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Canada's homicide rate hits 44-year low

Canada's homicide rate hits 44-year low - The Globe and Mail

Full text in spoiler:

Spoiler!

So I guess, despite Vancouver having a light tarnish on its name from all the killings recently, and BC being likened to Colombia (I'm looking at you, Economist), it turns out Vancouver's kill rate is down.

In other news, today the conservative gov't announced plans to construct more prisons across Canada to deal with an increase in vio...

I'm sorry...(shuffles papers) this just in.

It was just announced in a separate study that the homicide rate has hit a 44 year low. We go now to sussex drive for comment.

"Well, that is very correct, the homicide rate has been declining for years, and has now hit a 44 year low. A low. It has bottomed out. Meaning we are preparing for the inevitable increase."

Well, there you have it. Confirmed proof that politicians are morons.

Now to sports.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gridlock (Post 7631815)

At least we're scrapping the gun registry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CRS (Post 7631824)

At least we're scrapping the gun registry.

That explains it. Now that there is no gun registry, everyone will start shooting people with their rifles, and alas...we have prisons to put them in.

People are just too occupied by their iphones/ipads/ipods to be bothered to get up and do stupid shit to other people

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gridlock (Post 7631834)

That explains it. Now that there is no gun registry, everyone will start shooting people with their rifles, and alas...we have prisons to put them in.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think we need more prisons either.

I'm just glad that we're getting rid of the gun registry.

Remember, criminals won't register guns. Your average law abiding hunter/sports shooter does.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bonjour43MA (Post 7631864)

People are just too occupied by their iphones/ipads/ipods to be bothered to get up and do stupid shit to other people

Homicide?

there's an App for that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MWR34 (Post 7631892)

Homicide?

there's an App for that.

HAHHAHA that never gets old!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by CRS (Post 7631881)

I don't know about you but I think more prisons are needed. There are a lot of ppl who should be keep in prisons but we have limited space so they are on home watch. If it is the cost you are worry we should do it the China way lol. Make the Prisons work! If they refuse the guards have every right to taze them. A prisoners shouldn't cost us 20k a year, they should be doing hard work to repay the crime they commented.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp (Post 7631985)

Yeah but the problem with this is that you'll turn the Canadian prison system into the US prison system.

Instead of rehabilitating prisoners, you basically turn them into cheap labor. So the focus will turn from actually helping create productive members of society to creating mindless slaves to the highest bidder.

Crime rates may not go up but setting people off to prison for them to do cheap work certainly will. It'll turn the prison system to a slave industry where you want more inmates so you can get more profit.

Then the whole privatization of the prison system comes into play which is another shitcan of worms.

IMO, this is the wrong way to go about things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CRS (Post 7631881)

Not everyone who buys a gun is an average law abiding shooter, the other element exists, and the long gun registry makes it that much more difficult for that element to access them.

23% of deaths by firearms were still committed with long guns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp (Post 7631985)

It costs a lot more than $20K a year to house a prisoner, the issue like CRS pointed out though, is having them work for $0.02 an hour like in american prisons is dangerously close to slave labour.

IMHO the home watch program is actually a good system; it's exponentially less expensive housing a prisoner in a jail, prevents the prisoner from being exposed to the elements which typically leave them worse off when they're released, and in the case of non-violent offenders it doesn't seem to put the public at risk. Oh well, American style super prisons make sense to conservatives, who for some reason think we should model ourselves after one of the least admirable countries on earth.

Guns should be registered. Idon't care if criminals don't. Criminals dont pay taxes either.

Fuck you fucking weirdo avatar

Totally agree on rehabilitation. It's hard to look at people who are convicted of crimes - and only think about the child rapists and the serial murderers. I totally agree that some people deserve to be taken off the street and never be allowed to set foot outside again.

But most people who are convicted of smaller crimes - the guy who steals a car (may not be the best example because this is a car forum), might actually be just some kid who was peer pressured into doing it. Give him a few years, teach him a skill in prison, and when he leaves - he might actually contribute to society.

If you were to throw him into a maximum security prison, make him to slave labour where the prison guards just torture him all day - you can almost guarantee it - when he leaves prison, he will go straight back to crime - maybe join a gang or something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MindBomber (Post 7632008)

I'm sitting on the fence about gun registratioin. On one hand, I agree that guns should be registered - making it harder for people to commit crimes with it.

On the other hand - 23% is a hard number to read. We don't know if that 23% are from organized crime, armed robberies, etc - or is it just crimes in the heat of the moment. Will registration really bring that number down? I need to see more statistics to form an opinion. In the meantime - we have to figure out how much we're spending to adminster this program. If the program is chewing up more tax dollars than it is taking in from the admin fees, then we have a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MindBomber (Post 7632008)

I don't know man.

