Bill C10: A Radical, Socialist Critique

A pretty good critique of C10 omnibus Bill by Ed Patrick of the World Socialist Web Site.  Ed talks about the bourgeois' criticisms of C10 and points out quite succinctly what is wrong with this narrow viewpoint that misses the larger and more important picture altogether.  One of my favorite paragraphs:

 "The thrust of the Conservatives’ criminal justice policy is the repudiation of any notion that crime is rooted in poverty and other social ills and the resurrection of pre-Enlightment views of crime as a product of personal evil and original sin"

 Canada: Conservatives’ reactionary “tough on crime” bill soon to become law

By Ed Patrick
31 January 2012

Stephen Harper’s new majority Conservative government has made pushing the Safe Streets and Communities Act, Bill C-10, through parliament a top priority.
Comprised of nine bills that were either defeated by the last parliament or died with its dissolution, the Conservatives’ omnibus anti-crime bill is a collection of socially regressive measures. Most of these would make the criminal justice system more arbitrary and vindictive. Some are petty. Taken together they represent a wholesale repudiation of the bourgeois liberal concept of rehabilitation, in favor of punishment and vengeance.
Among other things, Bill C-10 would:

• Significantly erode the distinction between youth and adult offenders. Henceforth, the courts would be obliged to consider imposing adult sentences on persons as young as 14 convicted of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter or aggravated sexual assault. Judges would also have the right to impose harsher sentences in cases involving violent or repeat offenders, including those found guilty of reckless behavior.
• Allow police to arrest without a warrant “an offender who appears to be in breach of a condition of any conditional release.”
• Eliminate judges’ discretion to impose conditional sentences or house arrest for many crimes, including manslaughter and drug trafficking.
• Impose new or increased mandatory minimum sentences for those in possession of even small amounts of marijuana and other illicit drugs if deemed “for the purposes of trafficking,” and for persons convicted of child sex offenses.
• Impose longer wait-time before persons can request a pardon and bar those convicted of serious crimes from ever obtaining a pardon.
• Introduce new hurdles for Canadian citizens jailed abroad to serve the remainder of their sentences in Canada.

Claiming that they have a popular mandate, the Conservatives brushed aside opposition reservations about Bill C-10, including some 88 proposed amendments, and invoked cloture last month to ensure its passage by the House of Commons. The bill now only needs the imprimatur of the Conservative-dominated Senate and the Governor-General’s signature to become law.
The government claims stern action is needed because for the last 20 years the criminal justice system has “worked for criminals, not victims” and ordinary Canadians feel vulnerable.
In fact, Statistics Canada polls in 2004 and 2008 found that vast majority of the populace—about 93 percent—feels very safe. Moreover, crime rates, including rates of violent crime, have steadily declined for more than a quarter century.
Even some crime victim “advocates” have spoken out against the government’s emphasis on incarceration and retribution. As Steve Sullivan of Ottawa Victim Services pointed out, “Victims understand, better than most, that nearly all offenders will eventually be released from prison... The best protection victims, their families, and the community will have is if the offender can learn to modify negative behaviour before he or she is released.”
It is widely agreed among criminologists and others with expert knowledge about the criminal justice system that mandatory minimum sentences do not enhance community safety or lower crime rates. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association argues that mandatory minimum sentencing will make it impossible for the judiciary to respond to the particularities of individual crimes, resulting in prison terms way out of proportion with the crimes committed. By way of an example, it notes that under Bill C-10 a person who was coerced by a relative into participating in a marijuana grow-up would be subjected to the mandatory sixth-month minimum prison sentence.
As a result of Bill C-10’s mandatory-sentencing provisions, persons convicted of crimes will be treated less as individual human beings, responding to and operating within widely different circumstances, and more as members of a general deviant subgroup—“criminals”— all deserving of essentially the same penalty.
One of the inevitable perverse impacts of mandatory minimum sentencing will be a surge in the prison population. Bourgeois critics of Bill C-10, such as the Globe and Mail, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Liberals and the trade-union-supported New Democrats (NDP) have made this consequence a key point of criticism. Their objections, however, have chiefly to do with the huge increased cost to the state of housing all these new prisoners and whether, in a period of austerity, the government is making the best expenditure of taxpayer dollars in embarking on a major federal prison-building program.
To be sure, it is a telling indication of the government’s priorities that the criminal justice system and the military are among the only programs that will escape massive budget cuts in the coming years.
But even more important than dollars and cents is the suffering that will be inflicted on the prison population as the result of mandatory sentencing. Cramped conditions will lead to greater violence and force reductions in already inadequate services such as libraries, psychological and substance abuse counselling, and skills programs. All the more so, as the government is much more interested in building prisons than providing prisoners with programs aimed at their rehabilitation.
The government has cavalierly dismissed its bourgeois critics. When challenged over the statistics demonstrating a long-term decrease in crime, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson retorted,
“We don’t govern on the basis of statistics. If we see a need to better protect children or send a message to drug dealers, that’s the basis upon which we’re proceeding.”
The Conservatives’ law-and-order campaign has deeply reactionary political and ideological motivations that go far beyond the common media refrain that Prime Minister Harper is pandering to the religious social conservatives who constitute an important part of the party’s activist base.
The thrust of the Conservatives’ criminal justice policy is the repudiation of any notion that crime is rooted in poverty and other social ills and the resurrection of pre-Enlightment views of crime as a product of personal evil and original sin. Likewise, the Conservatives and the bourgeois establishment as a whole more and more present unemployment and all the other social injustices of capitalism as the product of individual failings.
Nicholson has promised that Bill C-10 is only the beginning of a massive “overhaul” of the criminal justice system. The Conservatives have already announced plans to significantly expand police powers, including to spy on the Internet, and to revive two lapsed provisions of the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act that provide for detention without charge and set aside the right to silence.
Under the cover of their “law and order” agenda, the Conservatives are building up the repressive apparatus of the state; promoting the police, along with the military, as an elite owed special respect, indeed deference, from the public; and cultivating the most base popular instincts, with their insistence that criminals must be “made to pay” through ever harsher sentences and prison conditions.
This goes alongside the criminalization of popular dissent and workers’ resistance, as in the case of the massive security mobilization and police riot during the 2010 Toronto G20 summit and the government’s use of emergency strikebreaking laws to break last year’s postal and Air Canada strikes.
While some of the measures in Bill C-10 have caused handwringing in sections of the elite, the Conservatives’ authoritarian measures against working people have been backed with enthusiasm by big business.

Stephen Harper's Bad Idea: Bill C-10 and the Strategy to Fill Our Prisons

The following article by Joan Ruzsa from Rittenhouse (also posted on the New Socialist) pulls together many of the important points about the Omnibus crime Bill.  Joan provides some really sharp points and contradictions within this Bill that we should all be thinking about.                                                                                                                                                   Joan Ruzsa has been the coordinator of Rittenhouse, an abolitionist agency that advocates for alternatives to incarceration, since 2000.  She also works at PASAN (Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Action Network) and is studying to become a psychotherapist.

