Overcrowding carries a cost
As wrong-headed as has been the Conservative government’s approach to crime and punishment in Canada, it is still unfair to compare this country’s system with that of the United States.
According to a recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report, while Canada locks up about 118 adults and youth for every 100,000 Canadians — a rate that is about the median for OECD countries — the U.S. locks up about 716 per 100,000.
What has concerned observers, however, is the direction both North American countries are headed. In the U.S., public sentiment has quickly shifted against the tough-on-crime agenda, while Canada continues to ignore evidence that overcrowded jails and cuts to prison programs will do little to prevent the creation of future victims.
The price of this pandering to the lowest common denominator not only must be borne nationally, but it disproportionately hits provinces such as Saskatchewan and cities such as Saskatoon.
This week The StarPhoenix reported on the overcrowding at the Saskatoon Provincial Correctional Centre ( Prison crowding dangerous, critic says, SP, May 12). The gymnasium, programming rooms and visiting areas are often converted to living quarters for prisoners, creating dangerous conditions for people either serving provincial time or waiting for justice and for those charged with their care.
As Shaun Dyer with the John Howard Society points out, this overcrowding, which guards suggest may have contributed to the death of Elvis Lachance, allegedly by the hands of his cellmate, spreads the danger to the broader community once these individuals are released having had little to help them adapt to a peaceful life outside.
While making jail time harsher may give satisfaction to those who have no empathy for the criminals, it makes little sense taking actions that will only result in more victims and harsher sentences in the future.
According to the U.S. National Research Council, although crime rates drop marginally when large numbers are locked up, the reduction isn’t worth the cost and eventually these people will be back on the streets.
Statistics Canada points out that it will be in provinces such as Saskatchewan — and the territories, where incarceration rates, although dropping, still range from 293 per 100,000 in Yukon to 551 per 100,000 in the Northwest Territories — where the costs will be greatest.
If cities such as Saskatoon ever hope to break the cycle that keeps it among the highest crime rates in the country, the impact of these incarceration figures must be addressed at both the provincial and federal levels. Canada’s auditor general Michael Ferguson recently released a report indicating Ottawa lacked a long-term strategy to deal with the impact of its toughon-crime agenda.
Although it is building 2,700 cells to house new inmates at a cost of $751 million, this will offer only temporary respite.
The government wants to be seen as tough on crime but doesn’t want to be seen paying the price. Unfortunately, even if it coughs up more for the jail construction, we will all pay for the broken people these jails will be putting on our streets. The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper’s editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.