Deaths by firearms doesn't necessarily equate to murder by firearms.

Where did you find this statistic?

*edit:
gars beat me to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gars (Post 7632019)

I'm sitting on the fence about gun registratioin. On one hand, I agree that guns should be registered - making it harder for people to commit crimes with it.

On the other hand - 23% is a hard number to read. We don't know if that 23% are from organized crime, armed robberies, etc - or is it just crimes in the heat of the moment. Will registration really bring that number down? I need to see more statistics to form an opinion. In the meantime - we have to figure out how much we're spending to adminster this program. If the program is chewing up more tax dollars than it is taking in from the admin fees, then we have a problem.

I agree, the NDP position of bringing forth mild reforms to the gun registry was the best option. Guns should be registered, and gun owners should bear the burden. Illegal guns used by criminals begin life as legal guns, find a way to break that cycle and the crime rate would continue to drop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CRS (Post 7632020)

I don't know man.

Deaths by firearms doesn't necessarily equate to murder by firearms.

Where did you find this statistic?

*edit:
gars beat me to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Article

About two-thirds of homicides by firearms last year involved handguns while 23 per cent were committed with long guns, Statistics Canada said, with the rest involving sawed-off shotguns, automatic weapons and “firearm-like weapons.”

Are accidental deaths included in homicide statistics?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp (Post 7631985)

It actually cost closer to 80-100k per prisoner, and females inmates cost even more to incarcerate while a supervised sentence to be served in the community is a fraction of the cost (can't remember the exact figure). Obviously, they will assess risk before they allow this. I think it's important to note that most people that go to jail are eventually released (look up statutory release), so treating people like shit isn't the best idea. How do you think they will feel coming out and in terms of safety in our communities?

We've also had a falling crime rate for years now I believe so there is no need for more prisons. Historically, the conservative position is based on the crime control model whereas liberals are more due process. This is what I remember from introductory crim, but someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

If more young people voted, these things wouldn't even be suggested.

Quote:

Texas conservatives reject Harper's crime plan
'Been there; done that; didn't work,' say Texas crime-fighters
By Terry Milewski, CBC News
Posted: Oct 17, 2011 6:11 PM ET

Conservatives in the United States' toughest crime-fighting jurisdiction — Texas — say the Harper government's crime strategy won't work.

"You will spend billions and billions and billions on locking people up," says Judge John Creuzot of the Dallas County Court. "And there will come a point in time where the public says, 'Enough!' And you'll wind up letting them out."

Adds Representative Jerry Madden, a conservative Republican who heads the Texas House Committee on Corrections, "It's a very expensive thing to build new prisons and, if you build 'em, I guarantee you they will come. They'll be filled, OK? Because people will send them there.
The Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice Central Unit seal is painted on the cell block wall in Sugar Land, Texas. The 102-year-old jail is slated for development as Texas reducing its prison population.The Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice Central Unit seal is painted on the cell block wall in Sugar Land, Texas. The 102-year-old jail is slated for development as Texas reducing its prison population. Pat Sullivan/Associated Press

"But, if you don't build 'em, they will come up with very creative things to do that keep the community safe and yet still do the incarceration necessary."

These comments are in line with a coalition of experts in Washington, D.C., who attacked the Harper government's omnibus crime package, Bill C-10, in a statement Monday.

"Republican governors and state legislators in such states of Texas, South Carolina, and Ohio are repealing mandatory minimum sentences, increasing opportunities for effective community supervision, and funding drug treatment because they know it will improve public safety and reduce taxpayer costs," said Tracy Velázquez, executive director of the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute.

"If passed, C-10 will take Canadian justice policies 180 degrees in the wrong direction, and Canadian citizens will bear the costs."
A state with a record

On a recent trip to Texas, an array of conservative voices told CBC News that Texas tried what Canada plans to do – and it failed.
P.O.V.:

Should Canada rethink its stance on crime? Take our survey.

As recently as 2004, Texas had the highest incarceration rate in the world, with fully one in 20 of its adult residents behind bars, on parole or on probation. The Lone Star state still has the death penalty, with more than 300 prisoners on death row today. But for three decades, as crime rates fell all over the U.S., the rate in Texas fell at only half the national average.

That didn't change the policy — but its cost did.

Faced with a budget crisis in 2005, the Texas statehouse was handed an estimate of $2 billion to build new prisons for a predicted influx of new prisoners.

They told Madden to find a way out. He and his committee dug into the facts. Did all those new prisoners really need to go to jail? And did all of those already behind bars really need to be there?

