Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
The issue with crime today isn’t that sentencing isn’t tough enough. The problem (aside from the root causes of social breakdown the that CPC have no solution to) is that there’s a chronic shortfall of court capacity. We have more people behind bars in this country awaiting trial than we do serving sentences. That’s why petty criminals get bounced back onto the street. It isn’t due to judges being soft-hearted liberals - it’s because the court backlog is so long (up to 18 months) that it’s the most expedient way to handle the overload.
And since most criminal cases are tried in provincial court, it’s provincial resources that are needed to fix that.
But I don’t hear Poilievre (or Danielle Smith) pledging increased resources for provincial courts. Because that would cost real money, and building more court houses and hiring more lawyers, judges, and court clerks doesn’t look good as a headline in the Calgary Sun. Instead they’ll do things that are cheap, performative, and ineffective - like increasing mandatory sentences - in order to play to their base.
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You also get time served at a higher rate; since you’re essentially being held against your rights until you’re convicted…. So you’re out quicker there too (due to it taking so long).