Part of Stephen Harpers platform is… Tough on crime…
Let’s get tough on crime. Tough on young offenders. Tough tough tough.
Crime. Crime. Crime. Tough. Crime.
Uhm. Violent and petty crime is in decline in Canada.
And yet Harper goes on and on about how we are currently soft on crime…
What crime? Canada is as safe as it has been in decades.
I am, however, prepared to declare what Stephen Harper is up to.
Stephen Harper is having policy dictated to him by purveyors of private prisons. Private prisons are all the rage in America. With one in one hundred U.S. residents in detention in America, in largely privatized prisons (and ostensibly state sanctioned slave labor…), these prison contractors are eying Canada with a sparkle in their eye.
Something else to think about when conceptualizing Canada versus the U.S.:
In the U.S., drug use is a crime. In Canada it is an illness.
In the U.S., if you are mentally ill and you commit a crime, you do the time… behind bars… and there are thousands of mentally ill folks on death row in the U.S. In the U.S. prison system, they do not heal you, they kill you.
Simple drug possession in the U.S. can put you behind bars and to work for pennies a day in the prison system. In Canada, at least, there is hope of some rehab.
Stephen Harper, with his ear and eye to the U.S. system is eager beaver to build prisons, private prisons to fill up with new criminals – young offenders, drunk drivers, petty criminals, whomever he can get his hands on.
Is this the Canada you want under a Conservative majority? Think about it.