CREATING CRIMINALS

Why the government wants you to be scared, and how it works

It is the traditional duty of the steely Conservative to position him
or herself (mostly himself, however, as a simple function of
participation numbers) against all things criminal. Criminality is
everywhere. First, it must be feared. Then, laws must be passed and
police forces further empowered. Finally, prisons must be built.
Perhaps in some glorious future those prisons will be private. In the
interim, that billions are spent on them will have to suffice.

To recap:

Conservative Party: Tough on crime.

Liberal Party: Likes to see innocent people savaged by the criminally
insane.

NDP: Criminally insane.

Bloc Quebecois: Flag-burners.

Green Party: Irrelevant.

Although crime rates in Canada have been decreasing for years, the
Conservative government feels that the time is nigh to spend $9.5
billion on the prison system. A week ago, Treasury Board President
Stockwell Day convened a press conference in which he justified these
costs by an apparent increase in unreported crime, at the same time
acknowledging that instances of reported crime are decreasing.

"We're very concerned about the increase in unreported crime that
surveys clear show is happening," he said when questioned by the CBC.

Headlines over the next few days rightly tussled Day. What sort of
sense does it make when you spend billions on prisons for criminals
that aren't in the system for crimes that haven't been investigated?
It helps to remember that this is a man who once rode up to press
conferences on a Sea-doo. Unsurprisingly, by the time he came to Truro
last Saturday for breakfast with Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit
Valley MP Scott Armstrong, well, most people had grown tired of
putting Day in newspapers.

Although Day couldn't remember, or didn't know, the $9.5 billion
represents simple, instinctual Conservative prison spending. The
government has just eliminated the two-for-one credit for time served
in pre-sentencing, and that alone is expected to cost $10 billion.

After Day bumped his sorely-bruised head against the Peter principle,
along came Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, flanked by police chiefs,
to announce new laws in dealing with so-called organized crime. The
hope is that now the crime rate will go back up because there are more
crimes to report. It's a numbers game. Don't you and your friends be
caught betting on sports; that's organized crime. And if you thought
we were starting to move past the whole marijuana thing, you're wrong;
if you traffic in any quantity, you are participating in organized
crime. As for all the call girls making a living in the classifieds at
back of The Coast, they are also criminals of the organized variety.
All these infractions and more will get you at least five years in
prison.

"That's the whole point of being the government," says Stephen Moore's
character in Pirate Radio. "If you don't like something you simply
make it illegal."

The sad thing here is that suppressing activity like gambling, light
drug use, and prostitution actually causes more criminality and violence.

The funny thing here, if you're the sardonic type, is that in that
same press conference Day attributed the official drop in crime rates
to preventative measures, which are NDP-esque means of catching
criminals before they become criminals. Forget cops and jails; think
basketball courts and jobs.

Why do we put up with this? Speaking last weekend to National Post
reporter Joseph Brean, sociologist Frank Furedi labelled Canada as one
of the most intrusive societies in the world, which probably sounds
ridiculous when we think of places like Saudi Arabia.

And yet, when you think about it, how many layers and layers of law,
moral and otherwise, do we butt heads with everyday? Do they make us
safer? Or more fearful? Are we under siege? Or are we just desperate
for purpose and structure?

According to Furedi, laws give us purpose. We're like dogs who need to
know where to sit while we wait for dinner. Or, from another
perspective, rules are like religion; they give our lives meaning.

Take the recent Ontario law forbidding drivers under 21 to have any
alcohol in their systems whatsoever. The reason? Three young men died
in a car crash after drinking all day. One of the fathers took out ads
in the paper urging Premier Dalton McGuinty to toughen rules, and
observers say the new law is a result of that lobby effort.

The deceased had been drinking all day. They were drunk. Odds are,
they would've been drinking all day and wound up drunk with or without
Ontario's new law.

The whole thing begins to smack of pretty unpalatable cynicism when
you realize people like Day and other tough-on-crime advocates could
just be playing politics with your emotions.

From helmets to streetwalkers, it's easy to get the feeling that some
people want us to be scared. Not only does it boost revenues when
fines are paid, but it associates the purveyors of the rules with a
greater meaning. And meaning, like money, is power.