CRIME BILL HYSTERIA

No, the Tories aren't 'Americanizing' Canadian justice

Today let's separate the sensible opposition
concerns about the Tories' omnibus crime bill from the absurd ones.

It's legitimate for the opposition to ask why the
Conservatives are determined to pass this huge
bill within their totally artificial deadline of
100 sitting days since taking office, since they
have a majority government and almost four years to do so.

The problem with omnibus bills is that in
attempting to jam a wide range of legislation
into one document, they often result in
legislative blunders that would not have occurred
if the bills had been scrutinized separately.

That said, there is much in the Tory bill that is
sensible and that the opposition parties have,
ironically, criticized them in the past for not
introducing as omnibus legislation.

For example, stricter laws to protect children
from sex crimes, codifying the rights of crime
victims at parole hearings and toughening
eligibility for parole, long overdue when a
rapist sentenced to nine years in prison can
typically be out on unescorted day passes in 18
months and full parole in three years.

Some proposals need refining =AD for example, one
which would see a marijuana grower with as few as
six plants sentenced to a mandatory minimum of
six months in prison. That said, the Tories are
rightly determined to increase light penalties
for large-scale grow-ops run by organized crime.

Other proposals which will strike most people as
reasonable =AD for example, ending the present
practice of handing out criminal pardons like
candy =AD nonetheless raise the hackles of
opposition MPs, criminal lawyers, academics and prisoners' rights groups.

Keep in mind, however, that the passage of new
laws alone rarely toughens=94 the justice system as
much as intended, given inevitable court
challenges before a judiciary, which is too often
out of touch with the views of ordinary Canadians
on crime and particularly violent crime.

The Tories would be better advised to package
their less -controversial initiatives into one
bill for speedy passage and then devote the time
to getting the more contentious legislation right
and thus less likely to be overturned in the courts.

That said, one must have sympathy for Prime
Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in
that every time they try to reform the justice
system, all the usual suspects immediately ramp
up their silly, hysterical rhetoric to absurd levels.

For example, the ridiculous charge the Tories are
driving us toward American rates of prison incarceration.

In reality, there would appear to be very little danger of this.

According to the International Centre for Prison
Studies, Canada imprisons 116 criminals per
100,000 population compared to 756 per 100,000 in the U.S.

This means the U.S. incarceration is 550% higher than ours.

While our incarceration rate surpasses some
European countries, we are below the average of
the 34 member nations of the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development.

Tory sentencing reforms will, if successful,
raise our incarceration rates closer to that of
comparable, first-world, English-speaking
countries, all of which at present have higher
incarceration rates than ours, including England
and Wales (153 per 100,000) Australia (129),
Scotland (152) and New Zealand (185).

So the next time the charter members of Canada's
=93hug-a-thug=94 crazy train charge the Tories are
=93Americanizing=94 Canadian incarceration rates, try confusing them with
the facts.