Part 1: Does Bill C-10 lead us away from good common sense?
This is section one of the Bill C-10 position released by the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council (WRCPC). Over the next week we will post one position paper section each day for discussion and dialogue. Our position paper was sent to all Members of the Senate as well as our local Members of Parliament in December 2011.
The reactions to C-10, including those presented to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (JUST), have been nothing short of overwhelming. Based on a review of these reactions and a vibrant community dialogue within our community we respectfully posed the following questions about C-10 as part of our position paper:
Does C-10 lead us away from good common sense?
By failing to look at crime as an issue that is broader than the crime itself, C-10 narrows the spectrum of thinking and action to mostly moral considerations which are inevitably volatile to subjective judgments. The Canadian public is intelligent! Canadian laws should match our collective ability to understand the complexities of problems. And crime is a complex problem. Taxpayers should not be asked to pay for a strategy that defies good common sense. C-10 is based on little, if any, evidence with regards to tangible benefits, least of all benefits for victims of crime that deserve our compassion and commitment to change.
Nobody knows this better than our neighbors to the South. The United States has more than 30 years of experience pursuing a similar strategy that increased incarceration rates 600% over this period (with an equivalent increase in cost). By now 25% percent of the world’s prison population is housed in the United States.
Will Canada be on a course to match or beat that record with no substantial benefit to communities?
The U.S. has the highest documented rate of incarceration in the Western world, and yet 60% of Americans feel less safe in their own neighborhoods than they did a year ago. Canadians on the other hand report feeling safer than they did one year ago. The imbalance between intent and outcome in the US situation comes at a staggering cost of $68 billion every year, not including the loss in productivity. And yet, for all the money spent, there has been no reduction in crime that can be attributed to the higher rates in incarceration.
Nor is the recidivism rate lower. In fact, mandatory minimum sentences reduce prisoners’ incentives for good behaviour, including participation in counseling for substance abuse, domestic violence issues, etc. — and this in turn increases our overall vulnerabilities to crime upon their release. The Bureau of U.S. Justice Statistics states that half of the prisoners released in any one year in the US are expected to be back in prison within three years.
Additionally, three-quarters of new admissions to state prisons are for non-violent crimes, with the single greatest cause of prison population growth in the U.S. attributable to people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. WRCPC submitted its concerns about mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences as proposed in C-15 to the Senate in July 2009.
Many Americans are urging Canadians not to repeat their mistakes, including Republican governors and state legislators in such states as Texas, South Carolina, and Ohio which are now repealing mandatory minimum sentences, increasing community supervision, and funding drug treatment because it is seen as a better mechanism for improving public safety and reducing taxpayers’ costs.
If passed, C-10 will take Canadian justice policies in a direction that defies good common sense not only based on research but also based on experiences in the US and elsewhere.
Legislation has to be examined on its merits not sentiments.
Regrettably, C-10 puts us on a course of more crime, less justice, less safety, less protection for the victims, and less protection for society overall at a greater cost than we currently have or are likely to be able to afford in the future.
What do you think? Does Bill C-10 lead us away from good common sense?
You can download the full position paper here and be sure to visit the Smart on Crime blog each day over the next week to participate in the discussion on the remaining sections of the position paper.