CONSERVATIVES PLEDGE $245M FOR NEW PRISONS

Plan Part Of Law-And-Order Agenda

The Conservative government says it has set aside up to $245 million
to build more prison cells in anticipation of passing new laws to
impose longer sentences.

The first piece of legislation in the Harper government's plan,
introduced yesterday, would impose increased mandatory prison terms
for 18 crimes involving guns, a key part of the Tories' law-and-order agenda.

The bill is a softened version of the penalties for gun crimes the
Conservatives proposed in the recent election campaign.

It also sidelines a promise, repeated two weeks ago by Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, to include automatic jail terms for crimes involving drugs.

Justice Minister Vic Toews said the scaled-back version takes into
account the concerns of the federal opposition parties so that the
proposed law has a better chance of succeeding in the minority Parliament.

"We are changing the focus of the justice system so that serious
crime will mean serious time," he told a news conference.

The gun legislation would impose automatic jail terms of three to 10
years, with the lesser sentences for first-time offenders and the
most severe terms for serious, repeat offenders.

The election platform called for 10-year sentences for 10 crimes,
such as attempted murder with a firearm, even for first-time offenders.

The Conservatives also introduced a companion bill yesterday to
eliminate "house arrest" for a variety of crimes, which government
officials say would mean about 5,500 people a year who would no
longer be eligible to serve their time at home and monitored through
an electronic tracking device.

The NDP and the Liberals, although they have called for increases in
minimum sentences, said they will have trouble supporting the
Conservative proposals because they are too harsh.

Mandatory minimum sentences are controversial because they eliminate
flexibility for judges to impose sentences that they see fit. Many
criminologists are also dismissive of mandatory sentences because
they say they clog prisons and there is scant evidence that they deter crime.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day predicted the new legislation
would add 300 to 400 new prisoners annually to the federal system,
which currently houses 12,400 offenders at a cost of about $82,000
annually per prisoner.