CRIME - ARE CELLS AND BARS THE ANSWER?

Lock 'Em Up And Throw Away The Key Sounds Great, But Decades Of
Experience Show Harsh Sentences Don't Work

In the aftermath of several gruesome shootings, people are asking what
meaningful steps can be taken to deal with crime.

The federal government response comes in a series of
get-tough-on-crime laws that will see more prisons being built and
more people imprisoned for longer terms. The laws, Bill C-9 and C-10,
restrict the use of conditional sentencing and expand the use of
mandatory minimum sentences. Nearing adoption, the bills are expected
to be joined soon by a "three-strikes-and-you're-in-jail-for-life"
law.

While purporting to make our streets safer, these changes will have
dramatically negative effects for Canadians.

More people will serve more time behind bars -- one parliamentary
report estimates about 5,500 a year, most destined for already tense,
over-crowded provincial prisons. Results are predictable: More
double-bunking of prisoners, increased danger for staff and prisoners,
higher suicide rates and decreased ability to assist people to improve
their lives.

As the founding Elizabeth Fry and John Howard societies in Canada,
we've worked extensively with the people who will be most affected by
these laws.

Take Patricia, a 17-year-old welfare-fraud mother with serious
psychological problems, who would now go to prison -- her children
ending up in care.

Or 24-year-old Maggie. After years of violent childhood sexual abuse,
she landed in an abusive relationship, was caught waiting in a car
while her boyfriend made a drug drop, and was charged as an
accomplice. It's precisely this category of crime in the United States
where mandatory minimums have resulted in longer sentences for women;
even with little involvement, they are charged as accomplices to
crimes committed by their partners.

Then there's Albert, a 22-year-old unemployed Aboriginal struggling
with the effects of childhood sexual abuse and addictions. When
physically threatened, he made threats and waved a hunting rifle he
carries in his truck. Rifles in truck cabs are not uncommon in rural
communities, and a common part of traditional Aboriginal lifestyles.
Charged with assault, Albert would now face a mandatory minimum five
years in prison; he wouldn't have access to the culturally appropriate
community sentence previously available. On this issue, experience in
Australia is especially telling; mandatory minimum sentences have had
a devastating impact on Aboriginals.

It's not just the combined 140 years' experience of our agencies that
tells us the government measures will be catastrophic. The bills face
widespread opposition, from academics to criminologists to community
groups. Organizations like the Canadian Criminal Justice Association
and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network point out that almost every
empirical study indicates longer periods of incarceration do not deter
crime: they don't deter gun crime, they don't reduce drug use, and
they may actually increase the likelihood of re-offences or
recidivism. Negative experience is pushing jurisdictions from Britain
to Australia to reassess and retreat from longer, mandatory minimum
sentences.

The proposed restrictions on conditional sentencing are particularly
alarming. Ten years ago, Canada had one of the highest per capita
imprisonment rates in the developed world and a higher rate of crime
than today. Partly to address this appalling reality, parliament
adopted conditional sentencing in 1996. Where appropriate, offenders
serve supervised time in the community, not in prison. As the name
implies, these sentences entail conditions, like house arrest,
community service, mandatory substance abuse treatment, or counseling.

Over 50,000 conditional sentences later, Canadian experience shows
they have clearly reduced the number of incarcerations. And they have
served the rehabilitative purpose envisaged: They have been widely
used to assist offenders to tackle issues, like addictions, underlying
crime. Conditional sentences were essential in allowing Patricia,
Maggie, and Albert to transform their lives.

How will harsher sanctions help these people and thousands more like
them? Jail time hardens and scars human beings. It results in poverty,
isolation, erosion of health, and loss of children, employment,
autonomy, and self-esteem. Such outcomes increase the likelihood of
recidivism. Harsher sentences also don't address the root causes of
crime -- well documented as springing from adverse social, economic,
cultural, and family conditions. Today's abused and neglected child is
often tomorrow's offender.

The government approach carries a staggering price tag. Estimates put
additional prison spending at $5 billion to $11.5 billion over 10
years. And unless our taxes go up, that can be predicted to strip even
more resources from the very social programs that could make a
difference. Conditional sentences can help here, too. While it costs
about $45,000 per year to incarcerate a provincial prisoner, the costs
of alternative justice like community supervision are a fraction of
that, around $2,000 per year.

If we directed even a fraction of the billions earmarked for prisons
to health, education, housing, welfare, employment programs,
addictions and sexual-abuse treatment, and to agencies like ours that
assist offenders to re-enter society as law-abiding citizens, the
results would be enormously healing for individuals and
communities.

An iron-fisted approach to fighting crime doesn't work. We support
safe communities. However, Bills C-9 and C-10 won't deter or
rehabilitate offenders. They won't make our streets safer. We face a
clear choice: a reactive, punitive response already demonstrated to
fail, or an alternative course other countries have found to be both
more humane and more effective. Canada needs the latter, a different
vision of society from the brave new world the government is steering
us toward--one that would be safer and healthier for all of us.