'We can't ignore the fact that our "tough on crime" stance that puts a person in prison and assumes that their drug problem will somehow magically disappear while they're incarcerated and they'll never get out again and offend, is ridiculous!'—Dr. Teresa May-Williams, forensic psychologist

Madden's answer was, no. He found that Texas had diverted money from treatment and probation services to building prisons. But sending people to prison was costing 10 times as much as putting them on probation, on parole, or in treatment.

"It was kinda silly, what we were doing," says Madden. Then, he discovered that drug treatment wasn't just cheaper — it cut crime much more effectively than prison.

That was the moment, he says, when he knew: "My colleagues are gonna understand this. The public is gonna understand this.…The public will be safer and we will spend less money!"

His colleagues agreed. Texas just said no to the new prisons.

Instead, over the next few years, it spent a fraction of the $2 billion those prisons would have cost — about $300 million — to beef up drug treatment programs, mental health centres, probation services and community supervision for prisoners out on parole.

It worked. Costs fell and crime fell, too. Now, word of the Canadian government's crime plan is filtering down to Texas and it's getting bad reviews.

Marc Levin, a lawyer with an anti-tax group called Right on Crime, argues that building more prisons is a waste of taxpayers' money.

"We've see a double-digit decline in the last few years in Texas, both in our prison incarceration rate and, most importantly in our crime rate," says Levin.

"And the way we've done it is by strengthening some of the alternatives to prison."

The statistics bear him out. According to the Texas Department of Corrections, the rate of incarceration fell 9 per cent between 2005 and 2010. In the same period, according to the FBI, the crime rate in Texas fell by 12.8 per cent.

By contrast, Levin says, the Canadian government has increased the prison budget sharply, even though crime in Canada is down to its lowest level since 1973.

In fact, federal spending on corrections in Canada has gone up from $1.6 billion in 2005-06, when Stephen Harper's Conservatives took power, to $2.98 billion in 2010-11. That's an increase of 86 per cent. Soon, it will double.
Federal corrections budget: Canada

2005–06 $1.6 billion
2010–11 $2.98 billion
2012–13 $3.13 billion

The Harper government has already increased prison sentences by scrapping the two-for-one credit for time served waiting for trial. Bill C-10 would add new and longer sentences for drug offences, increase mandatory minimums and cut the use of conditional sentences such as house arrest.

In each case, Texas is doing the opposite.

So are several other states — egged on by a group of hardline conservatives who have joined the Right on Crime movement. These include Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the tax-fighter Grover Norquist and the former attorney general for President Ronald Reagan, Ed Meese.

That's not a list of liberals. Marc Levin says Canada is out of step with the best conservative thinking south of the border.

"We've seen in the United States, states and conservative leaders moving in a much different direction than the Conservative Party is saying in Canada," he says.

"I think the conservative thing to do is to be cost-effective and to hold offenders accountable. And, frankly, for many of them, they go to prison, they don't pay child support, they don't have to work in the private sector, they don't pay restitution — I don't believe that's holding people accountable."
Hugging criminals? In Texas?

What Levin means by accountability is what happens at Judge John Creuzot's drug court in Dallas.

Thieves, drug addicts and drunk drivers must file into Creuzot's courtroom each week as a condition of their sentences. They're on probation with the threat of prison hanging over them. They must prove they are keeping up with their drug treatment.

Creuzot cajoles, threatens and lectures them to stick with the program — but he also rewards them when they succeed. If they graduate from treatment, clean and sober, he holds an awards ceremony in his courtroom. Then, he gives them a big, back-slapping Texas hug.

"Congratulations, bro!" he says as he wraps his arms around a hulking ex-addict. "Proud of ya!" he says as he hugs another and places a medal around her neck.

Hugs? From a judge in the state that gave us chain gangs?

It's not your father's Texas. But Creuzot isn't all hugs. He renders a blunt verdict when he is asked what's wrong with the Harper government's plan to get criminals off Canadian streets.

"Nothing, if you don't mind spending a lot of money locking people up and seeing your crime rate go up! Nothing wrong with it at all!"

Creuzot says prison just doesn't work as well as the less expensive methods he uses — because, one way or another, drugs and alcohol lie at the root of 80 per cent of crimes.

"What we've learned," he says, "is that if you deal with those underlying issues with the proper assessments up front, doing that before you make a sentencing decision … and you fund programs that will deal with that on a long-term basis, that you avoid sending thousands of people to prison."
Prison trustees work to dismantle cubicle walls in a dormitory at the Central Unit prison in Sugar Land, Texas in August, as the facility made famous in Leadbelly's blues classic 'Midnight Special' closed its doors. Prison trustees work to dismantle cubicle walls in a dormitory at the Central Unit prison in Sugar Land, Texas in August, as the facility made famous in Leadbelly's blues classic 'Midnight Special' closed its doors. Pat Sullivan/Associated Press

But isn't all the treatment expensive?

