Jul. 28, 2010 - Issue #771: Young at Heart

An ounce of prevention

Ballooning prison budgets could develop communities

Statistics Canada released a report on July 20 showing crime rates in Canada continue to decline, as they have for the past decade. Despite this trend, and extensive research against the effectiveness of incarceration, the Conservative government continues to make "tough on crime" a cornerstone of its legislative agenda. A recent report from the Parliamentary Budget Office indicates expanding prison spaces will require billions of dollars in funding as the Conservative government continues to introduce legislation that will incarcerate people for longer periods of time.

But the numbers suggest Canadians have little to fear. The crime rate dropped three percent last year and 17 percent since 1999 while the crime severity index, which measures the seriousness of crime, dropped by four percent this year and 22 percent since 1999.

Justin Piché, a PhD candidate at Ottawa's Carleton University, is calling for a moratorium on what he characterizes as punishment legislation. Piché challenges the government's claim that there is a need to get tough on crime. Much of the legislation introduced—such as an end to credit for time served before sentencing changes to conditional sentencing, and proposed amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act—will result in more people being incarcerated for longer periods of time.

The government argues that long prison sentences act as a deterrent, preventing people from committing crime and therefore contributing to community safety. Piché disagrees. "Deterrence and incapacitation are antiquated ideas of punishment," he says. "They have been proven failures and this is why over history we've tried to move away from these punishments, at least rhetorically."

Robert Nichols, professor of Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Alberta, elaborates on the problems with this legislation. "There is very little to no evidence that placing people in prison deters or prevents future crime," he says. "In fact, the evidence points to incarceration, especially longer periods of incarceration and higher incarceration rates, increasing chances of recidivism and escalating the nature of the type of crimes people commit." Corrections Canada's own numbers show that those who serve their full sentence in prison have a higher rate of reoffending than do those who serve out part of their sentence in the community.

Internationally, many jurisdictions, including the United States and the UK, are moving away from mass incarceration, not only because it has not reduced crime, but because of the great expense involved.

At a time of fiscal restraint and deficit reduction, prison expansion makes little economic sense. In Canada, a report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer examining the Truth in Sentencing Act found the costs of implementing this bill alone will exceed $9.5 billion a year by 2015, up from $4.4 billion this year. However, these figures are tentative, as the federal government would not release information to the PBO on its plans for prison expansion.

Investment in social spending to address the causes of crime before people become criminalized costs much less. Research conducted by Irving Waller at the University of Ottawa found that every dollar spent on community level social spending saves four to seven dollars in prison spending. And the human cost is immeasurable.  

The need for investment in social spending over prison spending becomes even more clear when we look at who goes to prison. One of the legacies of Canada's colonialism is the incarceration rates of aboriginal people in Canada. In the prairie region, First Nations people represent about 10 percent of the general population and account for over 60 percent of the prison population.

Most people in prison have issues beyond criminalization, including mental illness, addiction and poverty. The Elizabeth Fry Society has found that 80 percent of incarcerated women and 90 percent of aboriginal women in Canada report having been physically and/or sexually abused. Nearly 80 percent of men entering prison do not have a high school diploma and 65 percent were unemployed at the time of arrest.

If there is concern about public safety, Nichols says we should look to homes, families and social networks of people around us that are looking out for us and protecting us to keep us safe. This can be achieved through investment in communities and preventing people from being in situations that put them in contact with the prison system.

Instead of locking people up, we should be asking why so many people are struggling, says Piché. He criticizes the recent trend of provinces expanding facilities to house the growing number of inmates with mental illnesses: "Rather than build prisons to accommodate people with mental illness, we should be asking why they are in prison in the first place." V

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