By Joan Ruzsa I remember when the Harper government first introduced a bill (then called C-15) to create mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. I was struck by something when reading the parliamentary debates on the issue. Not only did the opposition parties point to numerous position papers that discounted the efficacy of mandatory minimums, but even the Conservatives' own research clearly showed that harsher sentences have no deterrent effect on crime. Governments and corporations commission studies all the time, and are usually able to get the results massaged in a way that reinforces their position. How bad must an idea be when even the people you hand-pick to study it can't find anything worthwhile in it? I remember feeling confident that there was no way the Conservatives would be successful in getting this bill passed. And initially C-15 died in parliament, but the federal government continued to doggedly pursue it, along with a number of other fear-based "law-and-order" initiatives. Harper and his people kept telling us that we needed to be "tough on crime" to protect our communities from increasing numbers of dangerous people. The only problem with that argument is that both the crime rate and the crime severity index have been steadily dropping in Canada since 1994. Then, in the summer of 2010, Stockwell Day informed reporters that the government's $9 billion proposed expenditure to build new prisons was necessitated by a rise in "unreported crime." Of course he was laughed out of the room, but a week later a smug article appeared in the Toronto Sun crowing that Day's assertion had been backed up by polling data. Even if that were true, "unreported" crime, by virtue of being unreported, does not end up in the court or correctional systems, and so has no bearing on prison populations. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy So what do you do when you have a factually insupportable crime agenda? You create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even before Harper won a "majority" in May 2011, his government was already putting their plan to fill the jails into action. In November of 2009, they passed a law getting rid of the 2-for-1 credit for people in remand. Up until that point, judges had the discretion to reduce people's sentences by two days for every day they spent in pre-trial custody. This was meant in some small way to compensate for the horrible conditions people had to endure, sometimes for months at a time, while awaiting trial, mostly because they were not in a financial position to post bail. By eliminating the 2-for-1 credit, the government clearly showed its indifference to the inhumane treatment of people who have not been convicted of any crime, in a country whose judicial system has a presumption of innocence and enshrines the right to a "speedy trial." Then in March of 2011, with the support of the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservatives passed Bill C-59, abolishing Accelerated Parole Reviews. These Parole Reviews had allowed people convicted of non-violent offences to get day parole after serving 1/6 of their sentence, and full parole after serving 1/3 of their sentence. By eliminating the 2-for-1 credit and Accelerated Parole Reviews, the Harper government guaranteed that people would spend more time behind bars. Creating More Criminals And then of course there is Bill C-10, inaccurately titled "The Safe Streets and Communities Act." Introduced in parliament on September 20th, C-10 brings together nine crime bills that the government was unsuccessful in passing previously. This omnibus bill, if passed as it is written now, will ensure that our prisons are full to overflowing, thus justifying Harper's construction plans. However, the prisons will not be packed because there is more actual crime happening, but because the government is criminalizing more communities and behaviours, as well as net-widening to create more incarcerable offences. They are also trying to enact legislation that will make it harder for prisoners to get out of jail, and easier for law enforcement to throw people back into jail. On the front end, we have mandatory minimums, changes to the youth justice act, and the elimination of house arrest (also called conditional sentencing) for many crimes. Mandatory minimums (Bill S-10) take away judicial discretion. Until now, judges have been able to look at mitigating circumstances and make decisions about sentencing based on the accused person's level of involvement in the crime, history, family or employment situation, etc. Now someone caught with as few as six marijuana plants will be charged with trafficking and receive a minimum jail sentence of 6 months. Changes to the youth justice act (Bill C-4) will result in more youth being held in pre-trial custody, more youth bring tried in adult court and sent to adult prisons, and increased custodial sentences rather than community sentences (like probation or community service). And Bill C-16, which is touted as eliminating house arrest for "serious" crimes, will result in jail time for people convicted for minor and property crimes. Bill C-10 will also impose considerable additional hardships on people while they're in prison. Bill C-39 removes language about rehabilitation and reintegration from the purpose of federal corrections in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, focusing solely on "the protection of society" as the paramount consideration. There is already very little effective or easily available rehabilitative programming inside Canadian prisons, especially for people serving long sentences, so with this language removed federal prisoners are even less likely to receive essential programs. This is particularly troubling in light of the bill's strengthened focus on prisoners having to complete their correctional plan before their release. It creates a Catch-22 where a prisoner's future freedom is dependent on services that are not made accessible to him/her. This bill also removes the language that the "least restrictive measures" must be used by guards to control prisoners. This will undoubtedly lead to more staff-on-prisoner violence and other potential human rights violations. It also adds new institutional charges, including "disrespecting" correctional staff, which can lead to punishments such as segregation and the restriction of family visits. C-39 also makes it significantly more difficult for prisoners to get parole. On the back end, with Bill 23B the term "pardon" is being replaced by the term "record suspension," the waiting periods will be longer before someone can apply, and certain convictions will make one altogether ineligible for a record suspension. Without having their criminal records expunged, it will be much more difficult for ex-prisoners to find employment, and make it more likely that they will reoffend and end up back in jail. Bill C-39 proposes another amendment that would allow police officers to arrest someone without a warrant, if the officer "feels" that the person might be breaking their parole conditions. It is often said that once people get involved in the criminal system, it is very hard for them to get out. With this legislation, the revolving door keeps picking up speed. Meanwhile, the opposition to these draconian responses to crime has been growing. Quebec and Ontario have refused to pay the astronomical costs associated with the bill. The Canadian Bar Association came out with a list of ten reasons to oppose the bill, and an association of defence lawyers from the US wrote an open letter to the Harper government imploring them not to go down the same road of mass incarceration that has been an utter failure there. Even Texas law enforcement officials told the Conservatives they were making a mistake. Texas is the state that uses the death penalty more than any other, and has seen fit to execute children and intellectually disabled people. If law enforcement from George W. Bush Country is telling you that your crime agenda is too harsh, you know there's a problem. The mainstream media, which often colludes with governments to create a culture of fear in which harsh laws will be accepted by the public, has for the most part gotten on board in denouncing the bill. And from a community perspective, many individuals and groups have come together to organize demos and events to discuss the devastating consequences of Bill C-10, particularly to already marginalized communities. "Warehouses for the Poor" So given all of the public outcry, and the complete lack of evidence that this bill will do anything to make our communities safer, why is Harper insisting on ramming C-10 through parliament as quickly as possible? Is his party full of rabid ideologues who actually believe that they have a mandate from the people to pass this legislation? Are they mean-spirited? Contemptuous of facts? Not very bright? While all of these things may play a part in the saga of C-10, I think there's a simpler answer. People who have stuff want to keep it, whether that stuff is money, material possessions or political power. Criminal laws were first instituted to ensure that wealthy people had their property protected, and that hasn't changed. The dominant culture has no interest in a shift in the balance of power. While C-10 may cost billions in taxpayers' dollars, a lot of rich people are going to get richer thanks to Harper's prison expansion plan. Many corporations have contracts with Correctional Services Canada (CSC). If you go to the CSC website and click on "Proactive Disclosure" and then "Disclosure of Contracts" you will get a sense of who is benefitting from the increased prison population. I have a sign in my office that says "Jails are warehouses for poor people." In fact, jails are warehouses for poor people; homeless people; Aboriginal people; people from racialized communities; people with physical and intellectual disabilities; survivors of physical, sexual and emotional abuse; psychiatric survivors; people who use drugs, queer and trans people; people living with HIV, and as we saw so clearly illustrated during the G20, people who express political dissent. People in power are invested in keeping things the same, and squashing those who have the nerve to suggest that things could be, and in fact should be, different. Prison in general, and Bill C-10 in particular, is a highly effective means of exerting social control. Whether it's Aboriginal people asking to have what was stolen returned to them, or other groups looking for the considerable wealth and resources of this country to be more equitably distributed, or simply those who challenge the status quo, locking people up and removing them from their communities is an effective way of silencing those voices. But all is not lost. The Senate refused to capitulate to Harper and pass C-10 before parliament broke for Christmas. This will give them more time to investigate the bill and hopefully make changes. And if worse comes to worse and it's passed as is … governments can be defeated, bills can be repealed, and a more compassionate, just society can be created. We just have to keep fighting. Joan Ruzsa has been the coordinator of Rittenhouse, an abolitionist agency that advocates for alternatives to incarceration, since 2000.  She also works at PASAN (Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Action Network) and is studying to become a psychotherapist.

