Posts Tagged ‘crime prevention’
Ontario’s closure of youth detention facilities has not resulted in more support for young people
Sunday, September 29th, 2024
The move to shift youth in the justice system away from confinement and towards community is a positive one. However, without investment in community-based service providers to support youth being transitioned out of custodial settings, it is unlikely that youth will thrive. Such failures are likely to increase acute mental health crises and demands on ambulatory care within general medicine and psychiatric hospitals… [and] increase the number of youth who will come into conflict with the criminal legal system as adults.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, Indigenous, jurisdiction, poverty, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
The Ford government gets it wrong on drugs
Wednesday, September 4th, 2024
… on what basis has the government concluded that these sites are doing more to aggravate than to mitigate the drug crisis? On what basis has it concluded that public use is more likely to fall and public safety to rise as these sites close? What, other than the political mood or the premier’s oft-stated personal distaste, led it to this decision? The answers to these questions are not apparent either in the government’s announcement or in the available evidence.
Tags: crime prevention, Health, ideology, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Take it from a retired judge, Premier Ford — here’s what you don’t get about our judicial system
Wednesday, August 7th, 2024
Every case needs to be judged on its own facts and circumstances. Every accused person has a right (not a privilege) to be heard. I believe the key truth you are missing, Premier, is the cornerstone of our system — the presumption of innocence… They are innocent until the moment a judge or jury is satisfied that the state has proven their guilt. Would you change that?
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario expanding jails by several hundred beds to deal with overflowing institutions
Tuesday, June 11th, 2024
As of September 30, 2023, there was an average of 8,889 people in provincial jails, well over the 7,848-person capacity. Overall, the jails were operating at 113 per cent capacity at that time. Premier Doug Ford pledged in March to build more jails to deal with an influx of inmates, the vast majority of whom are innocent and awaiting trial. Ontario will reopen two intermittent detention centres inside Toronto and London jails that had been closed in order to add up to 430 beds by 2026.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, mental Health
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Court strikes down most of Ontario’s Mike Harris-era anti-panhandling law
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024
Most of Ontario’s bans on panhandling in public places… have been struck down by a Toronto judge as unconstitutional… While finding that the ban on squeegeeing and panhandling in roadways should be upheld, Centa struck down all other prohibitions on soliciting donations in public, including from people near public toilets, payphones, ATMs, taxi stands and public transit stops, as well as on transit vehicles and in parking lots.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, jurisdiction, rights
Posted in Governance Policy Context | No Comments »
Pierre Poilievre’s proposed mandatory minimum penalties will not reduce crime
Tuesday, March 5th, 2024
… with MMPs [mandatory minimum penalties], Parliament removes judicial discretion for any sentencing option other than imprisonment and imposes a minimum term of incarceration, regardless of the facts of the case… The evidence shows that MMPs are ineffective at reducing crime, may actually increase recidivism, are highly vulnerable to being struck down by the courts as unconstitutional, can increase delays in an overburdened system, and perpetuate systemic racism.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
The crisis hitting small-town Ontario
Saturday, February 24th, 2024
Communities across the province are grappling with overdoses and appealing for more resources to deal with the crisis… According to the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network, the opioid death rate is three times higher in northern than southern Ontario… While we often hear complaints about the lack of sufficient treatment and harm reduction facilities in large cities like Toronto, smaller communities are lucky if they have any at all.
Tags: crime prevention, Health, jurisdiction, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Toronto is getting a fourth emergency service. That’s vital for helping people in crisis
Wednesday, November 29th, 2023
The service, which offers a non-police, community-based response to people experiencing mental health crises… will soon cover the entire city… Police are, after all, not trained mental health professionals, and police involvement has all too often ended in tragedy. In contrast, 93 per cent of the crisis calls were successfully completed, and 95 per cent of people served by crisis teams said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the service.
Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, homelessness, ideology, mental Health
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
‘We have a system that has lost its integrity’: Canada moves to reform its international student program
Monday, October 30th, 2023
“The worst of the private colleges are the storefront, fly-by-night operation, and they’re really dashing people’s hopes in this country. And those need to be shut down,” said Miller, adding that education is outside of the federal jurisdiction and it takes provincial leadership to address these problems… A new program has been developed to let immigration and border officials to quickly authenticate international students’ offer letters and payment status in real time.
Tags: crime prevention, immigration, multiculturalism, participation
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Montréal’s ‘mixed’ police squads don’t help the city’s unhoused people — they cause more harm
Monday, October 9th, 2023
The squads add a layer of surveillance and harassment that leads unhoused people to leave the spaces they know best and distance themselves from their support network in order to avoid police… the report calls for a new approach to homelessness, including abolishing mixed squads and reallocating their funding to two types of interventions.
Tags: crime prevention, homelessness, mental Health, poverty
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »