceeding deaths by firearms.

Mauer cited an interesting policy shift in Finland. Finland's rate of
incarceration was out of line with that of the other Scandinavian countries.

Finnish policy makers decided that it was time to get in sync with
their neighbors, so they changed their policies to bring their rate
down. Lowering the rate of incarceration did not lead to an increase
in the crime rate.

A serious side effect of tough on crime is what the massively
increasing costs are doing to social policy generally.

It costs the U.S. $60 billion a year to cage people.

In the last 20 years, the costs have increased 127 per cent, with
spending on higher education growing only 21 per cent in that time.
Even minor drug offences in the States have expensive consequences
for the system. Possession of five grams of cocaine can net a person
five years of prison, at a cost of $25,000 a year. And there is
little treatment available for the prisoner.

With little in the way of useful programs of any sort in prison,
society nevertheless faces the fact that 95 per cent of the inmates
eventually get out, usually lacking skills to function in society,
resulting in heavy recidivism rates.

Feeding the incarceration monster leaves other social expenditures on
short rations.

While massive incarceration may have some effect on decreasing crime,
other measures which are effective fall prey to the need to feed the monster.

Early childhood education, recreation and social programs for teens,
reduction in poverty, and social housing programs suffer.

This trade-off is in line with Conservative ideology, which is not
keen on social programs other than corrections in any case.

While Canada is moving in the direction of increasing the rate of
incarceration, the United States is slowly coming around to changing course.

Last month, Congress passed the Second Chance Act, which will improve
programs in prison, programs currently appallingly inadequate. It
will also assist people re-entering the community from prison and
help children with parents in custody.

Community alternatives to custody are also growing in use. New York
City has moved to use of community alternatives, with a resulting
reduction in incarceration and, at the same time, a reduction in crime.

Drug courts are growing in popularity. Diversion is becoming more important.

A Supreme Court decision has given judges the right to sentence below
the mandatory minimum sentences.

It is becoming apparent to American politicians that society cannot
afford to lock up an increasing number of society's derelicts. Will
we have to go through the same learning curve, or can we learn from
our neighbor's unhappy experience and avoid the same fate?