Pubdate: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 Source: Lethbridge Herald (CN AB) Copyright: 2005 The Lethbridge Herald Contact: http://www.mysouthernalberta.com/leth/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/239 Author: Richard Gaff CRACKDOWN A PRICEY PLAN Editor: The Conservative Party has put forth as one of their platforms, all drug traffickers to serve a mandatory sentence of two years. How do the Conservatives intend to pay the costs of this proposal? Statscan statistics for the year 2003, state, 6,944 persons were charged with trafficking of drugs, 527 of these were given conditional discharge or paid restitution; 2,520 were sentenced to prison (it doesn't say for how long). This leaves 3,897 that would be required to serve a sentence of two years. The country doesn't have the jail space. Let's play with a few numbers to come up with what this could cost all of us. Four new prisons to house 3,897 persons, at about $50 million apiece equals $200 million (very low figure). The cost per year per prisoner is about $75,000; this comes to $292 million per year. These figures are not true costs as I was unable to come up with the actual figures from Statscan. Does anyone see this is a very high cost platform? This works out to about $24 dollars for every man, woman and child for the first two years. The United States' example of throwing all drug cases in jail has been a failure. Do we wish to follow their example? I know I don't. Yes, by all means throw the growers, if they can be caught, and the meth lab producers in jail for the minimum of two years, but, should all pushers get two years? Second offenders should get jail time. So, Rick, what fund would you rob to pay the high price to implement this platform? Perhaps you could answer this in this newspaper. Richard Gaff Lethbridge - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake