So says Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society regarding the Canadian prison system.
Why is the Harper government taking millions more dollars out of our pockets in times of massive deficit?
… expenditures for the coming fiscal year will increase 43 per cent, to $329.4 million in 2010-2011, from $230.8 million in 2009-2010 …
If the Americans have taught us anything, it’s that longer prison sentences don’t work in reducing crime.
The best moment in the movie Sicko was the scene showing that the vile terrorists get better Health Care in Guantanamo Bay than survivors of the American families victimized. The health personnel-to-detainee ratio is 1 to 4 there.
Perhaps Harper should look more closely at the Mexican prison system. In Mexico prisoners are expected to pay for their own cost of incarceration. Work camps are a far better deterrent than free dental.
prp
Rick McCharles 
Hey Rick …
You wrote, “Work camps are a far better deterrent than free dental.”
Got any evidence for this or are you just going to assert in a fact-free kind of way?
Craig Jones
You’re right, Craig. I’ve done no research.
Yet despite evidence I believe that many prisoners in Canada have it better than the working poor outside.
One anecdote, …
A lawyer friend of mine in northern Canada has a clientele mostly from the First Nations. He tells me that some of his “regulars” plan to get locked up each Fall for a few months. It’s too cold for alcoholics to survive the winter.
They are careful to commit a crime that will get them released in time for Spring. Breaking into a liquor store and drinking until morning was one of those crimes, I recall.
You wrote: “Yet despite evidence I believe ….”
Uh-huh.
Let me ask you this, in all seriousness: would you be okay with your federal government making, say, air traffic safety regulations on the basis of evidence-free assertions?
If the Minister of Transport stood up in the House and said, “The experts in air traffic safety tell us we should do x, y and z. I have not done the research, but I believe ….”
You’d be freaking out. At least you SHOULD be freaking out.
But when the Minister of Justice testifies before a Senate Committee that “we don’t use evidence” when making amendments to the criminal code, or “we believe” statements that are essentially fact-free, that doesn’t strike you as curious?
Is it because the PM says that experts on crime, corrections and justice are not to be trusted?
If he said the same thing about air traffic safety, would you agree?
Of course your arguments are valid, Craig.
But I’m not interested enough to do detailed research into whether or not a 43% increase in any federal department is justified, or not.
I’m ASSuming that Canada’s right wing party will be trying to distract from the real issues (i.e. economy) with bogus posturing (i.e. “we’re tough on crime”)
That’s what I’m moaning about.