Bill C-10: A dumb-on-crime mistake for all Canada March 19, 2012 Share Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Share on LinkedIn Email Cherish Clarke, Co-Chair (Female)– Bill C-10, the “Safe Streets and Communities Act”, or the “Omnibus Crime Bill” aims to implement harsher sentencing on criminals, and effectively eliminates conditional sentencing in the Canadian justice system in favor of mandatory sentencing. The legislation became the law of the land this week and was introduced by the Conservative government because it’s “what Canadians want”. It is true that Canadians want to know that justice will prevail in sentencing society’s most heinous crimes like pedophilia and murder. We are a society that wants to stand up for victim’s rights and to protect families. The United States took a similar tough-on-crime approach starting in the 70s, with most states introducing one method or another of mandatory sentencing. In many states there is a ‘three strikes you’re out’ approach towards criminals. In 2003, then Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, stated “the three-strikes law should not be modified, it’s proven to be an excellent deterrent to violent crime”. Today however, California sings a different tune because interestingly, it has more – not less – people incarcerated than France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands combined; and spends 11% of its budget on prisons and 7.5% on higher education. In 2010 – in an apparent reversal of his position – former Governor Schwarzenegger stated: “What does it say about any state that focuses [more] on prison uniforms than on caps and gowns? It’s simply is not healthy”. In the last 30+ years, a tough on crime and the war on drugs mentality has been implemented and we’ve seen crime in the United States increase substantially: A comparison between US and Canadian incarceration rates was first done by Julian Falconer. He stated that there are many variables in comparing the two countries, yet he misleadingly used only homicides as a baseline comparison – which clearly showed that between the two, the levels of homicide incarceration were virtually the same. According to Corrections Canada (in 2004-2005) Canada spent an average of $88,000 per inmate; in the same year, our country spent just over $8,000 per student in elementary and secondary school. It is probably fairly safe to quote Gov. Schwarzenegger again, “what does it say…. when our country is spending 20x more per inmate than we do per student annually.”? The war on crime and drugs has been expensive for the United States, and at a cost of over $50 billion per year, after 30+ years of backwards legislation, the US has realized that a different approach is required. The shift across the US to focus more on higher education as a deterrent for crime and rehabilitation programming (even in the state of Texas) as opposed to mandatory sentencing is welcome both to the criminal justice system, as well as to the American tax payer. As further evidence of their new approach, the US has also repealed legislation like the Rockefeller drug wars in the state of New York. “Aboriginal people are among the poorest in Canada. They experience significantly higher rates of unemployment and lower rates of educational attainment than the rest of Canadians. And they experience high rates of suicide, substance abuse, imprisonment and other social ills. This comes at enormous cost, both socially and economically, to Aboriginal peoples and to Canada in general.” Studies such as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ “The Income Gap between aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canada” have concluded that there is a direct correlation between levels of education, poverty, and crime. Lower education rates in First Nations people create larger levels of poverty that directly contribute to an increase in crime. Between 1996 and 2006 the Aboriginal population grew 45%, compared with 8% for the non-Aboriginal population. In 2006 Aboriginal people (First Nation, Inuit, and Métis) comprised a total of 4% of the total Canadian population yet constituted 24% of the admissions into provincial/territorial prisons and 18% of admissions to federal penitentiaries. In some provinces and territories the rates of Aboriginal incarceration climb to as high as 80% of all inmates. These high rates of imprisonment remain despite changes made to the Criminal Code including s. 81 healing lodges, the s. 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code and it’s applicability through the R. vs Gladue case. First Nations people already have a troubled history of systemic and direct discrimination. Without the focus being placed on reintegrating more people through connecting them to their culture and identity, then we will continue to see high levels and gross overrepresentation of Aboriginal People incarcerated. Currently, twice as much money is spent in the prison system on overtime for prison guards then on remediation programs. Also, only 2% of the federal prison budget is spent on aboriginal programming. Restorative Justice and reintegration clearly is not getting the attention or the financial resources it deserves. Under Bill C-10 there are zero dollars for additional preventative programming. In 2005-2006 the Canadian federal corrections budget was $1.6 billion; today it is double that price at $3.2 billion. With the introduction of Bill C-10 the cost of our justice system is guaranteed to rise yet crime levels in Canada are at their lowest rates since 1973, and are continuing to drop annually. We need to think about the threat of incarceration as an effective deterrent to crime. Who will be left footing the brunt of Bill C-10? It will not be the criminals. It will be each and every one of us as Canadian taxpayers and those who will lose their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and brothers and sisters. The toll we will pay as Canadian families will be monumental. Some have stated that the cost to Canadians could be billions of dollars per year, but there is no idea from anyone: lawyers, judges, the Prime Minister, Members of Parliament, or even tax payers as to how much Bill C-10 is going to cost. The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) has stated that Bill C-10 will probably not cost the federal government but is rather a fiscal offloading onto the provinces and territories. He estimates that it will cost roughly $8 million per year on a federal level, but could cost provinces and territories more than $125 million per year. These estimates by the PBO do not include the cost of building new prisons. The numbers are just formulated around the changes to conditional sentences that Bill C-10 introduces. Bill C-10 further marginalizes certain demographics of our society such as those who are struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues. Bill C-10, the Conservative crime agenda, fails to understand the connection between issues of addiction and mental health and the issue of crime. It also clearly disadvantages the most vulnerable members of our society, including Canada’s Aboriginal Population. The Liberal Party of Canada is committed to pursuing a crime and justice approach that is evidence-based, cost-effective and focused on crime prevention – not one that is focused on backward, ideological approaches that have proven so expensive and completely ineffective in other jurisdictions. If Prime Minister Harper wants so much to be like the Americans, perhaps he should learn (like they did) from their classic dumb-on-crime mistake.