‘Life Means life’: hollow rhetoric, smart politics
Few things speak as plainly to the essence of conservative political ideology as being tough on crime. Richard Nixon famously exploited urban riots in the 1960s as a way of pushing a platform of “law and order.” Ronald Reagan continued, and expanded, Nixon’s president-as-beat-cop politicking, multiplying the number of prisons (and prisoners) in the U.S. in the 1980s, while restricting opportunities for parole.
Here in Canada, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has snatched a few pages from the Nixon/Reagan playbook, positioning himself as a “tough on crime” leader by introducing Bill C-2 (the Tackling Violent Crime Bill) in 2008 and, more recently, Bill C-51, the Conservatives’ controversial anti-terrorism bill. But now it’s not enough for Harper to be putting more violent criminals and would-be jihadists in prison. Now he wants to keep them there for good.
Last week, Harper vowed to introduce the option for life sentences with no chance of parole. The Conservatives had previously tried to push the bill earlier this year, but their plans were scuttled by the election. Now, it’s become a new campaign tent-pole. The policy is known as “Life Means Life,” a name that sounds like it was ripped off an anti-abortion protester’s placard.
As the prime minister put it earlier this year, “There are certain crimes so repulsive that only a lifelong sentence adequately reflects their truly horrific na- ture.” These especially repulsive and horrific crimes include serial murder, kidnapping, murders involving sexual assault, terrorism and even high treason. Yes: high treason. Let that be a lesson to all of you would-be saboteurs, or anyone harbouring regicidal ambitions.
The proposed bill would see the most “heinous” offenders locked up for life. If you’re sufficiently heinous, you go to prison, and you die in prison. No chance for reform. No chance of getting out. No hope. Yikes. I’d hate to be a corrections officer working in a prison where the convicts possess no optimism for ever getting released — one of the only things incentivizing good behaviour. More to the point, the idea that someone, no matter how heinous, can be reformed and reintegrated productively into society is a hallmark of any functioning democracy.
As it stands, Canadian prisoners (even the most heinous and horrific and repulsive ones) serving life sentences are eligible for parole after 25 years. Of course, this doesn’t mean they’ll be granted parole. Most dangerous killers are regularly denied release. So you’re not likely to spot Luka Magnotta or Paul Bernardo sitting a few seats ahead of you on a city bus any time soon. In effect, Harper’s “Life Means Life” legislation is useless. It’s an attempt to toughen up a system that’s already pretty sturdy. But then, its pointlessness is kind of the point.
As a policy plan, “Life Means Life” is good old-fashioned rhetoric. It’s ideology, pure and simple. It plays to a frightened populace repulsed by the idea, even if it’s unlikely, that a scowling psycho-killer will get out of jail and move in next door. It plays to people who immediately, pre-theoretically think “law and order” is a good thing. It plays, in short, to swaths of the Conservative base.
This kind of empty ideological pandering seems to have served the Conservatives, historically. One likely reason why the party has consistently performed better than predicted by all manner of preelection polling is because they can capably get prospective voters to actually go out and vote. Plain, uncomplicated policies like this, however pointless, rouse an otherwise ambivalent electorate too lazy to follow an overlong election cycle, but all too happy to seize on buzzwords and hollow bombast. Say what you will about the Conservative Party of Canada, but they’ve always done well when it comes to driving their base to polls — whether through effective sloganeering of the “Life Means Life” variety or by nurturing the fear that one day you might run into Robert Pickton ordering a double-double at Tim Hortons.
Stephen Harper’s “Life Means Life” legislation plays, in short, to swaths of the Conservative base