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Tories to crack down on parole for non-violent offenders


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It's pretty straight up, guys... anyone who can't cost out an initiative can't claim to be fiscally responsible, and if they can't get specific enough in their objectives to even be able to analyze the effectiveness of it after the fact, they aren't pragmatic, or efficient, or any of those other good things either.

I expect a heck of a lot better from anyone who's spending my money.

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It's pretty straight up, guys... anyone who can't cost out an initiative can't claim to be fiscally responsible, and if they can't get specific enough in their objectives to even be able to analyze the effectiveness of it after the fact, they aren't pragmatic, or efficient, or any of those other good things either.

I expect a heck of a lot better from anyone who's spending my money.

By that logic, we shouldn't be putting people in prison at all - and we'll save more of YOUR money. You are simply agreeing that you are completely satisfied with the sentencing and parole system......and that is your right. You are saying that the current system is effective enough for you and accurately reflects your opinion of how serious these crines are.....and good for you. I don't happen to agree.

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So you agree with violent prisoners escaping from overcrowded prisons because you increased non-violent prisoner numbers?

If that's happening.....it's an even stronger signal that we have to invest in our prison system....but as usual, you've evaded my original question to you. Do you believe that in general, it's OK to let these prisoners out after serving 1/6 of their sentence and almost uncontested after serving 1/3?

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If that's happening.....it's an even stronger signal that we have to invest in our prison system....but as usual, you've evaded my original question to you. Do you believe that in general, it's OK to let these prisoners out after serving 1/6 of their sentence and almost uncontested after serving 1/3?

If they are non-violent offenders, I'd rather invest in stronger parole measures, restitution and monitoring. All I see happening with the Tory plan is ever greater costs and capacity being built to the point that we see what is happening in other jurisdictions.

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By that logic, we shouldn't be putting people in prison at all - and we'll save more of YOUR money.

No, that is not what was said.

Cost out a plan before plunging into the policy that will incur the costs. Debate it, explain it and compare it to the alternatives. And for Pete's sake, stop acting like a horse's ass about it all when someone raises questions about things like effectiveness, costs or anything else about the plan.

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I simply don't believe what I am seeing here. Don't you folks think the concept should be debated FIRST! If it survives a debate, I would think the next step would be to cost it out and determine the viability of the concept. That is how the system SHOULD work. We have the cart before the horse wondering how much it will cost before we decide whether or not we are willing to embark on that path.

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I simply don't believe what I am seeing here. Don't you folks think the concept should be debated FIRST!

That is not is what has happened. There has been no debate. The policy has been announced and legislation put forward.

This isn't a concept deliberated in committee with recommendations for legislation afterward.

This *is* the legislation.

If it survives a debate, I would think the next step would be to cost it out and determine the viability of the concept. That is how the system SHOULD work. We have the cart before the horse wondering how much it will cost before we decide whether or not we are willing to embark on that path.

This isn't a concept being discussed. This is what the government will do. As such, the costs have to be discussed.

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Thank you for making my point! This issue and many others need to be played out in public debate. That is why I am not very fond of the system as it stands. The government has too much power and authority in its control. This is not how a democracy functions best. It is my hope that folks will learn this lesson and begin to call for open debates and free votes. We need a level of honesty and integrity thrown into the mix for good measure.

Perhaps this is all for the best because this kind of crap will rise up to bite the politicians in the ass.

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It underscores the impotence of our current political leaders, where a minority government can rule without debate because they know the other parties are in such a position of weakness, they will go along with anything thats put out by the government out of fear that they will lose more seats in an election. They have no choice but to protect their own self interests... to the detriment of fair and just political process in Canada.

The system has degenerated into a plutarchy. A neo-democracy. In other words, a fools game, but the joke is on all of us.

Away with these charlatans.

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I watched the debate on this and what people may not know is this is NOT for the Federal prisons it for provincial and the two Tory members that brought this bill forward, couldn't even tell what the cost would be. The cost to take another 5000 prison per year in, would in the millions for the provinces and to build prisons at least 1 Bil. Most of these prisoners are going to be pot smokers and the cost for just one prisoner is at least 84,000 per prison and what help are these people going to it so they don't return?

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No, that is not what was said.

