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The Impact of the Harper Government's "tough on Crime" Strategy
Elizabeth Comack
Cara Fabre
Shanise Burgher
其他書名
Hearing from Frontline Workers
出版
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba Office
, 2015
ISBN
1771252332
9781771252331
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=YC2vjwEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋
Crime rates in Canada have been steadily dropping for over a decade, while prison populations have been increasing in recent years. Commentators have attributed this disconnection between falling crime rates and increasing incarceration numbers to the Harper government’s ?tough on crime? strategy. Since coming to power in 2006, the Harper government has implemented a host of legislative and policy changes designed to ?tackle crime,? ?hold offenders accountable,? and ?make communities safer.? At the same time, the government also enacted significant budget cuts that have affected the ability of the correctional system to uphold its mandate. To learn about the on-the-ground impact of these changes, we interviewed 16 frontline workers in two provinces (Manitoba and Ontario). In their capacities as correctional, parole, and probation officers, and as prisoner advocates, counsellors, and support workers in the community, these workers have a cumulative record of over 200 years of knowledge and experience to draw on. Frontline workers told us that the Harper government’s ?tough on crime? agenda, combined with the mandated budget cuts, has not made our communities any safer. In fact, the Harper The Report in Brief government has moved the country in the opposite direction by framing its policies more on ideology and ?making people afraid of the boogeyman? rather than on evidence of what actually works to tackle crime. Under the Harper government’s reign, prisons and jails in Canada have become increasingly overcrowded and dangerous places—for both the prisoners and those who work there. The majority of prisoners in provincial custody—66 percent in Manitoba—are being held on remand awaiting their trial dates and federal inmates are being kept in custody long past their eligibility dates for release, exacerbating the costs of an already burgeoning prison industry. The ?tough on crime? measures and budget cuts have shifted the orientation from rehabilitation to warehousing prisoners. Reduced access to meaningful programming, along with other cost-cutting measures—charging inmates more for room and board and the use of phones, closing full kitchens in the prisons and trucking in frozen meals, and reducing pay levels for prison work—has heightened prisoners’ levels of frustration, creating conditions for unrest and violence within the prisons. The families of prisoners, who end up doing time along with them, have also been affected by the longer sentences, pay cuts, and less access to visits and telephones. Once prisoners are released back to the community, they are more likely to face poverty and homelessness due to the lack of resources and supports, thereby inhibiting their ability to move forward in their lives and increasing the likelihood of returning to crime as a survival strategy. According to frontline workers, the Harper government’s ?tough on crime? strategy and restrictive budgetary measures undermine public safety. They characterized the strategy as ?one size fits all? designed with the dangerous few in mind but applied to everyone. Workers were firm in their position that criminal justice policies should be supported by empirical evidence about strategies proven to decrease recidivism and de-escalate conflict, such as transitional supports and other service-oriented measures. While the overriding rhetoric of the Harper government’s ?tough on crime? strategy is to ?make communities safer,? workers maintain that the strategy has the opposite effect of setting the community up for danger by keeping people in prison longer without effective programming and by dismantling transitional supports that assist with community reintegration. Drawing on their wealth of knowledge and experience about what works in order to tackle crime, workers offered a number of recommendations for countering the negative legacy that the Harper government’s ?tough on crime? strategy has created. Workers pointed to the need to challenge discourses that demonize people convicted of criminal offences—some 3.8 million Canadians—and reaffirm that people who are or have been in prison are still members of the community by treating them as such. Community-based organizations have a key role to play in this effort by helping to connect families across prison walls, as well as working to support prisoners by creating transitional supports, helping them to navigate the system, and trying to make the system more accessible and equitable. Workers also pointed to the role of law as an important avenue of resistance. Correctional officers have been successful in resisting some of the changes by drawing on the Canada Labour Code, and prisoners and their advocates are mounting legal challenges. The courts are also declaring elements of the ?tough on crime? strategy to be unconstitutional. Nevertheless, as one worker pointed out, relying on legal strategies that take a long time is troublesome because ?people are suffering now.? The Harper government’s ?tough on crime? strategy has been premised on the rhetoric of ?making communities safer.? Frontline workers, however, tell us that by providing people with the resources and supports they need to live productive and healthy lives, all of us will be safer--from introduction.
