[DIV id=headline] [H2]Crime bill sets mandatory minimum sentences[/H2] Globe and Mail
[UL class=columnistInfo][/UL] [DIV id=article style="FONT-SIZE: 100%"] Concerns are already being raised about two crime bills tabled by the Conservative government in the House of Commons on Thursday.
The legislation, coming in the form of two bills, would introduce mandatory minimum sentences for gun-related and other serious crimes and eliminate house arrest — known as conditional sentencing — for serious, violent and sex-related crimes.
"If criminals are to be held to account, they must face a punishment that matches the severity of their crime," Justice Minister Vic Toews said Thursday.
Criminology experts expressed doubt that such sentencing will do little more than fill the country's prisons.
"This is not going to make me and you any safer," University of Toronto criminology professor Anthony Doob said. "This has nothing to do with making our streets safer and everything to do with politics."
Mr. Doob said he has reviewed a wide body of literature on the effects harshness of sentencing has on reducing crime, primarily in the United States because of the shortage of such literature in Canada. He said the United States has acted as a "big laboratory on mandatory sentences" and the projects all come to the same conclusion.
"They are all very clear that they (mandatory minimum sentences) are not going to have an effect on crime," he said.
Mr. Doob argued that a wide reduction in violent crime across the United States and Canada throughout the 1990s was independent of mandatory sentencing. He said there is no evidence to support the suggestion that heavier sentencing works as a deterrent against violent crime.
He said you could just as likely attribute the reduction in crime over those years to "spitting in the wind."
He said Canada's three national parties, which have all called for mandatory minimum sentencing at some point, have got it wrong.
"Just because the three national parties agree on it doesn't mean it's right," Mr. Doob said.
He added that filling prisons is not a good strategy for tackling crime, because housing prisoners takes away dollars that could be spent on fighting crime. Housing one prisoner in a federal penitentiary, he said, costs more than putting an officer on the street.
The Tories are making it clear that the legislation would add more prisoners into the system, but said they anticipated that it would also work as a deterrent to people considering committing violent crimes.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said the combined effect could be an increase of between 300 and 400 in the national prison population, though he cautioned that nobody knows the precise figures.
"It's our estimate, it's not exact, it's not scientific," Mr. Day told a news conference.
The increase could translate into new spending of between $220-million and $240-million to create new jail space over the next five years, Mr. Day said.
Again, however, he was reluctant to pin down a specific number.
"We want to set aside that much," said Mr. Day. "Whether that much will be drawn on, we don't know. We'll have to wait and see."
Justice Minister Vic Toews said police and the public are fed up with crime.
"When it comes to crime, it is the new government's firm commitment to finally respond to the concerns of police and, most importantly, of ordinary Canadians," Mr. Toews told a news conference.
"We are changing the focus of the justice system so that serious crime will mean serious time."
The legislation will impose five-year minimums on first-time weapons offenders, seven years on a second-timers and 10 years on multiple offenders.
Other firearm-related offences such as trafficking and smuggling and cases of robbery with a stolen weapon will also be subject to escalating minimum prison sentence of three to five years.
"With these two bills, the new government is meeting its commitment to protect Canadian communities and families by tackling gun, gang and drug violence and keeping criminals off the streets," Mr. Toews said.
"I am confident that the actions we are taking today will result in reforms that will mean everyone can feel less threatened by violent crime."
Critics have suggested that the legislation will overload prisons and cost the federal government millions of dollars.
The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in Tuesday's budget that it would build a new federal prison and increase jail spaces, something corrections officers agree is a necessity before such legislation is enacted.
Jason Godin, Ontario regional president for the Union of Canadian Corrections Officers, said there are no spaces available in Canadian prisons.
"There are no vacancies these days for medium and maximum-security facilities," he said.
He added he is concerned for the safety of his members. Currently, most prisons have single-bed cells. When those cells have been double-bunked in the past, it has led to increased tensions between inmates and guards.
Likewise, Graham Stewart, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, a group representing the interests of inmates, said he is was "disappointed" by the legislation.
He said he is concerned about politicians taking away the discretion of judges to determine sentencing, adding that fair and proportionate sentences would be a better option.