Cost out a plan before plunging into the policy that will incur the costs. Debate it, explain it and compare it to the alternatives. And for Pete's sake, stop acting like a horse's ass about it all when someone raises questions about things like effectiveness, costs or anything else about the plan.

No need to get nasty. I love questions....but it's more than just building prisons. Putting pronciples aside, many of the "costs" are debatable on their own - with the arguments often being polarized:

1) Is tougher sentencing and earned parole a deterrent? If so, how much does society save by preventing the next Ponzi scheme for example.

2) Will there be any noticeable impact on the availability of drugs if we keep the pushers in jail longer? Even a 5 or 10% decrease in availability might lead to some impact on usage.....and that translates into a whole bunch of tangible and intangible savings to society.

3) Will our courts recognize savings by removing some of the revolving door "cost of doing business" criminals? Looking at the rap sheets of some of these repeat offenders is mind-boggling.

4) White collar crimes are very often not pursued by the police because they involve a lot of work and complex investigation.....and then there is just a slap on the wrist. If the consequences are more serious, will the police be more involved? If so, what does society save and how much does it cost to set up more comprehensive fraud squads.

5) If a prisoner has to "earn" parole by remorse, taking programs, and getting educated - will this have a positive impact on their return to society? If 10% more inmates decide to go straight or more correctly, are able to go straight....how much does that save society by avoiding their next crime, trial, and incarceration?

It's more than just tax money. What gets lost in the "costing" are the hidden costs to society...the loss of a son or daughter to drugs, the loss of a senior's life savings to fraud....and many other examples.

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No need to get nasty.

I was referring to Van Loan who immediately blamed the Liberals in the news conference despite the fact that it was his former party, the PCs that enacted accelerated parole.

I love questions....but it's more than just building prisons. Putting pronciples aside, many of the "costs" are debatable on their own - with the arguments often being polarized:

Since I have shown you the latest capacities of prisons in the last weeks for Manitoba alone, any change in the legislation has to come with a prison building program. All I have seen here is that people don't care what it costs.

Well, that was the same attitude in other places until programs were about to cut on a massive scale elsewhere. Only then did people ask what the alternatives were.

1) Is tougher sentencing and earned parole a deterrent? If so, how much does society save by preventing the next Ponzi scheme for example.

I think better policing and regulations are better than hoping for sentencing afterward in deterring crime. Harder to set up a Ponzi scheme if the regulators shut you down for trying to set up a business without a securities license.

2) Will there be any noticeable impact on the availability of drugs if we keep the pushers in jail longer? Even a 5 or 10% decrease in availability might lead to some impact on usage.....and that translates into a whole bunch of tangible and intangible savings to society.

I think some police have already indicated that the price of the drugs goes up and violence remains steady.

Canada has a drug problem.

3) Will our courts recognize savings by removing some of the revolving door "cost of doing business" criminals? Looking at the rap sheets of some of these repeat offenders is mind-boggling.

I think repeat offenders should be jailed.

However, let's hear the costs of all options and consider alternatives to building ever greater numbers of prisons.

4) White collar crimes are very often not pursued by the police because they involve a lot of work and complex investigation.....and then there is just a slap on the wrist. If the consequences are more serious, will the police be more involved? If so, what does society save and how much does it cost to set up more comprehensive fraud squads.

Police don't choose not to pursue people because of what the courts do. They often don't go after certain areas of crime as hard because they lack the manpower or because they make violent crime a priority.

My belief is that better regulatory and policing are far more useful in stopping commercial crime. And when a commercial crime is committed, I believe it is far more effective in seeking restitution than long sentences.

5) If a prisoner has to "earn" parole by remorse, taking programs, and getting educated - will this have a positive impact on their return to society? If 10% more inmates decide to go straight or more correctly, are able to go straight....how much does that save society by avoiding their next crime, trial, and incarceration?

I'd like to hear how many re-offend using the present system.

It's more than just tax money. What gets lost in the "costing" are the hidden costs to society...the loss of a son or daughter to drugs, the loss of a senior's life savings to fraud....and many other examples.

The Tories should produce some of those numbers rather than acting like goons in pushing their plan.

