Posts Tagged ‘corrections’
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If Correctional Services won’t fix solitary confinement, then Ottawa must
… solitary was never meant to be used as a blunt instrument to keep inmates in line. Its overuse is causing harm. Inmates in solitary are twice as likely to have self-harmed or attempted suicide. And a third of them have mental-health issues. Numerous bodies, including the UN, consider it cruel to place young offenders or people suffering a mental illness in solitary.
Tags: corrections, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
How the Trudeau government can fix Canada’s broken bail system
In Canada today, there are more legally innocent people in prison than there are guilty ones. The innocent – about 55 per cent of total prison populations – are people charged with crimes, many of them minor, non-violent offences, who are being detained by a system that is punitive, inequitable and ultimately self-defeating… Pretrial detention rates have become unacceptable… The government has said it will reform the bail system. Now it must summon the courage to do it.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, featured, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Tories spent less than 1% of $20 million meant for parents of missing or murdered children: watchdog
… the victims of crime ombudsman, plans to review the program to find out why money isn’t going to families who could use the financial help after dealing with a tragedy. The money is delivered through the employment insurance system and can be taken by either parent, or shared by both… set up by the previous Conservative government, [it] provides $350 a week, before tax, for up to 35 weeks to parents of children under the age of 18 who have been killed or have gone missing as a result of a criminal act.
Tags: budget, corrections, mental Health, rights, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Four fixes for Canada’s broken justice system
One Criminal Code amendment can undo the worst of the mandatory measures that have eliminated judicial discretion and thereby reduced public safety… Second, the most serious contributor to overcrowding in provincial/territorial prisons is the growth in the number of remand prisoners — most of whom are still legally innocent… Third, repeal the most egregious government-supported private member’s bills controlling release from penitentiary… Fourth, refocus tax dollars on high-risk offenders, and stop wasting money on those who are low-risk.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, featured, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Time to give credit where it is due [Harper Gov’t.]
They made training in the skilled trades a priority… They made departmental spending reviews the norm in Ottawa… They made life easier for families with disabled members… They refrained from slashing provincial transfers… They steered Canada through the 2008-2009 recession with minimal damage… On the negative side of the ledger, the Harper government turned Ottawa into an increasingly impenetrable bastion, weakened democratic institutions, divided Canadians into friends and foes and enacted harsh, punitive laws.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, disabilities, economy, ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Trudeau begins to reverse Harper’s ugly legacy of over-reaching legislation
Given the growing number of court challenges to these laws, the Liberals should fix what’s wrong, as speedily as possible, then turn their attention to other issues… Here are a few places to start: Bill C-51… Citizenship… Sentencing… Refugees… On Harper’s watch Canadian law grew ever more heedless of civil rights, contemptuous of the judiciary, unreasonably punitive, and unfriendly to minorities and refugees. Canadians voted for something better on Oct. 19.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, featured, ideology, immigration, multiculturalism
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Most people in jail today are innocent
The homeless, addicted and mentally ill (who are often all three) are more likely to end up in jail, innocent or not, and more likely to be a victim of a crime, than the rest of us…. the bail system is all about public fears, and, I hate to say it, self-preservation by the decision-makers… The legal test for bail in Canada is similarly organized around risk aversion: risk of flight, risk of harm and then more risk analysis. Protecting the public from risk is a mug’s game that’s ended up jailing a lot of innocent people.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, poverty, rights
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
How we created a Canadian prison crisis
Prisons in most parts of Canada are experiencing overcrowding, violence, insufficient rehabilitative programs, a lack of graduated, supportive reintegration programs for prisoners returning to communities, and inadequate mental and physical medical attention for an increasingly older and needier prison population. Our prisons are no longer able to provide the tools and incentives to reform prisoners and return them to a life free of crime in the way that they have done in the past.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | 1 Comment »
We can’t afford to make cuts to drug court
The Toronto Drug Treatment Court may be the best thing we do…. [It’s] an alternative to jail for those who get nailed on drug or drug-related charges; instead of going to the slammer, men and women get a chance to choose treatment… it helps men and women break the cycle of drugs, crime and the law; it saves money by cutting the cost of enforcement; it keeps the city safer by reducing certain kinds of crime; oh, and it saves lives. We should be doubling and redoubling our efforts. And yet we are forced to cut back.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Stop criminalizing mental illness
… the urgent message in Unlocking Change: Decriminalizing Mental Health Issues in Ontario, a powerful and forward-looking new report from the John Howard Society of Ontario. It calls on… government to invest far more heavily in community-based and clinical mental health care as the province rolls out the next phase of a 10-year strategy to help people with mental illness. “The justice system should not be seen as the first viable access point for treatment”
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, disabilities, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
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