Russia and Harm Reduction

In Russia, numbers of those with problematic drug use issues have been increasing. This is especially true where opiate narcotics are concerned.  The numbers of those dependent on heroin are increasing at alarming rates.  Reasons for this trend reflect the usual culprits.  Poverty, increased desperation, trauma.  Once hooked, users have little chance of escape.  Russia bans substitution therapies like methadone.   Government officials and health experts alike have publically stated that substitution therapies are "no way to treat addiction."  Leaders in psychiatry and addiction issued this statement: “The effective way to solve the problem of drug addiction treatment is an intensive search for and introduction of new methods and means that focus on complete cessation of drugs use by patients with addiction, their socialization into a new life style free from drugs, but not on exchanging from one drug to another.” With the high levels of poverty in Russia many users cannot afford to purchase heroin.  Desperate to shake off the terrible flu like symptoms, users have turned to a homemade substance referred to as "Krocodile". The technical term, desomorphine is a derivative of morphine.   It is cheap and made fairly simply from codeine, which does not require a prescription.  It won its street name, Krocodile because of its effects on the user.   Injected without further purification, Krocodile literally rots the flesh.  Skin becomes scaly and green. These symptoms are actually signs of phlebitis and gangrene. Some studies have estimated the life span of Krocodile users to be 2-3 years.

Russia is facing a time of great civil unrest. People are tired of the awful conditions under which they have been forced to struggle for many years, tired of the lack of commitment from their leaders regarding change, and sickened by wide spread corruption. While “leaders” feel they are entitled to take from the people, even while the people do without basic necessities.

It has finally become widely accepted in many parts of the world that those who use drugs problematically do so in order to temper emotional agony.  Finally the misinformed belief that  drug use itself is the problem has been put to rest. There are underlying issues which make it undesirable to stop. If getting high is your only means of escaping from terrible life circumstances, and depression, then people really have no right to demand that you simply quit without providing opportunity and hope.

Unfortunately many countries like Russia criminalise drug use itself, and the treatments (save abstinence) which are known to save lives. This creates conditions where drug users are unnecessarily exposed to HIV, and HCV; a mentality of judgment; stigma which prevents people from seeking medical treatment; and high rates of preventable deaths.

Russia is faced with the fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world. And unlike many other countries sex is not the primary method of transmission. Injection drug use accounts for as many as 80% of new infections. See the following stats on Russia from 1996-2006 as documented by the UN.

• Of the nearly 400,000 people living with HIV approximately 14,000 are receiving treatment.

• 55% of those diagnosed with HIV are persons between 15-24 years of age.

Despite the degree of hopelessness, there are those who are fighting back and speaking out.

Alexei, a former prisoner advocates for drug users one person at a time. His sister is HIV positive and terrified to seek medical attention for fear of judgment and mis-treatment.

Read thier story here:
Tear Fund - Hope to the Marginalised

Masha Ovchinnikova is an activist and project coordinator at FrontAIDS, a Russian AIDS activist group in Moscow. The group advocates for expansion of needle distribution and exchange programs, as well as access to discrimination free AIDS treatment and for methadone maintenance programs to be widely instituted.

See their web page at: 
FrontAIDS

Video - Speakers Forum: At Least Harper Got One Thing Right, Locking Up Sex Offenders?....

For those of you who may have been unable to make it to the anti-bill C10 speakers forum, "Thrown Under the omniBUS" in November a video has been put together of the entire speaking portion of the event.  There were a range of viewpoints from 6 panelists who are mostly against the Bill.  Remember the omnibus crime Bill contains 9 individual portions with suggested changes to many areas of law.  

As with many Canadians at least one of our panelists could not say he was opposed to tougher sentences for child sex offenders.  I get where he was coming from, however as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of multiple male assailents, I have to disagree with the "lock em up approach" even to this most heinous of abuses.

Proponents of the Bill often focus on the portion which increases the time child sex offenders and other violent people will spend in jail.  The claim is that our kids will be safer with predators locked up longer.  Lets take a closer look at the facts!  Right now as the law stands, a first time sexual abuser of children receives 15 days in jail.  Bill C10 will extend that time to 45 days.  Is this really going to increase our children's safety?  

Its not.  If anything the time spent in jail may connect this person with other predators, and at the very least he or she is likely to experience the same sense of anger, resentment and disgust with the system that the rest of us do when subjected to the total uselessness that is prison.  Will this make him/her less dangerous?  I don't think so.

What will make our kids safer is prevention strategies which take a broad look at what it is in society that allows child sexual abuse to be so prevalent.  We can begin by looking at whether children are truly valued or not socially.  Some measures of this might be how may children are living in poverty, how mush assistance is provided to low income families, existence of a national childcare program, and how or whether we encourage kids who have suffered abuse to come forward.  

As a child I was certainly told about "stranger danger" and what to do if someone "touched" me - to tell another adult like my mom or dad.  Unfortunately the men who began abusing me at age 6 were not strangers and I was too frightened and humiliated to tell my mom or dad.

These are the issues we need to look at if the safety and long term mental health of our children are really what our conservative government seeks to address.  Not a crime bill which really equates to nothing more than empty words.

10 Reasons to Oppose C10 - A Critique

The article included below, “10 reasons to oppose Bill C10” has good intentions but stops short on some issues, and is mis-informative on others.  Though we should all welcome and cheer most any support in opposing Bill C10, I also think we should think critically and welcome and cheer each other for those efforts.

Yes it is true as the article's authors states, that the Canadian Bar Association representing 37000 wrote a collective letter of opposition to the Harper government. But so did dozens of others including another collective letter, this time of human rights organizations from all across Canada including the Civil Liberties Association, and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. The Urban Health Research Initiative also organized a petition letter with over 550 signatures from healthcare workers.

Letters however were not the only form of address taken. Other organizations arranged actions which included developing web sites and blogs, building community coalitions, hosting discussion panels, forums, and public speaks, as well as designing letter and petition campaigns. Articles have been written, letters to MP's sent out, and conversations with friends, neighbours, and colleagues have taken place individually by 10's of thousands of Canadians since 2007 when the current law and order agenda was first introduced.

