SUPPORTING ATAMANENKO'S WISDOM

To the editor:

I am writing in response to the NDN article "Tory calls out
Atamanenko" because I have a strong interest in supporting social and
ecological justice issues.

I perceive Perley Holmes' bid to serve his eight-year sentence (for
smuggling cocaine) in a Canadian jail, as opposed to an American jail,
to be an important social justice issue with far reaching
repercussions to Canadian society.

Of course, we all want people to be held accountable for their crimes;
if one makes a serious mistake one should serve a debt to society via
a sentence of some kind as per our current judicial system.

The issue here is neither a debate about that, nor about '...conjuring
up any sympathy for someone..." as referred to by Cariboo conservative
MP Dick Harris.

The issue is that Canada has an agreement with the United States that
allows for prison transfers, and this agreement should be utilized by
the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety Peter Van Loan in order to
bring Canadian prisoners home to Canada.

As suggested by Southern Interior NDP MP Atamanenko, an important
reason to do so is that the Canadian prison system is fundamentally
different than the American prison system in that the Canadian System
is not a privatized industry with a legal mandate for profit allowing
for the highest national incarceration rate in the world
(702/100,000)

The Canadian system, statistically, provides those incarcerated
(107/100,000)with better chances of rehabilitation and reintegration
into society.

If Canadian citizens serve American jail terms they would be sent home
(to Canada) at the end of their sentences, and then what?

Canadian society benefits from having Canadian citizens serve their
sentences in Canada because there is a much higher chance of them
becoming productive members of our society upon their release back
into our communities.

As well as that, we can all be as smug as we want about the dangerous
use of cocaine in our society, however, cocaine use is widespread and
touches every echelon of society.

The criminalization of private citizens for drug offenses continues as
major global drug policy and traders finance many aspects of our
"system" as it exists and do not face the same accountability as
citizens, and huge pharmaceutical drug companies commit corporate
crimes that put the Canadian public at risk and take no social
responsibility for it (in fact big pharma seeks broad based
indemnification from society).

The Conservative agenda to "Get Tough on Drugs and Crime" adheres to
the failed American "War on Drugs" policy, which one of my many great
teachers pointed out is an approach to drug crime, crime in general,
and societal drug addiction that only make these serious social
problems worse.

Punitive get-tough policies don't work and inevitably cause more tax
dollars being spent on prisons.

We should focus our tax dollars on protection of the public, not on
increasing both the number of citizens incarcerated and the punitive
treatment of those criminals.

I support MP Atamanenko in his wisdom to forgo short-term problems for
long-term problems and to consider ALL available facts.

Kirstin Olsen, Chris Mason

Slocan Park