FEDS WILL SPEND MILLIONS TO EXPAND B.C. PRISONS

The federal government announced Monday that it will spend $77.5
million to expand prisons in B.C.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews made the announcement to the press
in Abbotsford saying that the cash will help ensure that convicted
criminals will "serve sentences that better reflect the severity of
their crimes."

The money will cover the cost of building a new 96-bed residence at
the Kent Institution and Matsqui Institution as well as a new 96-bed
chronic care centre at the Ferndale Institution. Additionally the
funds will help facilitate the creation of 24 new beds at the Fraser
Valley Institution.

Provincial correction centres have also recently received increased
infrastructure investment. Last year the provincial government
earmarked $3,9 million upgrades to the PGRCC as part of a
federal/provincial accelerated infrastructure program.

That expansion was part of a $185-million capital plan to increase
prison capacity across the province.

The reason that both governments are ratcheting up their corrections
spending is a series of laws passed by the Conservative government as
part of their tough-on-crime agenda will dramatically increase the
number of prisoners going through the system and the length of time
they stay there.

S-10 would impose "mandatory minimum" sentences on minor drug
convictions, effectively tying the arms of judges who could otherwise
use discretion when sentencing convicts to time in jam-packed prisons.

Correctional Services of Canada Commissioner Don Head testified to a
parliamentary committee in October that the government would need to
spend $2 billion in order to deal with 4,500 new prisoners as result
of the new legislation.

At the same time that Canada is looking to introduce mandatory
minimum sentences, states across the U.S. are repealing laws that
failed to decrease crime and led to an explosion in their prison populations.

Critics of prison expansion say that the government is moving in the
wrong direction and that increasing prison populations actually makes
crime worse.

SFY Criminology professor Liz Hill was honoured by the Correctional
Service of Canada for being the driving force behind a different
approach to dealing with conflict: restorative justice.

But she stressed that restorative justice needs to flow from the
community as a whole, rather than through institutions like the RCMP
who send first time offenders who admit guilt to the Fort St. John
Restorative Justice Society.

She said this reliance on the existing justice system has limited the
scope of restorative justice in the province so that it has become
tethered to what Hill called an archaic system designed in the 1800s
that doesn't reflect a vastly changed society.

The problem with relying too much on the RCMP is that the victims are
still being used for a means to an end Hill said.

"You invite victims to come in but at the end of the day they're
still being used to process a case through a system where punishment
is not for the offender or for the victim, it's for everyone else," said Hill.

Currently in Fort St. John restorative justice is used primarily for
first time offenders who face mischief, vandalism, and shoplifting charges.

However, Hill said that studies have proven that a restorative
justice approach actually works better for violent crimes because in
the case of shoplifting the victim is a corporation rather than an individual.

"Violent offence mediation is much more powerful and that's not
surprising," said Hill.

In comparison to the bevy of funds earmarked for B.C.'s prisons, the
amount of money spent on restorative justice is negligible.

Each community qualifies for a grant of $2,500 and most of that money
goes to police and community services, said Hill.

"B.C.'s a joke in the restorative justice community," said Hill.

The upside of the situation, Hill said is that "If they're not giving
you the money they can't tell you what to do."

More money for prisons rather than innovative conflict mediation is
laughable to Hill.

"A bunch of frightened men who don't know how to handle the problem
so they revert to 18th century ideas of how this work should be
done," said Hill.

It's not that Hill is against prisons per se.

"I believe in the need for restraint, but for six pot plants,
please," she said.