For those who wish to be involved there are current campaigns including a petition at AVAZZ.org (www.avaaz.org) asking Premiers to oppose Bill C10 on the basis of dollar cost. Another petition at Lead Now (leadnow.ca/keep-canada-safe) asks for a more radical re-thinking of the law and order approach to justice period. Lead Now requests that government officials “establish an independent commission of diverse citizens and experts to create a 21st century Canadian justice plan.” Lead now is also in the process of building a national campaign on this issue for those wishing to do more than write their MP's.

Most recently several Premiers have stated publicly that they will not be responsible for footing the dollar cost of this Bill. This is wonderful new but has 2 failings I can see. First, in attacking only the dollar costs associated with Bill C10 we fail to acknowledge that the greatest consequence will be the human cost. (although both human and dollar costs are intertwined and one failure increases failings in the other) Secondly, what do our Premiers intend to do if Ottawa steps up and provides funding? Will they simply continue to disregard all of the more important reasons for not supporting this Bill?

The author, Trinda L. Ernst begins in point one with a call to increase use of and funding for preventative measures to community harm – that which we refer to as crime. However she leaves out some of the most crucial and impactful measures known to both prevent community harm and increase public safety. Measures such as affordable housing and childcare, quality education, meaningful, well paid work, and equitable access to healthcare must be the focus of any “crime” prevention strategy where human rights, and community safety are the prime considerations.

Points 2, 3, and 4 discuss the rush with which the conservatives are pushing Bill C10 through parliament, the subsequent lack of review, and the methods with which they are promoting this legislation. In addition to stating that these processes are problematic we need to talk about why its a problem, who stands to benefit from this approach, and how.

The conservatives have made it known time and again that they care not for proven best practices, nor the evidence, research and statistics backing those approaches. What they care about are the demands and ideology of their core political base. People who tend to be mainly white, and middle class. People who are a long way from the experiences of oppression that many of us are subjected to which have often lead to our continued impoverishment and criminalisation. Not only do most of the conservatives political base not understand the day to day realities of what it means to be criminalised but they are also lied to and provided misinformation from their leaders in regards to the connecting issues of poverty and trauma. As Trinda states, those who support increasing criminalisation do so without fact based information.

Who benefits from this approach? The status quo, and those who represent them. By keeping mostly working class people under foot and not only infringing on civil rights as evidenced by the many recent attacks on labour unions and protestors, but by also threatening imprisonment more often and for longer periods of time, people are made fearful, and kept silent. These tactics combined allow the upper classes to maintain ownership, high profits and unfair percentages of our national resources, all off the backs of the low waged poor.

Point 5 deals with our youth. One important point left out here is that Canada leads the world in our rates of incarcerating young people. This trend will likely not only continue but be made worse under the conservatives who are once again pandering to ideology. That is that our youth have become dangerous and are out of control, that they need to be locked up. In fact just the opposite is true. “Crime” rates among young people are like most rates of “crime” in Canada, on the decline.

Trinda makes the point that imprisonment is a forerunner to later law breaking, that community based options are less likely to see continued lawbreaking behaviour. The piece she leaves out is that all people, not just youth are known to fare better with regards to increased stability, and decreased lawbreaking in community based programs as opposed to imprisonment.

In point 6 Trinda significantly points out that despite the title the conservatives have given to the portion of the act dealing with house arrest, (Ending House Arrest for Serious and Violent Criminals Act) it does not merely target acts of violence. In fact most people who are sentenced to conditional sentences or house arrest are non violent, property law breakers. So who benefits from this mis-information and how? Once again the owning classes are seeing their property and their profits protected as a priority in legislation which despite conservative claims, has nothing to do with ending violence in our communities.

Trinda's comments in the next point about prison creating predators were particularly annoying to me. People subject to ongoing degradation and humiliation at the hands of others for extended periods of time can become less socially able to live and work among us on a number of levels. But I would argue that someone who was not a predator going into prison, will still not be one when they come out. Moving on to the point behind Trinda's line of reasoning; disregard for prisoners human rights is a serious and prolific issue even with fairly strong law in place to protect them. Prison walls have the effect of blocking all public scrutiny, it is difficult to monitor what really goes on behind their walls even in the best of circumstances. The “Parole and Conditional Release Act” which is the Canadian legislation that deals with prisoner treatment states that prisoners maintain all rights afforded every Canadian except those necessairly restricted by withdrawal of individual liberty.

The conservatives want to see these rights transformed into privileges that have to be earned. This means for instance that freedom to protest conditions could be made illegal and subject to sanction. Protesting illegal treatment of one self by guards is already extremely difficult and indeed dangerous for those inside. Now with law on their side, stories of rape, assault and other abuses could be legally silenced.

I agree with Trinda in that the system with regards to prison overcrowding is at the breaking point right now. I would argue that this overcrowding fits into the effects of degrading and humiliating conditions I alluded to above. There are few if any quiet moments in prison, and no privacy at all, ever. These conditions can have the effect of causing anxiety and depression, as well as heightening survival instincts (fight or flight mechanisms) which in turn can increase incidents of aggression which become more difficult to turn off or undue as time goes on.

I don't agree that the police need more money to do their jobs. They are already some of the highest paid cops on the planet with access to some of the most up to date technology and resources available. Policing money would be better spent in alternative, grassroots, prevention and treatment initiatives.

In point 9 Trinda talks about victimizing the most vulnerable, a top issue of any law and order based agenda. But Trinda gets a little confabulated here.

The truth is that aboriginal folks are often moved far from their homes in order to be imprisoned. This is true of all women imprisoned in Canada as well, even after the building of 5 “regional centres” for women. The truth is that aboriginal peoples are vastly over represented throughout the criminal legal system. What we also need to know is that women are the fasted growing segment of the prison population and that aboriginal women are most impacted by this trend. Its also important to note that women account for 80% of all people victimized in Canada. In prison populations those statistics rise, with 85% of all women noted as survivors of sexual or physical assault. That number increases still more to 95% when speaking of aboriginal women. Other populations known to be vulnerable to criminalisation and imprisonment are the poor, people of colour, youth, people living with mental health issues, trans men and women, and those who use drugs. The methods by which they are criminalised almost always relate in some way to extended periods of poverty.

And finally the financial cost of this travesty called Bill C10? No one knows, and not enough people seem to care. What they are doing is not only irresponsible and disrespectful of the Canadian people, this kind of devil may care spending is not particularly conservative.... or is it?

10 reasons to oppose Bill C-10

Published On Mon Nov 14 2011

Under Bill C-10, prison officials will have more latitude to disregard prisoners’ human rights, bypassing the least restrictive means to enforce discipline. This means inmates are more likely to re-enter society as predators hardened by their prison experience.

