Sunday, March 20, 2011

The costs of the 'tough on crime' agenda

So the Conservatives finally revealed the costs of their ‘tough on crime’ agenda – well, grudgingly revealed, since documents were produced only after Speaker Milliken’s landmark ruling that the Tories may be flouting the rights and will of Parliament by stonewalling on cost estimates for justice bills and other legislation.

By their estimates (which are likely conservative, hah) a total of $631-million will be spent to implement the new justice bills – this is in addition to the $2.1-billion tab for prison expansion.

When you look at the total expenditures on the penitentiary system in Canada, the increase under this government is stark. For example, in 2005/06, the Liberals spent $1,597-million on the federal penitentiary system. In 2009/10, the Conservatives spent $2,267-million and are projected to spend $3,128-million by 2012/13.

In capital expenditures, the spending will increase from $138.2-million in 2005/06 to $466.9-million in 2012/13 – an increase of over 330%. Interestingly, their staffing levels don’t increase nearly at the rate of their other spending costs. From 2005/06’s 14,633 staff, they increase only to 20,706 in 2012/13. So while there will be more prisons and more prisoners, it doesn't seem that there will be corresponding increases in staffing.

All these figures likely make your eyes glaze over – I’m sure they do to most people. Because the most meaningful and important impacts of the ‘tough on crime’ legislation are not, of course, the numbers. The most worrisome impacts are on people.

The legislation that the Conservatives are forcing through Parliament will see that we lock up behind bars more youth, more women, more Aboriginals, and more people with mental disorders and substance abuse problems. The vast majority of these cases could be handled with treatment and programs within the community – at far less cost and far greater success.

The Conservatives’ prison-focused approach to crime and justice goes against massive amounts of research on effective approaches to crime, and it disregards the lessons that the Americans are learning after having implemented such laws decades ago – only to see their crime rates continue to climb while the costs of prisons have become unmanageable.

Building more prisons and sending more people to prison is a waste of money – and of human beings.

1 comment:

  1. It has a lot to do with the fact that prisons and penitentiary are for-profit organizations. Who cares about reforms and transformation of young troubled individuals? Once prison became a MAJOR source of income, the actual concept of reforming someone became absolute.

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