Canadian conservatives campaign on fear of crime, but the reality is different

[Newsjock]

Source: The Globe and Mail

... Unholstering his arsenal of campaign points on Friday in Toronto, Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised Canadians that, in return for the small favour of a majority government, he'll gather up the last 11 crime bills the Conservatives tried to introduce, bundle them and put them through Parliament as an omnibus bill. He would take on organized crime, end house arrest, eliminate pardons and more, all in his majority's first 100 days.

Before that happens, a brief look at some of the moves the Harper government has already made might be in order. It was a crime bill, after all – Bill S-10, one of roughly 60 pieces of crime legislation it has introduced in its time in office – that caused Mr. Harper's government to be found in contempt of Parliament. Another law-and-order bill, the Truth in Sentencing Act, passed last year, is lengthening sentences and filling jails so fast that it alone will double the cost of the federal and provincial penal system in five years, to nearly $10-billion.

While we're at it, we might want to ask ourselves why we seem to feel such a burning itch to be tougher on crime. The crime rate has been dropping for a decade, even though 44 per cent of Canadians think crime rates have risen. The volume of crime reported to police is down 17 per cent over the past 10 years. The crime-severity index, which measures the seriousness of reported crime, is 22 per cent lower than it was in 1999. Violent crime is off 12 per cent since 2000.

But the Conservatives want to put more people in jail, and 62 per cent of Canadians believe longer sentences are the best way to reduce crime. In fact, as we'll see, lengthening sentences has no effect on crime rates. Yet many of us seem to want to be hard and unforgiving anyway. Why?

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/what-are-canadians-really-afraid-of-when-it-comes-to-crime/article1978257/singlepage/#articlecontent

[PDJane]

1. We watch too much American Television, I think.......

We haven't got a major crime problem, in spite of the occasional high-profile senseless murder, and if jailing people was a predictor of low crime rates, the US should be virtually crime-free.

I would also point out that the murder rate decreased when the death penalty was abolished. That's been true in almost all cases.

Long sentences are wasted time for both the watcher and the watched.