Chris So/Toronto Star

Trinda L. Ernst
Bill C-10 is titled The Safe Streets and Communities Act — an ironic name, considering that Canada already has some of the safest streets and communities in the world and a declining crime rate. This bill will do nothing to improve that state of affairs but, through its overreach and overreaction to imaginary problems, Bill C-10 could easily make it worse. It could eventually create the very problems it’s supposed to solve.
Bill C-10 will require new prisons; mandate incarceration for minor, non-violent offenses; justify poor treatment of inmates and make their reintegration into society more difficult. Texas and California, among other jurisdictions, have already started down this road before changing course, realizing it cost too much and made their justice system worse. Canada is poised to repeat their mistake.
The Canadian Bar Association, representing over 37,000 lawyers across the country, has identified 10 reasons why the passage of Bill C-10 will be a mistake and a setback for Canada:
1. Ignoring reality. Decades of research and experience have shown what actually reduces crime: (a) addressing child poverty, (b) providing services for the mentally ill and those afflicted with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, (c) diverting young offenders from the adult justice system, and (d) rehabilitating prisoners, and helping them to reintegrate into society. Bill C-10 ignores these proven facts.
2. Rush job. Instead of receiving a thorough review, Bill C-10 is being rushed through Parliament purely to meet the “100-day passage” promise from the last election. Expert witnesses attempting to comment on more than 150 pages of legislation in committee hearings are cut off mid-sentence after just five minutes.
3. Spin triumphs over substance. The federal government has chosen to take a “marketing” approach to Bill C-10, rather than explaining the facts to Canadians. This campaign misrepresents the bill’s actual content and ensures that its public support is based heavily on inaccuracies.
4. No proper inspection. Contrary to government claims, some parts of Bill C-10 have received no previous study by parliamentary committee. Other sections have been studied before and were changed — but, in Bill C-10, they’re back in their original form.
5. Wasted youth. More young Canadians will spend months in custodial centres before trial, thanks to Bill C-10. Experience has shown that at-risk youth learn or reinforce criminal behaviour in custodial centres; only when diverted to community options are they more likely to be reformed.
6. Punishments eclipse the crime. The slogan for one proposal was Ending House Arrest for Serious and Violent Criminals Act, but Bill C-10 will actually also eliminate conditional sentences for minor and property offenders and instead send those people to jail. Is roughly $100,000 per year to incarcerate someone unnecessarily a good use of taxpayers’ money?
7. Training predators. Bill C-10 would force judges to incarcerate people whose offenses and circumstances clearly do not warrant time in custody. Prison officials will have more latitude to disregard prisoners’ human rights, bypassing the least restrictive means to discipline and control inmates. Almost every inmate will re-enter society someday. Do we want them to come out as neighbours, or as predators hardened by their prison experience?
8. Justice system overload. Longer and harsher sentences will increase the strains on a justice system already at the breaking point. Courts and Crown prosecutors’ offices are overwhelmed as is, legal aid plans are at the breaking point, and police forces don’t have the resources to do their jobs properly. Bill C-10 addresses none of these problems and will make them much worse.
9. Victimizing the most vulnerable. With mandatory minimums replacing conditional sentences, people in remote, rural and northern communities will be shipped far from their families to serve time. Canada’s aboriginal people already represent up to 80 per cent of inmates in institutions in the Prairies, a national embarrassment that Bill C-10 will make worse.
10. How much money? With no reliable price tag for its recommendations, there is no way to responsibly decide the bill’s financial implications. What will Canadians sacrifice to pay for these initiatives? Will they be worth the cost?
Canadians deserve accurate information about Bill C-10, its costs and its effects. This bill will change our country’s entire approach to crime at every stage of the justice system. It represents a huge step backwards; rather than prioritizing public safety, it emphasizes retribution above all else. It’s an approach that will make us less safe, less secure, and ultimately, less Canadian.
Trinda L. Ernst is president of the Canadian Bar Association.

ALCOHOL VS. POT, THE CRIME AGENDA, AND AMY WINEHOUSE

Though some of the stats in the below article are not exactly spot on (there are no viewer than 22 new facility builds and  expansions in the works across Canada tpcp-canada.blogspot.com) it provides a unique perspective, comparing the harms associated with the legal alcohol to the harms associated with the illegal pot. The author then frames the debate around the death of Amy Winehouse and other famous artists.   sheryl jarvis, Oct 2011

Iman Sheikh: Crime-policy lessons from the late Amy Winehouse

Andrea De Silva/Reuters

Amy Winehouse likely died of alcohol poisoning. Can Stephen Harper name a person who's died of a marijuana overdose?

Iman Sheikh  Oct 28, 2011 – 7:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Oct 27, 2011 5:27 PM ET

As they say on Law & Order, the lab called. They found something. Amy Winehouse, the notorious British jazz sensation who died mysteriously in her London home on July 23, had a blood alcohol level of over five times the legal driving limit. That the coroner ruled it death by such a mundane depressant is actually a shocking piece of news considering the troubled singer had experimented with more drugs than the FDA. How ironic that the one legal and socially acceptable mind-altering substance she ingested finally did her in.
It’s a familiar pattern when it comes to celebrity death. Michael Jackson: the (legal) anesthetic propofol. Heath Ledger: oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine (all legal). Anna Nicole Smith: the (legal) sedative chloral hydrate. If all of these stars merely had been committing the crime of smoking pot, they’d still be alive.

Yet Stephen Harper’s Bill C-10 dictates tougher penalties for drug offences, including a potential doubling of sentences for growing drugs such as marijuana. Meanwhile, Manitoba and Ontario have actually loosened liquor laws this year. What’s wrong with this picture?


According to StatsCan, over 58,000 Canadians were arrested in 2010 for simple marijuana possession. This is a 14% increase over the previous year, and comprises over 54% of all drug arrests in Canada. All this for possession of a drug that has never produced a single clinically observed overdose death in human history.
Earlier this year, a report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy declared the war on drugs, started 40 years ago by former U.S. president Richard Nixon, an abject failure: “Arresting and incarcerating tens of millions of people in recent decades has filled prisons and destroyed lives and families without reducing the availability of illicit drugs or the power of criminal organizations.”

The war on drugs is also expensive — and getting more so thanks to the billions of dollars that Mr. Harper is pumping into it. Under his program, eight prisons across the country are scheduled to be expanded at a cost of $2.1-billion over five years. Add to this the immense cost of maintenance of facilities and looking after the prisoners. Parliamentary Budget Chief Kevin Page has said the new rules could raise total prison costs to $9.5-billion a year in 2015-2016 from $4.4-billion this year. It could also require the construction of as many as a dozen new prisons.

This is a Prime Minister who once made a name for himself talking about the need for smaller government. Want to make government smaller, Stephen Harper? The drug war is a really good place to start.
On Oct. 17, officials from Texas — a state not known for bleeding-heart policy-making — said the Canadian government’s crime strategy is futile. “You will spend billions and billions and billions on locking people up,” Judge John Creuzot of the Dallas County Court said. “And there will come a point in time where the public says, ‘Enough!’ And you’ll wind up letting them out.” Texas isn’t alone. According to a February report from Human Rights Watch, “Eight states — including New York, where laws were the most punitive in the nation — have repealed most of these mandatory-minimum sentences, and dozens of other jurisdictions are considering repeal or reform.”

