Michael's Essay: Canada's prisons are crowded, violent, and do not rehabilitate
If you've read the Auditor General's Report this week, you can get some idea of how governments can waste money.
If you've read the report of the Correctional Investigator of Canada, also released this week, you can come away with some idea of how governments can waste human lives.
The bureaucratic title is a bit misleading.
Harold Sapers is actually the ombudsman for more than 15,000 federal inmates.
It is his mandate to ensure that their complaints are investigated and resolved. As his job description says, it is his job to right any wrongs he may find in the system. And with each report, he seems to find more and more to correct.
In his current report, he describes Canada's prisons as more crowded, more violent and almost devoid of any sense of rehabilitation.
Now there's no question that prisons are nasty places, populated by some very nasty and very violent people.But in the ombudsman's view, this does not excuse what he calls "mass incarceration and arbitrary and abusive conditions of detention."
People are supposed to be sent to prison AS punishment, not FOR punishment.
In a speech last week, he criticized the current government's tough on crime policies, saying, "The idea that punishment with no apparent limit is justified, stands many of the principles underlying our democracy and our criminal justice system on their head."
Reading his report and his speeches is a grim exercise.
Some examples:
--The prison population has grown to an all-time high even though the crime rate has declined sharply.
--More than 20 per cent of inmates are double-bunked two to a cell designed for one.
--The number of visible minorities in our prisons has increased by 75 per cent in the last 10 years, and a quarter of all inmates are aboriginals, even though they make up only 4 per cent of the population.
Says Mr. Sapers: "You cannot reasonably claim to have a just society with incarceration rates like these."
He notes that the increased rates of incarceration seem to be driven by government policy, not crime. Added to all of this, is the government's downright mean treatment of inmates.
Things like charging more for making phone calls, increasing room and board charges, eliminating incentive pay for work in prison programs, and reducing access to prison libraries.
Putting more people in jail while crime rates across the board are falling is part of the government's overall U.S. style tough on crime policy. Ironically, the United States seems to be recognizing that throwing more people in jail doesn't solve anything. It is moving to reduce its prison population -- perhaps finally recognizing there is no connection between incarceration and decreased crime rates.
Given the fact that the U.S. puts more of its citizens in prison than any other country proportionately, it should be the safest country in the world.
As Mr. Sapers takes pains to point out, it isn't.
His report also contains a fearsome warning. Conditions are so bad inside our prisons that the chance of a riot similar to the 1971 riot at Kingston Penitentiary is a possibility.
As penitentiaries become more crowded, they also become more dangerous and unpredictable places. Whether the current government will heed the warning and listen to Mr. Sapers is debatable.
Sadly, it is more likely the government will continue its Inspector Javert-like approach to criminal justice. If it does, it will be ignoring Howard Sapers's central argument;
"You cannot incarcerate your way to greater public safety."