B.C. is refusing to say how much Ottawa's omnibus crime bill will cost the province in additional inmates, jail space and police officers, despite months of questions.
Justice Minister Shirley Bond dodged the issue at the legislature Wednesday, saying her government is still examining the impact of the federal changes.
Opposition New Democrats accused her of withholding financial figures she's had for at least six months.
The federal Conservative government introduced its tough-on-crime legislation, Bill C-10, last September. It passed in March.
The legislation increases penalties for sexual offences against children and drug crimes, requires courts to consider adult sentences for youths convicted of serious crimes, and prevents conditional sentences in some cases. Read more »
This week, across Canada, experts are speaking out against the massive, cruel Crime Bill that our Conservative government is rushing through Parliament.1 Even conservative Texans are warning Canada not to follow America’s failed path of mandatory sentences and massive prison expansion.2
Now, we need a huge public outcry to stop the bill, and make Canada safer, not meaner.
Experts agree that the Crime Bill would make Canada a more dangerous place by filling new prisons with people who should not be there. Instead, experience shows that we should focus on proven strategies to prevent crime, rehabilitate people and reintegrate them into society.1,3 The stakes are huge: if this bill passes we’ll be spending billions to trap people and create a permanent underclass of Canadians with little hope for a better life.4Read more »
Key elements of the federal government’s “tough on crime” package have proven costly and ineffective in other countries and will discriminate against first nations and the mentally ill, an analysis by Vancouver researchers has found.
Alana Cook and Ronald Roesch of Simon Fraser University’s psychology department looked at data from other jurisdictions that have already implemented some of the policies Canada is now pursuing in terms of cost, effect on crime rates and impact on vulnerable populations. Much of the data came from the United States.
Many of the changes to the Criminal Code that have been either enacted or proposed by the Conservative government in the last five years have the effect of increasing prison terms. But two meta-analyses of studies conducted in Canada indicate that longer prison terms result in criminals being slightly more likely to reoffend upon release, the researchers pointed out. Read more »
Stepping out of a cold, windy Toronto Wednesday night and into the Church of the Redeemer on Bloor street, I'm a little shocked as the warmth of the standing room only crowd hits me. Hundreds of people are here to listen to a panel discussion on Bill C-10, a crime bill being introduced by the Canadian government. The panellists sitting on the stage look small and unobtrusive in comparison to the high ceilings, big stained glass windows and large yellow brick walls with the words "I know that my redeemer liveth" looming over them. But the mental contrast tonight is between the vast open space of the church we're in and the small confines of a seven square metre prison cell.
Bill C-10 is a massive piece of legislation of roughly 100 pages that rolls nine laws from organized and drug crime, to pardons, to child sex offenders, to migrants entering Canada and young offenders into a single omnibus law. The panel is focusing on how the bill's policy on mandatory minimum sentencing for selling, or even giving away a small amount of drugs, will criminalize a generation and attack some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Read more »
Conservatives in the United States' toughest crime-fighting jurisdiction — Texas — say the Harper government's crime strategy won't work.
"You will spend billions and billions and billions on locking people up," says Judge John Creuzot of the Dallas County Court. "And there will come a point in time where the public says, 'Enough!' And you'll wind up letting them out."
Adds Representative Jerry Madden, a conservative Republican who heads the Texas House Committee on Corrections, "It's a very expensive thing to build new prisons and, if you build 'em, I guarantee you they will come. They'll be filled, OK? Because people will send them there.
"But, if you don't build 'em, they will come up with very creative things to do that keep the community safe and yet still do the incarceration necessary."
These comments are in line with a coalition of experts in Washington, D.C., who attacked the Harper government's omnibus crime package, Bill C-10, in a statement Monday. Read more »
It is the kind of statistic that seems ready-made for a Conservative talking point about the importance of being tougher on crime: as many as 40% of alleged offenders in Canada are returned to polite society before they have even faced justice.
And yet, funny thing about that nugget, which happens to be true: the Tory omnibus anti-crime bill introduced last week will only make it worse.
Most people are likely aware a decent number of criminal cases are dropped - withdrawn, dismissed or stayed - before guilt or innocence of the accused is established. But the scope of those numbers is surprising.
An even 30% of criminal cases were scrapped in Canada in 2009-10, the latest years for which numbers are available.
The figure is lower in the smaller provinces and highest in Ontario, where 40% of cases are stayed or withdrawn before resolution. In Alberta, it's 33%. In British Columbia, 27%. Read more »
The Conservative government has decided to allow just two days additional of debate on its omnibus crime bill before the proposed law goes off to a Commons committee for study.
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan announced the time restriction on Tuesday – a move designed to thwart long hours of criticism from opposition benches over the controversial 102-page piece of legislation that wraps together nine separate bills the Conservatives failed to enact during their minority government years.
Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae immediately denounced the cutting off of debate as a act of a “majority abusing power.”
Among other things, the bill would toughen punishments for a range of criminals, from drug dealers to sexual predators to young offenders. But critics say it will be costly for taxpayers while doing little to make streets safer.
NDP House Leader Thomas Mulcair said the Official Opposition would offer to split the bill, allowing quick passage of the measures that have broad support and permitting time for debate on those items that remain contentious. Read more »
The Conservative government’s omnibus crime bill is such a sprawling mess of wrong-headed provisions that some future administration will need years to untangle it. By then, our courts and prisons will be overflowing with a generation of hardened jailbirds, and we won’t be one bit safer.
The Safe Streets and Communities Act is a misnamed hodgepodge of provisions, few of which make sense if the real goal is to reduce crime. It will make the justice system more expensive and less effective. As Conservative party campaign rhetoric, it worked because it defined the Tories against their opponents. As law, it’s a disaster.
The government hasn’t produced a shred of evidence that the measures to impose new mandatory minimum sentences, to lengthen other sentences and reduce sentencing discretion for judges will deter crime. In democracies, laws should address demonstrated needs of society and should not be enacted unless they do. On that standard alone, the bill fails. Read more »
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is getting tougher on pot growers than he is on rapists of children.
Under the Tories' omnibus crime legislation tabled Tuesday, a person growing 201 pot plants in a rental unit would receive a longer mandatory sentence than someone who rapes a toddler or forces a five-year-old to have sex with an animal.
Producing six to 200 pot plants nets an automatic six-month sentence, with an extra three months if it's done in a rental or is deemed a public-safety hazard. Growing 201 to 500 plants brings a one-year sentence, or 1 1/2 years if it's in a rental or poses a safety risk.
The omnibus legislation imposes one-year mandatory minimums for sexually assaulting a child, luring a child via the Internet or involving a child in bestiality. All three of these offences carry lighter automatic sentences than those for people running medium-sized grow-ops in rental property or on someone else's land. Read more »
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B.C. is refusing to say how much Ottawa's omnibus crime bill will cost the province in additional inmates, jail space and police officers, despite months of questions.
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By. Mick Sweetman, Rabble.ca
By Terry Milewski, CBC News
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