Posts Tagged ‘corrections’
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Timely warning for Canada about prisons
Friday, September 9th, 2011
Sep 08 2011
Between 1980 and 2009, America’s prison population quintupled. It now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world (715 inmates per 100,000 people). What makes all this relevant to Canadians in September of 2011 is that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is poised to embark on the same path the U.S. took a generation ago… here is what Canadians can expect: • An exponential growth in prisons… • A deterioration of the social structures that communities need to prevent crime… • A disproportionate increase in the number of poor, non-white people behind bars…
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, featured, ideology, rights, tax
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Conrad Black’s broadside against Canada’s prison plan
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
Sep 05 2011
To Black, Canada is about to model the U.S. prison system — which he describes as an inhumane and unjust factory farm that dehumanizes inmates, breeds an underclass that can never reintegrate and will exact a long-term toll on society… the penal system isolates and punishes for life “a very large number of people who have been for the most part socioeconomically comparatively disadvantaged.” … More important than how such treatment “festers in their minds” is how “great a social damage a country does or society does to itself by pursuing that kind of penal and justice system,” he said.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Zeal to punish eliminates a useful tool
Monday, August 29th, 2011
Aug 27 2011
Unfortunately, conditional sentences… were eliminated in the last session of Parliament, thus ending Canada’s tradition of granting discretion and independence to the judiciary… Perceived as lenient, conditional sentences… have been criticized by the public, the media and advocacy groups… But the study dispelled this misconception and showed they were being used appropriately… Denunciation and imprisonment satisfy society’s desire to punish offenders and reinforce shared values by deterring crime. However, there is little evidence to support the general deterrence argument.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, youth
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Rogers death was a turning point
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
August 10, 2011
The drug overdose death of Kimberly Rogers, 40, who was eight months pregnant, resulted in province-wide debate, a coroner’s inquest and a new direction for the health unit… Medical officer of health Dr. Penny Sutcliffe testified at the 2002 inquest… addressing the inadequacies of social assistance rates to fund a healthy diet and other issues relating to welfare. About that time, the health unit began to focus on the link between the social and economic health of a community and the physical health of its citizens
Tags: corrections, ideology, mental Health, poverty, women
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Helping homeless helps reduce crime
Sunday, August 7th, 2011
August 2, 2011
So what do lower crime rates actually mean? To me it means we are doing better at caring for people… Does that mean we should hire more police and pass tougher laws? Maybe. Does it mean we should expand our support for those in poverty? Probably. Do we need more prisons? No, because we put too many non-violent offenders in prison… What I do know is lifting people out of poverty will only continue to drop our crime rates.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, disabilities, homelessness, ideology, poverty
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Crime rate fell again in 2010, at lowest level since 1973: StatsCan
Saturday, July 30th, 2011
07/21/2011
Canada’s crime rate fell last year to its lowest level in nearly four decades — a statistic opposition MPs claim as proof the governing Conservatives need not spend billions on new jails… So what’s behind the drop? The experts point the finger at shifting demographics. Their theory goes like this: the number of young people in this country is shrinking. Younger people tend to commit more crimes than older people. So if there are fewer younger people, it follows there will also be less crime… The crime severity index is at its lowest point since 1998, the first year for which such data are available.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Report says global war on drugs has failed
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
July 26, 2011
…the report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy headed “War On Drugs”… completed in June, 2011… states, in part, that: * The global war on drugs has failed with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. * Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption… The Report also contains a number of significant recommendations as well as analysis of decriminalization initiatives by a number of countries.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, Health, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
More prisons are OK, but why is the confusing part
Monday, July 25th, 2011
July 23, 2011
…if the Conservatives want to spend $4 billion to $10 billion building new prisons and making our laws tougher — at a time when health care, education, infrastructure and other services are screaming for more funding — this government needs to make a more convincing argument. Actually, it doesn’t need to — due to its majority in Parliament. Harper and company should, however. The get-tough-on-crime laws and policy will be the first major legislation in this government’s term of office. Canadians deserve better reasons why it’s needed.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
The national shame of aboriginal incarceration
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Jul. 20, 2011
Federal correctional investigator Howard Sapers, in his 2009 report, says that the gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal offenders continues to grow and that the rate for aboriginal incarceration in 2008 was nine times the national average. This gap will widen and these numbers will increase with the Harper government’s proposed crime bill. The ugly reality is that aboriginals will be especially hard hit by this legislation… Among women offenders, the overrepresentation is even more dramatic – one in three federally sentenced women is aboriginal.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, Indigenous, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Canada’s youth crime plans bewilder international observers
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
Jul. 19, 2011
Judges, criminologists and policy-makers in the United States, Britain and Australia – countries whose systems, for the most part, closely resemble Canada’s – can’t figure out why this country is planning to shift toward a jail-intensive approach. Everyone else seems to be doing the opposite, not for ideological reasons, but because evidence shows it works… “I don’t think it deters anything,” he said. “You have to look at what type of community are you building by constantly sending kids to jail.”
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, youth
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
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