Posts Tagged ‘crime prevention’
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Reducing both crime and imprisonment
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
Dec 14 2011
First, Canada does have too much crime. Far too many Canadians are victimized and the Department of Justice has recently estimated that the annual cost of crime is $100 billion. Second, victims are not well treated in Canada. Little is spent on victims and there have only been marginal improvements in this over the last several years, no matter which party is in power… the Conservatives are investing only token amounts in actually improving services for victims… increasing penalties and implementing mandatory minimum sentences does little or nothing to reduce crime or make Canada safer.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, featured, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Harper government misguided in its tough-on-crime approach
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
Dec. 12, 2011
Canada is heading to that awful place that the United States has just inhabited for 20 years – a place of longer and longer prison sentences, of a futile “war on drugs,” of mandatory minimum sentences for nearly everything (including six months for growing as few as five marijuana plants) that remove judges’ discretion. The financial and social costs in the U.S. were incalculable, and just as the U.S. is coming to its senses, Canada is losing its own.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
Canada’s prisons becoming warehouses for the mentally ill
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
Dec. 07, 2011
More than one in 10 men and nearly one in three women held in federal prisons have mental-health problems, according to 2009 figures from the Correctional Service of Canada. Those numbers represent a near-doubling in the total proportion of inmates with mental illnesses between 1997 and 2009… “Psychiatric institutions have been closing over the years, and the mentally ill … have now found that the correctional system has become the institution of last resort”… The problem could intensify once the omnibus crime bill becomes law…
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, mental Health, rights
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Crime bill cuts concessions to aboriginal circumstance
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
Dec. 6, 2011
… Canada has failed to come to terms with the over-incarceration of aboriginal offenders… The Gladue decision urges courts to be more creative with sentencing, to look deeper into causes and solutions and to draw from aboriginal traditions. One of these traditions is restorative justice, which seeks to bring victims and offenders together, enabling offenders to make meaningful amends for the harm they have done. The judicial tool that has allowed for such creative sentencing is the conditional sentence… Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, however, will continue to cut away at the ability of courts to impose these conditional sentences.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, Indigenous, rights
Posted in Equality Delivery System | No Comments »
Five things about crime and doing the time in Canada
Sunday, December 4th, 2011
Dec 3, 2011
Of the 262,616 cases put before the courts in 2009-10, 183,204 of the defendants were deemed guilty under the Criminal Code. Of that figure, 71,417 were sent to prison, 100,956 were put on probation, 8,281 received a conditional sentence, 6,699 were ordered to pay restitution, 28,757 were fined and 88,019 received some other kind of sentence… Ontario is also doing a lot more screening of cases to see if some can be handled out of court. “The ones that go forward in a jurisdiction that screens out a lot of cases tend to be more likely to have a prison sentence associated with them
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, rights
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Attawapiskat exposes urgent need for native education reforms
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
Nov. 30, 2011
Native education in Canada is simply a string of disasters. There’s no need here to recite again the ills of the residential schools system; its replacement – on-reserve schools funded by Ottawa and run by local band councils – haven’t done much better… But… [In NS and BC] native school boards are pooling resources, supervising on-reserve schools and overseeing a curriculum that meets provincial standards while also emphasizing native languages, culture and history.
Tags: crime prevention, disabilities, Indigenous, poverty, rights, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | 1 Comment »
Ontario closer than ever to legalization of marijuana
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
Apr 18, 2011
… the Ontario Superior Court struck down two key parts of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that prohibit the possession and production of pot. The court declared the rules that govern medical marijuana access and the prohibitions laid out in sections 4 and 7 of the Act “constitutionally invalid and of no force and effect” on Monday, effectively paving the way for legalization.
Tags: crime prevention, Health, rights
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 3 Comments »
Omnibus crime bill a concern
Sunday, November 20th, 2011
Nov. 19, 2011
… the building of far greater numbers of prison cells, with far more restrictive rules and far fewer useful programs — is a totally wrongheaded approach. First: Health care is appalling inside prisons… Second: Educational and social remedial programs are inadequate… Third: Treating people like caged animals is a sure way to ensure that they will behave like caged creatures and not like socialized human beings… Take note of and repair these problems, and then, and only then, you can consider whether you need or want any expansion of prisons in this country.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Bar association blasts tough-on-crime bill
Saturday, November 19th, 2011
November 18, 2011
Canada’s lawyers have joined a host of others – from Texas Republicans to criminologists and civil libertarians – denouncing the federal omnibus crime bill. Ironically titled The Safe Streets and Communities Act, Bill C-10 is being rammed through Parliament by the Conservative majority government although many of its measures are a proven waste of money and effort. Many penology and law-enforcement specialists say the ill-considered legislation could make things worse.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology, rights
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Omnibus crime bill misses the mark
Friday, November 18th, 2011
Nov 17 2011
… we can make our justice system more efficient and cost effective with smart rehabilitation programs. In many cases, people do criminal things because they are desperate. Desperate for money to get out of poverty… Putting these criminals in jail for long sentences, while in the short term making us feel safer, leads to worse outcomes. Texas and other jurisdictions are telling us this scheme doesn’t work; the Canadian Bar Association says this plan will worsen the justice system.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
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