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Originally Posted by Bownesian
Your analogy is faulty.
The problem they are attempting to solve is not the problem of prison populations. They are attempting to address the perception, right or wrong, that criminals in Canada get off easy and are thus intentionally attempting to incarcerate more criminals for longer sentences. This has led to an increase in the incarceration rate, an increase in the number of prisoners and has created a need for more prisons.
It's all too easy to take the "falling crime rate" bait and take that to mean that with current laws and population growth rates, this will not lead to more prisoners and thus a need for more prisons. You may think that the root cause of the government's prison-building policy is bad policy and if you do I invite you to make that point but it's fallacious to attack it by using statistics out of context, as the federal opposition has done.
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OK--two points.
1. Shouldn't you be working?
2. I think you're misconstruing a key feature of my argument, which is understandable since that argument took the form of innuendo and analogy rather than open statement. So let me fix that:
My argument is not (as you seem to imply) "crime rates are falling therefore building prisons is wrong." It is "building prisons to address overcrowding in prisons is akin to putting another bucket under a leaky roof." Let me be clear:
A. The establishment of mandatory minimum sentences for more than the most heinous of criminal code offenses is a wrong-headed policy, for many reasons--one of which you've touched on. First because it removes discretion from our judicial branch, and puts it into the hands of politicians who manipulate it for votes. Secondly, because it results in overcrowding of prisons, which is in this case (as you concede) a symptom of bad policy, not a of rising crime.
B. Building more prisons is really a way of sticking your head in the sand and not admitting that your policy is bad. Their policy has created a problem which didn't exist before--and rather than change that policy, they're applying a bandaid to the problem that their own policy created. That's called treating the symptom and not the disease.
The fact that the backdrop of all of this is a FALLING crime rate just puts an exclamation mark on the fact that their policy was cynical and calculated in the first place. There's no easier political stance than "tough on crime." It sounds really good to people who don't ask critical questions of politicians, which (let's face it) is most people of all political stripes.