Back to Winehouse, who is not alone: Alcohol consumption is involved in 30% of all suicides, 40% of all deaths due to accidental falls, 45% of all deaths in automobile accidents and — the kicker — 60% of all homicides. The numbers for marijuana are close to zero, zero and zero. Yet Bill C-10 would tighten the screws on the latter, not the former.

To borrow from the late singer, it’s time to send these ludicrous policies back to rehab.
National Post

 A Little Known Expert on the Harper Crime Agenda?

Paula Mallea didn't make it to the short list for the recent speakers forum at Church of the Redemmer in Toronto.  But not for lack of trying.  People on the organizing committee simply had not heard of her.  I hope to contribute to changing that in whatever small way this blog may be able.  Paula is an expert around criminal justice having worked for 15+ years as a lawyer in Canada.  Paula is also an expert on the conservative governments crime agenda.  Included here is a copy of an article posted on Rabble, but originally written for the Centre for Policy Alternatives(CFPA).  It was while visiting the web site at CFPA that I first discovered Paula and her writing. She had several articles and one longer study published at that time in 2009.  I was inspired to contact her and asked if she could come to Toronto to speak on ideas for how people could oppose the crime agenda.  She agreed, but the pieces just havn't come together so far.  If the CFPA, Rabble, and I couldn't get Paula Mallea's name out there maybe her new book, Fearmonger can.    sheryl jarvis                                                                                                                                                                   For a summary and where to buy the book see: http://canadianbookshelf.com/Books/F/Fearmonger                                                                                                                                             To read her earlier work at the CFPA follow: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/search/apachesolr_search/paula%20mallea

Omnibus crime bill won't reduce victimization rates

By Paula Mallea

October 27, 2011

Harper, Nicholson and Toews are selling their snake-oil crime bill by presuming to speak on behalf of victims. When told that the crime rate has been declining for 20 years, they reply that one victim is one too many. When advised that statistics do not support their approach, they say most crimes go unreported by their victims. When criticized for the cost of their simplistic and counterproductive legislation, they reply that crimes cost victims $99 billion per year.

Let's be clear. One victim is too many, and whatever we can do to reduce victimization rates should be done. However, the omnibus crime bill will not achieve that objective. It will contribute mightily to a continuing structural deficit because of the colossal costs involved. And paying for this crime bill means programs that effectively prevent crime and rehabilitate offenders will never be funded.
Victims are not all made the same. They do not all support the strictly punishment-oriented approach of the Harper government. Why not let them speak for themselves?

Arlène Gaudreault, President of the Association québécoise Plaidoyer-Victimes, objects to the way politicians are usurping the legitimate voices of victims. She says victims are "increasingly exploited and used as a tool for partisan purposes by political parties of all stripes. Victims' rights are used to legitimize more crime control, but that discourse does not express the position of all victims. . . . It does not serve the cause of victims, and we reject Canada's decision to take this path." She says that "measures to help parents and families reduce poverty and inequality are essential to combat and reduce criminal victimization."

Lorraine Berzins worked in federal penitentiaries for 14 years and was the victim of a hostage-taking. As spokesperson for the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, she says the Harper tough-on-crime agenda "goes so much against all the evidence about what keeps communities safe, and it does so much harm, and they are going to spend so much money, that it's really surprising that there isn't more opposition."
Steve Sullivan of Ottawa Victim Services (and erstwhile Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime) says "victims understand, better than most, that nearly all offenders will eventually be released from prison. . . . The best protection victims, their families, and the community will have is if the offender can learn to modify negative behaviour before he or she is released." In other words, rehabilitation programs are key.
In spite of eloquent pleas by victims' advocates, the Harper government forges ahead with a retrograde, antediluvian and discredited approach to criminal justice. Its only "solution" for any and all crimes is a long prison sentence.

There is virtually no hope that the omnibus crime bill can be defeated now that Mr. Harper has his majority. So we turn to Steve Sullivan, who recently sent a desperate crie de coeur to the Conservative caucus:
I believe the ministers when they say they care about victims. . . . Here is what they should do -- at the next cabinet meeting, tell the Prime Minister he should abandon his crime agenda and put the bulk of those resources into programs for victims and prevention. When the Prime Minister says no, and we all know he will, then they should stand up for victims and walk out.

Paula Mallea, B.A., M.A., Ll.B, practised criminal law for 15 years in Toronto, Kingston, and Manitoba. She acted mainly as defence counsel, with a part-time stint as prosecutor, and spent hundreds of hours in penitentiaries representing inmates. She is a Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. She is the author of The Fear Factor: Stephen Harper's Tough On Crime Agenda. Her book, Fearmonger, a detailed critique of the Harper tough-on-crime agenda, published by Lorimer, is available in bookstores and online.

This article first appeared on Behind the Numbers.

Speakers Forum - Tuesday, Oct. 18

Please come out tomorrow night to Church of the Redeemer at 162 Bloor St. W. for an important discussion around the Conservative government's law and order agenda.  

What are the options to addressing community harm aside from prison and learn what triggers people to break the law in the first place.  

 
Learn about the impacts of harm and the justice system on survivor's, lawbreakers, family members, and the community.  

Be a part of the discussion - Bring your questions for our panelists!

Long Term Conservative Plans to Expand the Prison Industrial Complex

The prison-industrial complex

A question we Canadians should be asking ourselves about the current prison expansion agenda of the Harper conservatives is this:  Why if imprisoning people does nothing to deter social harm ("crime"), why if it is so incredibly expensive, and destroys generations of families, if there are far more effective means of addressing root causes of "crime", why are the conservatives being so damned pig headed in insisting we must jail vulnerable Canadians?       [sheryl jarvis, Oct, 2011]
Read on for one likely explanation ....

Updated: October 13, 2011 3:33 PM

The Conservative omnibus Safe Streets and Communities Act makes no sense if the aim is to reduce burgeoning crime, since the same strategies were tried and seen to fail in the US, and the Canadian crime rate is going down anyway. Furthermore, it is proven that increased funding of education reduces street crime — how many street gang members have university degrees? Harsh sentences actually serve to harden inmates into career criminals and break up families so children don’t get proper attention, thus increasing the crime rate over time.

I would suggest that the Conservative enthusiasm for longer sentences, mandatory prison terms, and prison sentences for more crimes has nothing to do with reducing crime.

The US has an economically important incarceration industry that corporate interests want duplicated in Canada. Patiently, step by step, the Conservatives have been creating the conditions for this — billions of dollars to build more prisons, and “tough on crime” legislation to ensure a huge increase in the Canadian prison population. In the US, private prison corporations have their own trade fairs to attract businesses that use sweat shops abroad. Gone are the days of sewing mail bags, now inmates have been hired at very low cost to do dangerous jobs, like cleaning up the toxic BP oil spill, highly technical tasks like assembling missiles, and all points in between.

Private prisons are interested in making a profit. That means they cut corners on everything else, including rehabilitation (bad for business: they want returning convicts) medical care, and the pay of their staff. In other words, this is state-corporate business at its ugliest — trafficking in human misery. Of course the taxpayer will be paying the private prisons, the transfer of money from the taxpayer to corporations being the goal of all serious Liberal and Conservative machinations.

