lock them up, throw away the key, and raise taxes to pay for it

I am always annoyed by “tough on crime” measures that are thrown about during election campaigns. Crime issues seem to resonate with a lot of voters, even though the vast majority of Canadians are not exposed to any crimes, yet alone violent crimes which seem to get all the attention. There is a perception that crime is rampant, largely I think because crime gets reported everyday on various news media. I am not saying that crime is not a problem, but I do find it odd how big of an issue it becomes during elections.

The Conservatives would like to be able to send children to prison for life terms. They also want to be able to ruin a child’s life by advertising to the world that they are criminals. I say children because the Conservatives want to be able to identify and possibly sentence to life in prison people as young as 14 years old. I understand that people who are 14 years old are capable of committing some truly heinous crimes, but I also do not think that the proper way to compensate victims or society is to completely ruin the life of the perpetrator. I think true justice would mean punishing the criminal, but also bringing them to believe that what they did was wrong, and that they should make it a part of their life to help prevent crime, to educate people heading down the wrong path.

Another popular Conservative “tough on crime” proposal is to further limit the use of conditional sentence orders (house arrest). While it does often seem like criminals are getting off easy when they are sentenced to house arrest instead of jail time, there are very good reasons why we cannot send everyone to jail. Firstly, jails cost a lot of money. Watching CBC Newsworld today the number of $87,000 per year per male prisoner in federal penitentiaries was thrown out (they never said what the source of the information was). Justice costs a lot of money, it is necessary to have prisons, some people are too dangerous to be in society, but we cannot simply lock up every criminal, it would cost too much money. When the Conservatives, and all the other parties, say they want to get tough on crime they should also let voters know that getting tough on crime costs a great deal of money, and that taxpayers are going to have to pay to get tough on crime.

The second reason why putting people in jail is not always the right choice is that it often makes a first time offender who made a terrible mistake into a life long criminal. House arrest is usually given out to first time offenders. While I am certain house arrest is a cake walk compared to time in jail, I am also sure that no one wants to be under house arrest. People always argue that tougher sentencing would mean less crime. Most crimes are not planned, they are often based on stupidity, or passion, or drunkenness, or addiction, or mental illness. People are not thinking about the sentence they might receive when they are going to commit a crime.

I think that the right approach to getting tough on crime means spending more money on police, not so that they can arrest more people, but so they can make people feel safe, so that they can deter idiots and hot heads from doing something they will regret, and to be able to go after gangs and career criminals who are committing some of the worst crimes in Canada. I think that reducing crime means spending money on social housing, drug treatment, youth programs (sports, culture, etc.), income assistance, mental hospitals, Aboriginal programs and many more things. With a strong social safety net a lot of criminals will no longer have the need to commit property crime. With something to occupy their time many youths will avoid the kind of hooliganism which comes from hanging around in large groups with nothing to do. It makes more sense to invest in social programs than to simply lock people up at a cost of $87,000 per year.