While the government would like us to believe that the only people concerned with the skyrocketing costs of imprisonment in a context of an overall decline in police-reported 'crime' rates is an 'out-of-touch' Parliamentary Budget Officer (who's projections have been far more accurate than those of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty), as well as members of the opposition, media commentators and academics who apparently don't walk the same streets as other Canadians, the Conservatives are now being criticized by religious groups for their backward punishment agenda (see images below).
On 17 December 2010, the Church Council on Justice and Corrections (CCJC) and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to Prime Minister Harper expressing concern with the federal government's plan to increase the use of incarceration. The letter noted the following:
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
The Church Council on Justice and Corrections (CCJC) is most concerned that in this time of financial cuts to important services you and the government of Canada are prepared to significantly increase investment in the building of new prisons.
Proposed new federal laws will ensure that more Canadians are sent to prison for longer periods, a strategy that has been repeatedly proven neither to reduce crime nor to assist victims. Your policy is applying a costly prison response to people involved in the courts who are non-violent offenders, or to repeat offenders who are mentally ill and/or addicted the majority of whom are not classified as high risk. These offenders are disproportionately poor, ill-equipped to learn, from the most disadvantaged and marginalized groups. They require treatment, health services, educational, employment and housing interventions, all less expensive and more humane than incarceration.
The Canadian government has regretfully embraced a belief in punishment-for-crime that first requires us to isolate and separate the offender from the rest of us, in our minds as well as in our prisons. That separation makes what happens later easier to ignore: by increasing the number of people in jail for lengthier sentences you are decreasing their chance of success upon release into the community.
The vision of justice we find in Scripture is profound and radically different from that which your government is proposing. We are called to be a people in relationship with each other through our conflicts and sins, with the ingenious creativity of God's spirit to find our way back into covenant community. How can that be if we automatically exclude and cut ourselves off from all those we label "criminal"?
Increasing levels of incarceration of marginalized people is counter- productive and undermines human dignity in our society. By contrast, well supervised probation or release, bail options, reporting centres, practical assistance, supportive housing, programs that promote accountability, respect and reparation: these measures have all been well-established, but they are underfunded. Their outcomes have proven to be the same or better in terms of re-offence rates, at a fraction of the cost and with much less human damage.
Public safety is enhanced through healthy communities that support individuals and families. We, therefore, respectfully ask you to modify your government's policy taking into consideration the impact it will have on the most disadvantaged, its lack of effectiveness, and its serious budgetary implications.
Proposed new federal laws will ensure that more Canadians are sent to prison for longer periods, a strategy that has been repeatedly proven neither to reduce crime nor to assist victims. Your policy is applying a costly prison response to people involved in the courts who are non-violent offenders, or to repeat offenders who are mentally ill and/or addicted the majority of whom are not classified as high risk. These offenders are disproportionately poor, ill-equipped to learn, from the most disadvantaged and marginalized groups. They require treatment, health services, educational, employment and housing interventions, all less expensive and more humane than incarceration.
The Canadian government has regretfully embraced a belief in punishment-for-crime that first requires us to isolate and separate the offender from the rest of us, in our minds as well as in our prisons. That separation makes what happens later easier to ignore: by increasing the number of people in jail for lengthier sentences you are decreasing their chance of success upon release into the community.
The vision of justice we find in Scripture is profound and radically different from that which your government is proposing. We are called to be a people in relationship with each other through our conflicts and sins, with the ingenious creativity of God's spirit to find our way back into covenant community. How can that be if we automatically exclude and cut ourselves off from all those we label "criminal"?
Increasing levels of incarceration of marginalized people is counter- productive and undermines human dignity in our society. By contrast, well supervised probation or release, bail options, reporting centres, practical assistance, supportive housing, programs that promote accountability, respect and reparation: these measures have all been well-established, but they are underfunded. Their outcomes have proven to be the same or better in terms of re-offence rates, at a fraction of the cost and with much less human damage.
Public safety is enhanced through healthy communities that support individuals and families. We, therefore, respectfully ask you to modify your government's policy taking into consideration the impact it will have on the most disadvantaged, its lack of effectiveness, and its serious budgetary implications.
Sincerely,
The Church Council on Justice and Corrections
In response to this letter, will Prime Minister Harper cast the first stone and lump the CCJC with other proponents of the 'soft on crime' approach?
In response to this letter, will Prime Minister Harper cast the first stone and lump the CCJC with other proponents of the 'soft on crime' approach?
Will Prime Minister Harper turn the other cheek and repent for his misguided punishment agenda?
Or will Prime Minister Harper simply ignore this organization founded by the Anglican Church of Canada, Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Christian Reformed Churches of North America, Disciples of Christ in Canada, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Mennonite Central Committee Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Salvation Army in Canada and the United Church of Canada like he has so many others with whom he disagrees?
Only time will tell, but in the interim the CCJC has launched its "Prison Facts - The Co$ts" campaign, which aptly displays some of the key problems with the 'conservative' punishment agenda.
Related media coverage:
- Globe and Mail - 26 January 2011 (read article)
- CBC Radio "As It Happens" - 27 January 2011 (listen here)
- CBC Television "Power & Politics with Evan Solomon" - 2 February 2011
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