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   From: puela@nyet.ca   
      
   Edward L. Greenspan and Anthony N. Doob, National Post | December 30, 2014 |   
      
      
   Greenspan & Doob: Stephen Harper’s scary crime bluster   
      
   Crime and punishment issues are far too serious to allow the national debate to   
   be dominated by dishonest platforms and slogans.   
      
      
   Editor’s note: Last Tuesday, legendary Canadian defence attorney Edward   
   “Eddie”   
   Greenspan passed away. Hours before his death, he submitted an article to the   
   National Post. With the permission of his co-author, Anthony Doob, we are   
   honoured to run that article below.   
      
   “All convicted criminals belong behind bars.”   
      
   We know of no person knowledgeable about criminal justice in any democratic   
   society who has ever proposed imprisonment for all convicted offenders.  But   
   earlier this month, Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Steven Blaney, who   
   oversees our penitentiaries, bluntly told Parliament that “Our Conservative   
   government believes that convicted criminals belong behind bars.” No   
   qualifications, no exceptions.   
      
   An opposition MP understandably replied, “Mr. Speaker, that is scary to   
   hear.”   
     Scary? It’s more than scary.  It is hard to imagine such a statement being   
   made by someone who supposedly has knowledge about crime and the criminal   
   justice system.   
      
   		Canada’s justice costs are soaring while crime rate sinks — and the   
   Supreme   
   Court is to blame: report   
      
   VANCOUVER — Canada is a much safer place than 20 years ago but policing,   
   legal,   
   judicial and correctional costs have gone through the roof, according to a new   
   report from the Fraser Institute.   
      
   The crime rate fell 27% in the past decade, with the number of crimes, their   
   severity and the pain and suffering they caused all decreasing.  But justice   
   costs rose by 35%, according to the report from the public policy think-tank.   
      
   Written by Stephen Easton, Hilary Furness and Paul Brantingham, The Cost of   
   Crime in Canada report revealed that policing expenses, the biggest single   
   driver — $388 per capita in 2012 — rose 44%, corrections expenses were up   
   by   
   33% and court expenses jumped 21%.   
      
   Consider this example: If we take the Public Safety Minister at his word, his   
   government believes that all those guilty of driving with blood alcohol levels   
   even slightly above the legal limit, not speeding and not involving an   
   accident, belong behind bars: Go directly to jail, no need to consider anything   
   else.   Currently, only 8% of all offenders — and fewer than 2% of all young   
   women — are imprisoned for this offence.   Do the Tories propose locking up   
   the   
   92% who are dealt with through other means?   
      
   Correctional Service Canada has recently been criticized by almost everyone   
   outside of the Conservative party for its decision not to alter its policies on   
   the use of solitary confinement for the mentally ill in Canada’s   
   penitentiaries.  It refuses to attempt to address the problems — including   
   suicides — that solitary confinement and overcrowding create.   
      
   Imprisoning all convicted criminals will exacerbate the very problems in our   
   penitentiaries for which Corrections has been criticized by various groups,   
   including, as reported in this newspaper, the Canadian Medical Association.   
      
   Unfortunately, the Public Safety Minister was not speaking off the cuff when he   
   made his remarks.  They are a faithful reflection of what the federal Tories   
   believe.  Earlier this fall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper took credit for   
   reducing Canada’s crime rate, saying, “We said ‘Do the crime, do the   
   time.’  We   
   have said that through numerous pieces of legislation.  We are enforcing that.   
     And on our watch the crime rate is finally moving in the right direction; the   
   crime rate is finally moving down in this country.”   
      
   We plotted Statistics Canada data on the overall crime and the homicide rates   
   since the early 1960s.   
   Total crime peaked in the early 1990s when Brian Mulroney was prime minister   
   and declined thereafter.  It would be more logical, though wrong, to give the   
   credit for our falling crime rate to prime ministers Kim Campbell and Jean   
   Chrétien.  Homicide specifically peaked in 1977.  Attributing the drop in   
   Canada’s homicide rate thereafter to the 1977 abolition of capital punishment   
   would fit the data better than Mr. Harper’s explanation, though it, too,   
   would   
   be wrong.   
      
      
   Mr. Harper became prime minister in 2006.  For Mr. Harper to say that on his   
   watch “crime is finally moving in the right direction” is either blatantly   
   dishonest or breathtakingly ignorant.   
      
   With the attention that his government has given to punishment, we suspect he   
   is not ignorant.  As former New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly   
   bluntly remarked “Taking credit for a decline in crime is like taking credit   
   for an eclipse.”   
      
   Imprisonment is certainly appropriate for some offenders.  But it is worth   
   examining two arguments that are often made for imprisoning offenders who could   
   be punished in the community.  Some believe that crime will be deterred if   
   punishment severity were increased.  Scores of studies demonstrate this to be   
   false.  This is inconvenient for Mr. Harper since many of his 86 so-called   
   “crime” bills (33 of which have become law) are based on the theory that   
   harsh   
   sentences deter.   
      
   Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, understood deterrence   
   better   
   than does Mr. Harper. Macdonald noted that “Certainty of punishment …  is   
   of   
   more consequence in the prevention of crime than the severity of the   
   sentence.”   
     Mr. Harper, who could benefit from empirical evidence, chooses instead to   
   ignore it.   
      
   Some believe that offenders learn from imprisonment that “crime does not   
   pay.”   
     This, too, is wrong. Published research — some of it Canadian and produced   
   by   
   the federal government — demonstrates that imprisonment, if anything,   
   increases   
   the likelihood of reoffending.   
      
   For example, a recent study of 10,000 Florida inmates released from prison   
   demonstrated that they were more likely subsequently to reoffend (47%   
   reoffended in 3 years) than an almost perfectly equivalent group of offenders   
   who were lucky enough to be sentenced to probation (37% reoffended).   
      
   Crime and punishment issues are far too complex and far too serious to allow   
   the national debate to be dominated by dishonest platforms and slogans.  False   
   promises are often convincing.  Whether those offering them are dishonest or   
   ignorant matters little: Conservative crime policies will not make Canadians   
   safer.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)