Also, the Conservatives are an authoritarian sect which wants Canadians running on fear, anger and patriotism. They spend our money on propaganda to make us self-righteously angry at criminals, see them as less than human and therefore deserving of any violations of their dignity or well-being the prisons care to carry out. The term “criminal” is increasingly broadened to include legitimate dissent to frighten people away from exercising their constitutional rights. Witness the police state tactics at the G20 meeting in Toronto which were used on innocent protesters and even passersby.

As the government increasingly uses the international bankster-created deficit to justify “austerity” measures imposed upon the rest of us, they expect popular resistance at some stage. That’s another contingency the prisons are waiting for.

So, despite the hype and lip service, the Conservative omnibus crime bill won’t, and isn’t meant to, reduce crime. That is either irrelevant or counterproductive to the real goals. It’s about upping intimidation against poor people generally, and setting up a lucrative prison-industrial complex at taxpayer expense. In meeting these hidden agendas it unfortunately makes a lot of sense.

Keith Newberry

 

The prison-industrial complex

Published: October 13, 2011 3:00 PM
Updated: October 13, 2011 3:33 PM

The Conservative omnibus Safe Streets and Communities Act makes no sense if the aim is to reduce burgeoning crime, since the same strategies were tried and seen to fail in the US, and the Canadian crime rate is going down anyway. Furthermore, it is proven that increased funding of education reduces street crime — how many street gang members have university degrees? Harsh sentences actually serve to harden inmates into career criminals and break up families so children don’t get proper attention, thus increasing the crime rate over time.

I would suggest that the Conservative enthusiasm for longer sentences, mandatory prison terms, and prison sentences for more crimes has nothing to do with reducing crime.

The US has an economically important incarceration industry that corporate interests want duplicated in Canada. Patiently, step by step, the Conservatives have been creating the conditions for this — billions of dollars to build more prisons, and “tough on crime” legislation to ensure a huge increase in the Canadian prison population. In the US, private prison corporations have their own trade fairs to attract businesses that use sweat shops abroad. Gone are the days of sewing mail bags, now inmates have been hired at very low cost to do dangerous jobs, like cleaning up the toxic BP oil spill, highly technical tasks like assembling missiles, and all points in between.

Private prisons are interested in making a profit. That means they cut corners on everything else, including rehabilitation (bad for business: they want returning convicts) medical care, and the pay of their staff. In other words, this is state-corporate business at its ugliest — trafficking in human misery. Of course the taxpayer will be paying the private prisons, the transfer of money from the taxpayer to corporations being the goal of all serious Liberal and Conservative machinations.

Also, the Conservatives are an authoritarian sect which wants Canadians running on fear, anger and patriotism. They spend our money on propaganda to make us self-righteously angry at criminals, see them as less than human and therefore deserving of any violations of their dignity or well-being the prisons care to carry out. The term “criminal” is increasingly broadened to include legitimate dissent to frighten people away from exercising their constitutional rights. Witness the police state tactics at the G20 meeting in Toronto which were used on innocent protesters and even passersby.

As the government increasingly uses the international bankster-created deficit to justify “austerity” measures imposed upon the rest of us, they expect popular resistance at some stage. That’s another contingency the prisons are waiting for.

So, despite the hype and lip service, the Conservative omnibus crime bill won’t, and isn’t meant to, reduce crime. That is either irrelevant or counterproductive to the real goals. It’s about upping intimidation against poor people generally, and setting up a lucrative prison-industrial complex at taxpayer expense. In meeting these hidden agendas it unfortunately makes a lot of sense.

Keith Newberry

Crime Agenda - Prison Expansion by Justin Piche

The USA have long been aware of certain carceral trends.  To be expected given their 30+ year history of tough on crime, war on drugs, far right, nut job ideology.  Trends like prison expansion through capital expenditures, and hiring spikes.  These are kept on the down low until new Law and Order changes are announced.   

Because we in Canada are not and never have been accustomed to this latest most unprecedented expansion of our judicial and prison systems we were not looking for these quite building projects - at least not before the conservative announcements of no less than 16 new law and order restrictions - not until then did many of us start questioning where the hell this crazy regime planned to lock away between 70 and 270% more people over the next few years.  Thankfully people like Justin Piche began asking these questions from the outset.  Thanks to his tenacity in submitting multiple requests to information applications those of us who care (a list I believe is growing daily) were made aware of the extent to which are prison system is being expanded.  

Please read on for updates from Justin on Harpers prison expansion plans.

 

Minister Toews - Is There a Plan for Regional Penitentiary Complexes or Would You "Rather Not Share"?

While the Conservative Government of Canada is set to announce a job creation plan tomorrow (read CBC News article), they may also be considering another strategy to address unemployment in Canada and other social ills prisons have become a panacea for - to build new regional penitentiary complexes.

According to a partial release of documents obtained through an Access to Information request filed with the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) as part of a research project I've undertaken with Humber Professor Greg McElligott, federal penitentiary system officials formed a "Modernization of physical infrastructure and planning of regional complexes Committee" in 2008. They have also been attending presentations by government corporations such as P3 Canada, Infrastructure Ontario, and Partnerships BC on the different forms of public-private partnerships that exist for establishing new capital projects since at least March 2008 (view documents here).

The contents of these documents raise a number questions that need to be directed towards Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. Most importantly among them is whether or not CSC has tabled a capital plan for regional complexes to Cabinet involving a private-public partnership for building, financing and maintaining these facilities.

According to a 6 December 2010 response by Minister Toews to an Order Paper question submitted by former Liberal Public Safety Critic Mark Holland (Q-471), CSC's "Long-term Accommodation Strategy and Investment Plan" was to be tabled "for consideration in March 2011". It is now October 2011 and some 7 months have passed. So the main question that the Minister needs to be asked is whether there is a plan for regional penitentiary complexes siting on his desk or if he'd "rather not share" those details with Canadians at this time.

Emergence of the Proposal for Regional Complexes

In 2007, the CSC Review Panel identified several deficiencies with the current fleet of federal penitentiaries including their age, the preponderance of space said to be inconducive to the provision of institutional security and programming, and the geographic dispersal of the facilities. With these issues and others in mind, the panel made the following recommendations:

"98. The Panel recommends that CSC pursue undertaking capital and operating investments in a new type of regional, penitentiary complex that responds to the cost-efficiency and operational-effectiveness deficits of its current physical infrastructure.

99. The Panel recommends that CSC develop a 'project development proposal' for consideration which takes into account the recommendations of Deloitte's October 4, 2007 Independent Review of the cost estimate for the construction and operation of a new correctional facility which was commissioned by the Panel.

100. The Panel recommends that in the interim, CSC institute a clear criteria to minimize authorization of retrofit projects".

It should be noted that the Review Panel's recommendations for regional complexes that would replace existing facilities did not account for an influx of new prisoners resulting from some Conservative punishment bills such as the Truth in Sentencing Act (2009) (note: Deloitte estimated each facility would contain 2,175 cells). As will be discussed further below, the proposition of limiting retrofit projects appears to have been ignored as CSC pursues a short-term accommodation strategy to deal with an increase in their prison population and a long-term accommodation strategy along the lines of the Review Panel's recommendations.