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If they are non-violent offenders, I'd rather invest in stronger parole measures, restitution and monitoring. All I see happening with the Tory plan is ever greater costs and capacity being built to the point that we see what is happening in other jurisdictions.

Ludicrous. You cannot monitor a fraud artist sufficient to keep him from commiting more fraud. Not unless you have one parole officer for every felon. Further, there is a requirement for punishment here. When someone defrauds thousands of people out of their life savings, society requires they be sent to prison for more than a few months given the harm they've commited.

Your obstinate and senseless opposition to stricter prison terms has NOTHING to do with the cost and everything to do with your party's limitless sympathy for criminals.

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I watched the debate on this and what people may not know is this is NOT for the Federal prisons it for provincial and the two Tory members that brought this bill forward, couldn't even tell what the cost would be. The cost to take another 5000 prison per year in, would in the millions for the provinces and to build prisons at least 1 Bil. Most of these prisoners are going to be pot smokers and the cost for just one prisoner is at least 84,000 per prison and what help are these people going to it so they don't return?

Do you have a shred of a fragment of a piece of evidence that "most of these prisoners are going to be pot smokers"?

Because I'm going to sugggest that it is unlikely in the exxtreme that more than 1/1000th of a percent of them will be people inprisoned for smoking pot.

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Ludicrous. You cannot monitor a fraud artist sufficient to keep him from commiting more fraud. Not unless you have one parole officer for every felon. Further, there is a requirement for punishment here. When someone defrauds thousands of people out of their life savings, society requires they be sent to prison for more than a few months given the harm they've commited.

Didn't say that prison wasn't necessary for some crimes.

I just think a life sentence for commercial crime is probably more costly than alternatives.

Your obstinate and senseless opposition to stricter prison terms has NOTHING to do with the cost and everything to do with your party's limitless sympathy for criminals.

And your obstinate approach to building prisons and life sentences no matter the costs has everything to do with your party's lack of control in spending.

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1) Is tougher sentencing and earned parole a deterrent?

This really isn't about tougher sentencing, it's about giving out "get out of jail free cards." A better question might be: does a weak justice system provide an incentive for white collar crime? How does someone working their tail off to make an honest living look at Chuck Guite getting day parole after only 7 months of his sentence? At what point does the message become "crime does pay"?

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Didn't say that prison wasn't necessary for some crimes.

I just think a life sentence for commercial crime is probably more costly than alternatives.

I think that would rather depend on the extent of the crime. Do you think Bernie Madoff should ever get out of jail? The guy embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars, left some people all but penniless, having stolen a life's worth of savings and work that many are simply too old to re-earn.

And what about the chronic fraudster, the guy that doesn't have the wit or talent of Madoff to bilk large numbers of people for stupendous amounts of cash, but still has a long history of identify theft, defrauding financial institutions, etc.?

Surely there has to be a point at which the extent of the white collar crime is so extreme, or it has become unavoidably obvious that the individual will not cease in this sort of crime that we finally and quite literally put them in jail and throw away the key.

I'll be blunt here. I don't think Earl Jones, for instance, should ever see the light of day again.

And believe me, I'm no big Conservative supporter (which anyone who reads these forums will know). Neither am I saying that those criminals who do show some willingness to change their ways should be given a fair shake, but parole should not be automatic, it should be earned, otherwise we might as well just reduce the sentence lengths and stop pretending that a guy who gets sent away for three or five or whatever many years is actually going to be put away for that long.

Edited by ToadBrother
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Speaking of sentences.....I find it strange that Canadian media only report the maximum sentence (....he was sentenced to 15 years). In the US, they correctly say that they are serving a range - 5 to 15 for example. That lets the public know exactly what's going on. Canada never reports sentences in that fashion, let alone indicate that Statutory Release lets them after serving 2/3 anyway. Why doesn't our media report the true sentence? In reality, a 12 year sentence is actually an 8 year sentence because of Statutory Release.....and because they could possibly get out after 2 years (1/6) the truthful sentence is 2 to 8 years - not 12 years.

Edited by Keepitsimple
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I think that would rather depend on the extent of the crime. Do you think Bernie Madoff should ever get out of jail? The guy embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars, left some people all but penniless, having stolen a life's worth of savings and work that many are simply too old to re-earn.

