[andyt]

http://www.theprovince.com/opinion/editorials/Tough+crime+backyard/4835945/story.html

Quote:

Despite falling crime rates, Canadians have been quick to embrace the Conservative's "get tough on crime" agenda, which calls for longer, more frequent and in some cases minimum sentences for criminals.

But in reality, the Tories are really just reacting for political reasons to public anger at what is perceived to be a justice system that is too "soft" on lawbreakers. Whenever news of a fresh, terrible crime becomes widely known, there's an almost instant, knee-jerk response from the public denouncing the courts and calling for longer sentences, as if that were the entire answer. A spirit of revenge fills the air.

But what happens when the government tries to build the new prisons that will be needed for all this new "toughness?" Suddenly, Canadians lose interest. It happened in Burnaby not long ago, but the latest example is Penticton, where thousands of voters have signed a petition opposing a proposed new prison, despite having recently elected a Tory MP.

If we're going to lock up more people, more prisons will have to be build somewhere. Or, given the expense of incarceration-$343,810 a year for women and $223,687 for men in maximum security, according to Parliament's budget officer -we could rethink the plan to incarcerate more people as our main response to crime and seek other solutions.

But that's unlikely to happen, given the federal government's fresh mandate and enthusiasm for its own policies.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Why the hell does the gov't insist on building max security prisons in urban areas?
They should build more around the same latitude as the one near Prince Albert if they're gonna build 'em.

[GreenTiger]

Typical stuff applies to the States as well.

[andyt]

What blew my mind was the cost of housing prisoners.

[Freakinoldguy]

Crime rates may be going down but you couldn't tell it in the City where I live.

In the past month we've had numerous pervs expose themselves to women jogging, we had a 14 year old girl sexually assaulted, another young woman just down the street from me sexually assaulted in her home and to top it off wednesday we had a young mother murdered in a small park in a well patroled residential area.

Maybe these incidents are just clusters, like cancer clusters or maybe it has something to do with having a medium security prison in the area.

If that's the case it's not hard to understand why people want to get tough on crime but, given the fact that our judicial system is to put it mildly lax, when it comes to sentencing criminals, still want those prisons built in someone elses backyard.

Hell if I could have the one here moved, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

[BeaverFever]

"You couldnt tell it" is a really bad metric. The average suburbanite has no ability to determine whether the crime rate is up or down since they dont have access to that actual data; the media will hype up one-off crimes as they occur to make it sound as if the apocalypse is upon us. "ALL IS WELL" has never been a best-selling headline.

That said, the Conservative Prison Agenda is unnecessary. As the current Head of Corrections Canada recently pointed out, the prison system is currently serving as the defacto mental health and substance abuse service centre due to lack of resourees in those areas. Inst.ead of some juvenile revenge fantasy scenario of longer sentences, the gov needs to look fo rnew ways to solve the problem.

[DanSC]

andyt wrote:

What blew my mind was the cost of housing prisoners.

It's crazy expensive. Here it's usually more expensive per year than in-state tuition, room, and board at a public university.

[Freakinoldguy]

BeaverFever wrote:

"You couldnt tell it" is a really bad metric. The average suburbanite has no ability to determine whether the crime rate is up or down since they dont have access to that actual data; the media will hype up one-off crimes as they occur to make it sound as if the apocalypse is upon us. "ALL IS WELL" has never been a best-selling headline.

That said, the Conservative Prison Agenda is unnecessary. As the current Head of Corrections Canada recently pointed out, the prison system is currently serving as the defacto mental health and substance abuse service centre due to lack of resourees in those areas. Inst.ead of some juvenile revenge fantasy scenario of longer sentences, the gov needs to look fo rnew ways to solve the problem.

It may be a bad metric but since I don't believe the media, the police, groups like the John Howard society or government statistics I can only go on what goes on in my area and Suprise Suprise. Crime is up, especially violent crime.

Now I wonder how that happened, when everyone seems to be telling me that crime is down?

I don't have a problem with the government building facicilites to put mentally disturbed people or drug addicts where they belong, be it either a mental institution or substance abuse program, but I do take exception to people in these facilities, prisons included being released before their therapy, sentence or mental attitude makes them safe for public consumption.

