US works to reduce prison population as Canada boosts sentencesCanadian Press: Viewed through the lens of the latest American research in crime prevention, Canada's government got things just about exactly backwards... Justice Minister Rob Nicholson proudly announced proposed changes that would increase sentences for convicted white collar criminals, without providing any additional resources for investigating and prosecuting such crimes...
Improved targeting of police resources is a theme explored in depth by Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA whose latest book, When Brute Force Fails: how to have less crime and less punishment, is being published later this month...
He advocates sharply targeting police activities while ramping back stiff US prison sentences. 'Not only is certainty and swiftness (of conviction) more important than severity, severity is the enemy of certainty and swiftness.' said Kleiman. He makes the case on a number of levels, ranging from court resources to probation practices. But the most obvious conflict is financial.
Americans are learning a hard lesson: bulging prisons chew up scarce taxpayer resources... After 30 years of tough-on-crime measures, at least 22 American states are moving to close prisons, halt expansions or delay new construction... A judicial panel in California this summer ordered the state to release 43,000 prisoners over the next two years to ease extreme overcrowding...
With 2.3 million prisoners among a population of 300 million, the United States has by far the highest per capita prison population in the developed world... The US per capita incarceration rate has quintupled in 40 years. Yet the debate continues over whether crime rates have been influenced, and how... Forced by strained budgets to revisit justice policies, at least 26 states are cutting corrections budgets this fiscal year...
So what what actions are governments taking? Increased use of house arrest, more judicial discretion in sentencing, repeal of mandatory minimum drug sentences, reinstating early release programs, increased and improved use of probation -- in short, the kinds of measures that are being pushed exactly the opposite direction in Canada with virtually no political debate...
Sharon Dolovich, a transplanted Canadian who teaches law at Georgetown University in Washingon [DC] and specializes in corrections research,... recognizes the political allure that makes rational discussion of criminal justice policy difficult... 'People have psychological and emotional reactions. They don't actually think about the effects.' Dolovich has a stark warning for her native country. 'Don't be trapped in misleading political rhetoric that will put Canada on a path that will be deeply regretted three decades from now.'
Related:
A Nation of Jailers: Measured in constant dollars and taking account of all levels of government, spending on corrections and law enforcement in the United States has more than quadrupled over the last quarter century. As a result, the American prison system has grown into a leviathan unmatched in human history.
Hellhole: The United States now has five per cent of the world's population, twenty-five per cent of its prisoners, and probably the vast majority of prisoners who are in long-term solitary confinement
Death penalty keeps US in bad company: Here's a list of countries where you don't want to find yourself when it comes to human rights: Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Iraq, Pakistan, and the good ol' US of A. Those six states execute more of their citizens than any others. The US is the fourth-worst offender.
Sen. Webb: Prisons a 'national disgrace,' must be reformed: The Virginia lawmaker noted soaring numbers of drug offenders in prison, and charged that four times more mentally ill people are incarcerated than are in mental health hospitals.