CSC's Transformation Team

Following the release of the report, CSC assembled a "Transformation Team" in early 2008 to implement the recommendations of the Review Panel. According to, then, CSC Senior Deputy Commissioner Don Head (now CSC Commissioner), part of their activities involved the development of a three-pronged plan to 'modernize' physical infrastructure (read May 2008 article):

Component 1 (retrofits)

"The first addresses the most severe problems associated with "rust-out" in our institutions. CSC was provided with resources in 2007-08 and 2008-09 to do exactly this. A priority list of repairs and improvements was identified, by institution, and we will be proceeding to implement these changes".

Component 2 (short-term accommodation strategy)

"A second and important requirement is the review of our current accommodation strategy and capital accommodation plan, particularly with respect to critical redevelopment and new construction plans. We must ensure that our current plans help us meet the immediate needs of the changing prisoner profile, while ensuring that we do not over-invest in infrastructure that could be replaced by regional complexes".

Component 3

(long-term accommodation strategy / regional complexes)

"Overall, a regional complex would comprise maximum-, medium- and minimum-security accommodation areas, appropriately separated within a common perimeter fence but sharing common services [...]

We are also moving forward in exploring the approach that will be used to enter into a public-private sector arrangement to assist us in the modernization initiative. It is important that we be well advised as we move forward. We have had a preliminary briefing by a new Crown corporation, the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships, which was established by the Government in the 2008 Budget to support public-private partnerships in maximizing financial investments. We have also had preliminary discussions with Partnerships BC, a provincial Crown agency to support such partnerships. Ongoing consultations with such groups will ensure that we do not move forward alone, but with expert advice and guidance.

[...]

Thirdly, we are putting together a CSC team to develop a business process overview. The overview will in a very detailed manner, describe all aspects of our institutional activities, from intake assessment to reintegration planning and community release. As well, it will define management and operational requirements related to security, and the day-to-day running of the institution. Consultation with regional staff is an equally important element of the creation of the overview.

During this planning period and beyond, full consideration will be given to the relationship of moving to a regional complex with the impact on staff. Every effort will be taken to ensure that the needs of institutional staff are considered in the transition process. This will include ongoing consultation with the unions, institutional staff and the communities that will be affected".

The Modernization of Physical Infrastructure and

Planning of Regional Complexes Committee

As noted at the beginning of this entry, the third component of CSC's so-called physical infrastructure modernization efforts including the development of a project plan for regional complexes has involved meetings with a number of agencies involved in public-private partnerships.

To date, documentation has been obtained from the following presentations that CSC officials have attended: 1) March 2008 - P3 Canada; 2) no date - Public Works and Government Services; 3) 2 April 2009 - Infrastructure Ontario; 4) 8 April 2008 - Public Works and Government Services Canada; 5) 4 June 2009 - meeting participants, Infrastructure Ontario (part I; part II), Partnerships BC; and 6) 20 January 2010 - P3 Canada.

Documentation has also been obtained from a 20-21 November 2008 meetings of the Modernization of Physical Infrastructure and Planning of Regional Complexes Committee and related e-mails (25 July 2008; 9 October 2008).

As this Committee continued its work, a CSC Task Force on Security published a report in August 2008 (read here) that, while supportive of a multi-security-level facility concept, proposed that the capacity of institutions adopting such a model should not exceed 500 prisoners. This is significantly lower than the number of prisoners that would be warehoused within institutions modelled along the approach discussed by Deloitte as part of the 2007 CSC Review Panel report. As such, questions need to be raised about what configuration federal penitentiaries are proposed to take under CSC's long-term accommodation strategy that was scheduled to be tabled to Minister Toews months ago.

A Short-term Accommodation Strategy

In the midst of working towards developing a plan for regional complexes, CSC was also in the process on putting together a short-term accommodation strategy to absorb an expected influx of new prisoners resulting from federal sentencing measures. The details of this aspect of the 'modernization' of federal penitentiary system infrastructure began to emerge as Minister Toews was increasingly pressed by journalists and opposition parliamentarians to explain how the Conservatives planned to absorb the expected influx of new prisoners resulting from their punishment agenda beginning in March 2010.

As pressure continued to mount, CSC Commissioner Don Head wrote an op-ed published on 22 June 2010 (read here) - the same day that the Parliamentary Budget Officer published an estimate of the costs associated with the Truth in Sentencing Act (2009) (read here) - that offered a few details regarding CSC's short- and long-term accommodation plans. Among the details shared was a plan to create 2,700 additional prison spaces by adding new units on the grounds of existing facilities, along with an "increase in shared cell accommodation", also known as double-bunking. While Minister Toews had previously suggested that Commissioner Head was engaging in "conjecture" when he suggested in e-mails and before parliamentary committee's that new institutions would be constructed (watch 18 March 2010 interview on CBC's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon), the op-ed mentioned that CSC was also pursuing a "long-term plan that takes into account the need to replace some penitentiaries that have stood the test of time for many decades and no longer meet the requirements of a modern correctional system".

As part of CSC's short-term accommodation strategy, the Conservatives announced the equivalent of 34 new units to be located on the grounds of existing institutions from August 2010 to January 2011 (read 14 February 2011 post). It is estimated that these facilities will add 2,552 new prisoner beds at a construction cost of $601 million. In the process, it appears as though CSC and the Conservatives are ignoring aspects of the recommendations made by the 2007 CSC Review Panel that sought to replace, not expand, the federal penitentiary system's aging fleet of institutions.

As more details emerge, it also appears that CSC is moving towards establishing additional multi-level institutions through these smaller capital projects. For instance, a new maximum-security unit is being established on the grounds of the medium-security Collins Bay Institution. Such measures have been criticized by a number of stakeholders ranging from Howard Sapers, the Correctional Investigator of Canada, to officials from the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers (read 2 August 2011 article by Rob Tripp).

Potential Carceral Futures

and the Need for Transparency

With the agency's long-term accommodation strategy scheduled to be submitted in March 2011, there is a need to ask whether or not the additions being erected as part of CSC's short-term accommodation strategy may in fact be money down the drain should the facilities where they are being erected be closed as the 2007 CSC Review Panel recommends.

Another scenario, whereby old facilities that the Review Panel recommended for closure do not go offline as intended as new prisons designed to replace them come online, is just as plausible given the history of penal infrastructure construction in Canada that often sees facilities like Kingston Penitentiary (built in 1835) remain in operation long after promises of their closure are made. If this turns out to be the case, CSC will continue to have a stock of aging penitentiaries, along with newer facilities, that will further entrench Canada's capacity to confine and punish at a tremendous economic and human cost.

Do Canadians have a right to know where or not there is a plan for regional complexes siting on Minister Toews' desk and what that plan entails? I suspect the federal government will take the position that we do not - after all, why give their critics more ammunition to denounce their punishment agenda that the best available evidence suggests will have a negligible impact on what we call 'crime'.

I do hope, however, that I'm wrong and that they may have the courage to give us our information so that we can decide for ourselves if we want to be paying prison mortgages in the decades ahead as my generation is asked to pay higher taxes, while expenditures on priorities such as education for our children, old age security for our parents, health care for all citizens, and other measures are rolled back under the banners of 'austerity' and 'smaller' government.