"It's less expensive!" Creuzot snaps. "We had a university do a cost-benefit analysis. And every dollar we spend is worth $9 and 34 cents in avoided criminal justice costs."

Other studies in Texas agree that treatment and probation services cost about one-tenth of what it costs to build and run prisons. Besides that, offenders emerge much less likely to commit fresh crimes than those with similar records who go to prison.
Getting results

At Phoenix House, a drug treatment centre in Wilmer, just south of Dallas, Dr. Teresa May-Williams is a forensic psychologist, paid to assess the risk of letting offenders out on parole or in treatment. She's found that prison is even riskier.

"We can't ignore the fact that our ‘tough on crime' stance that puts a person in prison and assumes that their drug problem will somehow magically disappear while they're incarcerated and they'll never get out again and offend, is ridiculous!" she says.

May-Williams says most offenders with drug or alcohol problems quickly resume their criminal lifestyle when they get out of prison.

"The data showed that 60 per cent of those individuals will be out and committing a new crime in, on average, about 11 months."

That's four times the rate of those who go through her six-month program instead.

"A big focus of it is getting their drug problem under control," she says, "and then beginning to work on education, job training, getting them employed, getting them focused on becoming a tax payer rather than a tax user. The recidivism rate for probation, the same kind of offender, is somewhere around 15-16 per cent."
A 'hopeless' case

Equally striking is that even the hardest cases can respond to court-ordered treatment.

Kathryn Griffin, by her own account, was a "hopeless" case.

Loquacious, loud and candid, Griffin had six felonies on her record — for drug possession and prostitution — so she was facing 35 years to life in jail when she came to court in Houston, yet again.

"I'm a person who had a $30,000-a-month cocaine habit for 22 years!" she says. But, "I am totally clean and sober today."

And she's stayed clean for eight years — because, she says, she was a "guinea pig" in what was, back then, a new experiment: drug court.

The judge gave her a choice: get clean in drug treatment or flunk out — and die in prison.

She made it. Now, she has a job counselling street prostitutes, pays taxes and tells anyone who will listen that Texas, too, has changed its ways.

"What I like about this state and our government is they are willing to listen, look, study, learn and see results."

Left, right and middle-of-the-road Texans are recommending that Canada do the same — and the conservatives most of all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gridlock (Post 7631834)

That explains it. Now that there is no gun registry, everyone will start shooting people with their rifles, and alas...we have prisons to put them in.

Sorry, I should have put the :heckno:, as you need to sense the sarcasm. I'm glad the gun registry is gone.

People living in BC cannot afford weapons..

I have 3 family members that work in corrections. They have shared a few things with me over the years that surprised me because it goes against what I would have thought.

There is a flow of drugs in prison. That didn't surprise me. Corrections can't stop it. That did. They do searches on visitors, and every so often toss cells for contraband. That drives it underground. They could stop the flow of drugs quite easily, but then have a prison full of inmates going through withdrawal.

The rehabilitation programs are a joke to both prisoners and staff. Everyone pretends to take it seriously, but no one expects it to do anything to change life for the vast majority.

Oh! this has nothing to do with anything, but they make alcohol out of ketchup and bread in garbage bags. What a fantastic beverage that must be.

My favorite when I moved here-I moved from NS to Abbotsford, and we'd see the notices in the paper that some dangerous inmate had escaped from Matsqui Prison.

Awesome! They didn't put that on the brochure.

In the second paragraph of the article, it would be the half-way house thing outside the prison gates. The one without walls or bars. They didn't escape-they walked away.

So if we have someone that is dangerous enough to warrant something in the paper, why are we in the process of letting the guy go to begin with? Because when his sentence is up, he gets cut loose-no article in the paper that I shouldn't go near him then.

I do feel that there is room for improvements. I think being able to over-ride a max sentence for dangerous offenders likely to re-offend should be used more.

I really don't want people getting sent up on stupid shit that just fills our prisons with people that shouldn't be there.

I call them drug addicts.

Crime is at all time lows and the world in general is at it's least violent period ever. You'd never know it since you're bombarded with bad news 24/7 on TV/radio/online.

It's a pretty terrible excuse to push through archaic and harmful laws that will cost the public a lot of money.

The whole correction system is a yes to me.
But honestly, its going to take a fucking century to get things straight, i mean, who really wants to spend all their time trying to rehab guys?

Time and a slow but working process...