And despite the fact that all kinds of agencies keep telling Canadians that crime is down, given cases like the ones that have made the news lately, I can fully understand why people don't want any of these facilities built near their communities.

[PostFactum]

The cost may include:moving, food, clothes, gas, electricity, enterteiment. Part of prisoners are working. I would like to see how half of million dollars is spending on this. Human rights cost too much money.

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ca-canada/cri-crime

[andyt]

Freakinoldguy wrote:

It may be a bad metric but since I don't believe the media, the police, groups like the John Howard society or government statistics I can only go on what goes on in my area and Suprise Suprise. Crime is up, especially violent crime.

Now I wonder how that happened, when everyone seems to be telling me that crime is down?

I don't have a problem with the government building facicilites to put mentally disturbed people or drug addicts where they belong, be it either a mental institution or substance abuse program, but I do take exception to people in these facilities, prisons included being released before their therapy, sentence or mental attitude makes them safe for public consumption.

And despite the fact that all kinds of agencies keep telling Canadians that crime is down, given cases like the ones that have made the news lately, I can fully understand why people don't want any of these facilities built near their communities.

Jeez no wonder that Harper is so successful with his red meat pitches. Police and academics who study the statistics have been reporting for years that crime is down in both the US and Canada. But you know better. Do you have actual data to prove that crime is up in your neighborhood?

And, even in the US, some of the right wingers are realizing that their tough on crime approach costs a fortune and hasn't produced results. I doubt if they're ready to take the next step and realize that poverty alleviation will do way more and cost way less to achieve crime reduction, but it's a start.

[Brenda]

Why are women's prisons more expensive?

(keep the smart ass comments to yourself, I am really wondering why that is)

[raydan]

Brenda wrote:

Why are women's prisons more expensive?

(keep the smart ass comments to yourself, I am really wondering why that is)

Economy of scale in men's prisons, is my guess.

[BeaverFever]

Quote:

I don't have a problem with the government building facicilites to put mentally disturbed people or drug addicts where they belong, be it either a mental institution or substance abuse program, but I do take exception to people in these facilities, prisons included being released before their therapy, sentence or mental attitude makes them safe for public consumption.

I agree, but the problem is most of the ppl with those conditions who end up in the criminal justice system as result of actions caused by their condition just get sent to prison, there's not much opportunity for them to get treatment, especially drug addicts.

Part of that problem is that a person with a mental health condition can not be sent to treatment involuntarily unless they present at risk to harm themselves or or are mentally unfit for trial of a crime they committed, which has a very high standard and difficult to meet. But since one symptom of many types of mental illness is the patient's refusal to admit they have an illness or accept treatment, they often just go to jail for petty and nuissance crimes that are the clear result of their behaviour, even when they have been diagnosed. I know someone who is going through that right now, this person is brilliant and earns a 6-figure income but has a mental condition, went off their meds recently and ended up having an episode, where they sent a bunch of harrassing emails to someone in another province that they had some old grudge against. They ended up getting charged with criminal harrassment. While stil in that manic state, they told police they would flee the country, so they had to post bail instead of being released on their recognisance. The person who bailed them out made mental health treatment a condition of the bail but the accused refused the treatment so bail was revoked and they've been in jail for over a month now...all for sending emails! I'm told that the accused is refusing to petition for any kind of dismissal on mental health grounds and has stated that if they are found guilty, they will not seek a mental health diversion at sentencing because in their mind, there is some vast conspiracy against them and they're not crazy. Even if you or I had been charged with some similar crime, we would probable never need bail or spend a second in jail. So not only does the illness cause them to get charged with a crime, it causes them to make irrational and bad decsisions in their own criminal case that compound ontop of eachother and result in incarceration and excess charges.

My point here is that rather than building more prisons and coming with ways to put more people in them for longer times, we should find a way to get people out of prisons who really should be elsewhere.

[OnTheIce]

Yea, prosecuting criminals is too expensive. Just let them do their thing and save us some money.

Fuck the victims....let's let rapists out in 4 months cause they've been good boys.

[Brenda]

OnTheIce wrote:

Yea, prosecuting criminals is too expensive. Just let them do their thing and save us some money.

Fuck the victims....let's let rapists out in 4 months cause they've been good boys.

Just legalize all crime. Problem solved!