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Bill C-25, the so-called Truth in Sentencing Act, unfairly targets the poor, the illiterate and Canada’s aboriginal community.
And a preliminary July, 2009, report drawing on 582 cases found that people awaiting trial in Winnipeg and Whitehorse spent far longer in remand than their counterparts in Toronto and Vancouver.
In Winnipeg, for example, the average was 120 days compared with 17 days in Toronto. In Whitehorse, the average was 54 days.
Full story here.
It is well documented that aboriginal people are vastly over-represented in prison populations, just as they are over-represented among the poor. The fact is that the poor are far more likely to be targeted by police as a problem for law enforcement. My question is, why are we expecting a patriarichal paramilitary organisation to administer people who should not be criminalized for lacking advantages. We might as well address the issue of mental illness. I am here to tell you that poverty causes anxiety, fear, anger, depression, bitterness and frustration. It also causes malnutrition, obesity, heart disease, autoimmune supression. All of these things are contributing factors in the huge cost of emergency medicine (as opposed to harm reduction and community education), huge costs in Justice, (that fail completely to administer actual justice, or even the appearance thereof) and then there’s the prisons.
Does anyone really believe that prison rehabilitates anyone? Or that it is cost effective to expand the practice of imprisonment? Unless, of course, you plan to let the market administer your program of incarceration? You know, like the Americans. You know what I think? I’m going to tell you anyway…
I want to live in a country where security of person means having the right to shelter, the means to buy food or grow it, presumption of innocence and the freedom to express an opinion (so long as it does not incite hatred). I think education is a far better investment. And jobs. Secure, full time, long term manufacturing jobs. I do not feel that I live in that country when my elected representatives are more interested in stifling dissent than progressing the human condition in any way. Ask Alison at Creekside , or Murray Dobbin how they feel about the BC Attorney General comparing an 82 year old woman who just wants to leave some trees for her great grandchildren, to pedophiles who committed incest on children and ( in one case) distributed the recorded crime. Mike De Jong wanted her sentence of 10 months (already served) to be extended to life, under the Mental Health Act as a repeat offender, dangerous to the public.
Are we getting the point as a society where we are willing to turn our backs on compassion and civility? I don’t believe it for a second. But we are going to have to prove it.
Are we getting the point as a society where we are willing to turn our backs on compassion and civility? I don’t believe it for a second. But we are going to have to prove it.
I’ve been asking myself that very same question for a long time now and often, the more I hear these tea-bagger types or go read some of the Blogging SupposiTories, or conbot trolls at the CBC & G&M boards or just watching Stevie spiteful in action (same, goes when I observe the rise tea-baggers in the US and the rise of the right in Europe, simply because they’re paranoid of immigration), the more I get chills up my spine. A fellow Prog blogger told me he was getting emails from idiots who believe slavery should be brought back! So, yeah, there are days I despair the human condition.
That said, we need optimists like yourself.
However, I also agree that we’re going to have to prove it.
“Are we getting the point as a society where we are willing to turn our backs on compassion and civility? I don’t believe it for a second. But we are going to have to prove it.”
I do believe we arrived there a while ago. The U.S. is going wild creating privatized prisons which are archaic but cost the government less. I’m sure Steve would love to do the same.
As for us aboriginals, Tom Flanagan is always re-inventing small pox laden blankets, with his latest being ‘treaties’ that would allow us to buy and sell our land and houses – giving them value. Seems his kind believe capitalism is the cure for hundreds of centuries of abuse. Guess what, there’s somethings ya just can’t beat out of a lowly indian, and that’s culture. While we have our part to overcome victim mentality , the feds and provinces have to get right down to rule of law and grant us our sovereignty…then the healing can really begin. Meantime we are to endure overly populating prisons and poverty….well hey, we’re visible, right, so the blue meanies are bound to make us out to be the worst bandits in the west.
if the o.k. corral were put on the grounds of the parliament buildings we may just charge rent…heh heh.
[...] and the poor hardest hit by Harper’s new sentencing rules. Some may say he is tough on crime, others suggest he is tough on freedom. With our crime rates steadily falling for a while now, it only makes sense to be tougher on crime, [...]
Scout I agree with you on Sovereignty and self determination. I also think that north american society at large may be ready to take a look at native culture and learn much about co-existing in this world with our co-inhabitants.
heh heh…Don’t worry too much about those parliament buildings, they’ll be underwater soon if they don’t start treating our environment with more respect.