LAW-AND-ORDER AGENDA GETS BLEAK REVIEW

PM's Policies Criticized: 'Longer Sentences Do Not Contribute To Public Safety'

OTTAWA - The Harper government's ambitious law-and-order agenda has
received a bleak review from senior federal bureaucrats, who warned
just before last winter's election that there is "credible research"
showing that get-tough policies do not bolster public safety.

The critique is contained in documents released to CanWest News
Service under the Access to Information Act.

Officials in the Public Safety Department took aim at several
Conservative policies, including plans to hire more police, place
punishment ahead of crime prevention, create more minimum mandatory
prison sentences and impose stiffer sentences for serious and repeat offenders.

"The increasing use of incarceration as a response to crime and its
associated costs take away from social programs that prevent crime,"
says the analysis, crafted less than a week before the Conservatives
vaulted to power on Jan. 23.

"Credible research shows that longer sentences do not contribute to
public safety" and "there is little or no empirical evidence to
support the premise that hiring more police, as proposed in the
platform, will have the result of reducing rates of crime and
victimization," the paper states.

One political scientist, however, says the analysis "is not
comprehensive" because it neglects a wide body of scholarly research
showing that stiffer punishment is effective in deterring crime.

"They have a duty as public servants to provide the full
representation of scholarship and they did not," said Ian Lee, a
political scientist in the bu siness school at Carleton University in Ottawa.

"They did not disclose that this is a hotly contested and disputed
area. They relied on criminologists and law professors without
providing policy advice recognizing there is a broader body of
research out there."

Several criminologist have opposed key elements of the Conservative
law-and-order plan, asserting it will do nothing to deter crime and
will create significant cost increases by sending more people to
prison and keeping them there longer.

But Mr. Lee said criminologists traditionally take a "left-wing"
approach to imprisonment, with some believing incarceration is
inappropriate for all but the most serious crimes.

On the other hand, there is an emerging area of crime-related
research, called law and economics, in which leading scholars in the
United States have concluded there are clear links between stiffer
prison sentences and crime reduction, Mr. Lee said.

The federal government analysts also concluded the Conservatives
place too much emphasis on gun-related crimes.

One of the government's first moves on the law-and-order front was to
introduce a bill this spring creating increased prison terms for 18
crimes involving guns, largely in response to an increase in violence
with gunfire in Canada's urban centres, mainly in Toronto.

"While the platform states much concern for gun violence, it is
important to note that firearms are not the primary method of
homicide and make up generally the same proportion of firearm-related
homicides as in previous years," the analysis says.

"Gang and gun violence, a major focus of this platform, is clearly a
problem in many jurisdictions, however, focusing mainly on this
issue, as is evident in this platform, risks overlooking other
vulnerable communities across Canada not affected by such violence
but who may nevertheless be suffering from other crime or social problems."

The critique goes on to question another plan to tighten parole
provisions for people who have been convicted of committing a crime
while on parole.

Parole was created as an incentive for good behaviour in prison and
the actual rate of reoffending on parole is low, the analysis says.

"It costs substantially less to maintain an offender in the community
than in a penitentiary: $20,698 per year versus an average of $83,276
per year. In addition to protecting public safety, parole does so at
a significantly reduced cost when compared to incarceration."

In the analysis, the government officials also say Prime Minister
Stephen Harper's Conservatives were wrong in their projected
cost-savings behind a key promise to scrap the federal long-gun
registry by stating in their election platform that the registry has
cost almost $2-billion.

"Cost savings for eliminating the registry are incorrectly stated,"
the analysis says. Rather, the registration costs are no more than
$25-million annually and not all of that money would be saved because
the government would still maintain the handgun registry.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, in announcing legislation this
spring to kill the long-gun registry, was unclear about the savings
that would be achieved.

Opponents, however, say they are minimal or even non-existent because
the money to set up the registry has already been spent.