Spare the Rod, Spoil Everything

The Ideological Gospel of Crime and Punishment According to the Conservatives

The Conservative government has been hard at work these last two years pulling the levers of power. They've been remarkably successful in changing the lives of Canadians, in seemingly small but actually important ways.

The Harper Record, published by the CCPA, is a compendium of the policy changes and government shifts that have been implemented by this minority government.

For instance, the Conservative government has avowed to get tough on crime with mandatory minimum sentences etc. It apparently costs $83,000 to incarcerate a person for one year. But if the intent is to reduce crime and increase security for Canadian households we might take this into consideration:

Investing in Crime Prevention

The evidence is conclusive that the most effective way to prevent crime is to ensure healthier children, stronger families, better schools and more cohesive communities. Crime prevention through social development is a sound investment. The dividends include less violence, safer communities and significant cost savings in the criminal justice system and in almost every other area of public and private spending.

This quote is pulled from the 1996 Public Health Agency of Canada site.

The Conservatives have vowed to increase penalties for violent juvenile crime and disdains the advice of those working in 'ivory towers', for example those who actually work in youth justice. But violent crime is on the decline in Canada. Significantly, Quebec has the lowest per capita violent crime statistic nationally (59 per 1000) while Alberta has the highest (160). I'll give you two guesses as to which of these two provinces has invested more heavily in the social development, 'soft-on-crime', ivory tower approaches so disdained by Harper.

Further, the statistics indicate that people under age 25 are more likely to be victims of violent crimes. Which may mean, as Harper claims, that youth are reckless and violent because there are no consequences. Or it may mean that the lack of community-based mentoring, the necessity of two income families, lack of educational opportunities, etc are conditions that create dire consequences for society at large and especially for youth.

The overall per capita murder rate in Canada in 2005 was 2.4 per 100,000. Quebec's homicide rate was approximately 1 murder per 100,000 citizens, while Alberta's was almost 3.5 per 100,000. (Those bastards in PEI are choosing not to carry their blood-lust weight in Canada - there wasn't a murder on the island in either 2004 or 2005.)

It is important to target gangs and organized crime since they were responsible for 16% of all murders in 2005, up from 3% in 1995.

The instrument of choice in the killing of others is either a knife or a gun (stabbing and gun shot wounds predominate in homicides in Canada). The focus on increasing penalties for gun related crimes has, perhaps, its genesis in fact that a gun is the weapon of choice for gangs. But disrupting crime and organized crime before it happens might be a better way of increasing personal security for Canadians instead of increasing punishment after your little sister has been gunned down in the cross fire of two rival gangs.

Click here and here for Canadian crime stats. Click here to download the Juristat Homicide in Canada PDF.

Further the Conservatives have altered the government's drug strategy to an anti-drug strategy and shifted the drug addiction and abuse portfolio from the Ministry of Health (a harm reduction strategy) to the Ministry of Justice (an enforcement strategy). The Minister of Health, Tony Clemente, has vowed to close down Vancouver's Insite program despite evidence of success and international admiration for the program.

This is significant because intoxicants are involved in most homicides and most violent crimes. Drug addiction creates enormous pressures on our social resources (ambulance, police, insurance claims) and on quality of life for those afflicted. A pure enforcement strategy (more police and more jail) isn't likely to increase security because it doesn't solve the problem at almost any level. (And it's financially expensive.)

Crime is a social and community problem that affects everyone at some point. The most likely solution mixes enforcement with investment in health care (8% of those accused of homicide are mentally ill; drug and alcohol abuse are common catalysts in violent crime), invest in social services and education, and invest in the creation of meaningful and viable job programs (in theory people are less likely to steal for survival if they are gainfully employed - admittedly this hypothetical doesn't explain the theft of whole economies by the powerful).

So, we all agree we don't want crime and violence in our communities. The question is do we use all the tools at our disposal and approach this intelligently.

xoxo

MVL