ARE PRISONS READY FOR EXTRA INMATES?

The Harper government wants to make communities safer by locking more
criminals in jail and keeping them there longer. Its proposed
crackdown on violent crime calls for mandatory five-year jail
sentences for gun crimes and prison time for some drunk drivers, for
instance.

While there's a philosophical debate to be had over whether this
approach will actually reduce crime, there's also an urgent practical
question to be considered. Can the country's jails handle and deal
with an influx of additional prisoners? A surprisingly tough report
from federal prison ombudsman Howard Sapers says the prison system is
already falling badly behind in its capacity to deliver correctional
programs or court-ordered rehabilitation measures. Some inmates don't
start rehab programs until they are out on parole and "as a result
more offenders will return unprepared to the community." Two serious
trouble spots are evident in Sapers' report: an increase in prisoners
with mental-health problems and an alarming rise in the number of
aboriginal inmates, especially women. There's a chronic shortage of
programs in both areas.

"The result is too many offenders spend their time in prison without
getting the corrective programs they need," says Sapers in his annual
report.

"The result is ongoing violence and despair on the inside and
increased risk of individuals reoffending once released." Perhaps most
disturbing is the over-representation of native offenders in prisons.
While this has been a long-standing tendency, the disparity is getting
much worse, especially for women. Fully 32 per cent of women in
federal penitentiaries are aboriginal, though natives make up only
three per cent of the population.

Sapers identifies another problem. Natives are consistently put in
higher-security institutions, which have little or no access to
programs designed to meet their cultural needs or to prepare them for
eventual release. And again, for aboriginal women the problem is
worse. In September 2006, they made up 44 per cent of women in
maximum-security prisons, 41 per cent of the medium-security female
population and only 18 per cent of those in minimum security.

As Sapers describes it, in too many cases the corrections system seems
to be doing little more than warehousing criminals and that leaves
them ill-prepared for life on the outside. An increase in the
prisoner population, as Harper proposes, would no doubt aggravate that
problem.

In any prison system, there's always a balance between the twin goals
of retribution and rehabilitation. Harper said this fall he wants to
swing the balance towards retribution in his Tackling Violent Crime
Act. In that case, he may not find Sapers' report a major concern.

But before acting, the government should address the issues it raises.
It should move ahead with the action plan for aboriginal corrections
it devised in 2006, a plan that remains largely unimplemented,
according to Sapers. It should also increase access to mental-health
services for those who need them.

If such steps are not taken, the government's efforts to make
communities safer in the short run may prove to be dangerously
counterproductive over the long haul.