I think I have said that some people ought to be in jail but I don't think Madoff's sentence is a a deterrent to others.

What I think is a better deterrent is better regulations and policing.

And what about the chronic fraudster, the guy that doesn't have the wit or talent of Madoff to bilk large numbers of people for stupendous amounts of cash, but still has a long history of identify theft, defrauding financial institutions, etc.?

I also think repeat offenders should be in jail.

Surely there has to be a point at which the extent of the white collar crime is so extreme, or it has become unavoidably obvious that the individual will not cease in this sort of crime that we finally and quite literally put them in jail and throw away the key.

The problem is that some people want to go the other way and remove all the regulations. Last week there was a Republican who said he wanted to remove regulatory oversight.

I'll be blunt here. I don't think Earl Jones, for instance, should ever see the light of day again.

I don't think he should have been allowed to operate period.

And believe me, I'm no big Conservative supporter (which anyone who reads these forums will know). Neither am I saying that those criminals who do show some willingness to change their ways should be given a fair shake, but parole should not be automatic, it should be earned, otherwise we might as well just reduce the sentence lengths and stop pretending that a guy who gets sent away for three or five or whatever many years is actually going to be put away for that long.

My feeling is that the Tories will fill the prisons to the rafters and leave it as someone else's problems as we have sen in some other jurisdictions.

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So, jdobbin, in order to save money you'd release convicted felons into our streets. That is your position and it's sad.

That's not his position in the least. As far as I can tell he's looking for a cost/benefit analysis and frankly there's nothing wrong with that. It's all well and good to say this is the problem so fix it no matter the cost, but how realistic is that? Should we just build more prisons without determining if that investment will have the desired affect? If we spend more money to deter crime, to keep our families safe and it doesn't work what's the point?

There's nothing wrong with wanting transparency in government spending. This is what the CPC has promised and they have failed to deliver. I don't want vague notions on how it may or may not help. If the plan fails to deliver all it promised do you still not care what the cost is? This was the primary concern many had over the long gun registry, its effectiveness is debatable but the costs are not.

Ambitious projects are all well and good on paper, but when we sit down and do the number crunching how quickly our tunes change. What if health care must be further cut to accommodate this, or education, or EI or the military? What if we have to raise the GST back to 7%? What if personal income tax brackets were adjusted back or the amounts increased? Do you honestly expect us to believe you don't care what the cost is? If you want to increase spending in one area you only have two options, either reduce spending in all other areas or increase taxes.

Not all of us have your blind and unwavering faith in the policies of our current government. Some of us want facts to back up their claims.

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Do you have a shred of a fragment of a piece of evidence that "most of these prisoners are going to be pot smokers"?

Because I'm going to sugggest that it is unlikely in the exxtreme that more than 1/1000th of a percent of them will be people inprisoned for smoking pot.

In the debates on this they talked about this. Only time will tell once the bill is passed.

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Do you have a shred of a fragment of a piece of evidence that "most of these prisoners are going to be pot smokers"?

Because I'm going to sugggest that it is unlikely in the exxtreme that more than 1/1000th of a percent of them will be people inprisoned for smoking pot.

Perhaps that's unlikely under a minority government but who's to say that won't change?

I'm reminded of the phrase 'work expands to fill the time available for its completion'. Will expanding sentences alone be enough to fill the space available for incarcerating criminals or will we also need more criminals? Couple the capacity of a federal Gulag system with a prison industrial complex and an overly moralistic so-called majority government and anything is possible, especially if these prisons are privatized.

I think the electoral and economic incentives to fill these prisons up and possibly even expand them will simply be too strong to resist. The trend towards politicians using fear and loathing to get elected and the feed back mechanism of other politicians fearful of looking weak or soft on crime or vice almost guarantee a steady continual ramping up of enforcement and government intrusion. As I've pointed out we live in a state of mutually assured dictatorship. We live in a society that is increasingly preoccupied with fear and security. These dynamics make this a particularily dangerous time to be expanding our government's capacity to enforce and incarcerate.

I see little reason not to believe that some effort to try and stamp out something like pot using mandatory treatment and even mandatory sentencing in the event of something like a 3 strike your out rule being used somewhere down the road. What's to stop this from happening?

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