Pubdate: Thu, 02 Dec 2010
Source: Alaska Highway News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 Glacier Interactive Media
Contact:  http://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/716
Author: Ryan Lux

FEDS WILL SPEND MILLIONS TO EXPAND B.C. PRISONS

The federal government announced Monday that it will spend $77.5 
million to expand prisons in B.C.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews made the announcement to the press 
in Abbotsford saying that the cash will help ensure that convicted 
criminals will "serve sentences that better reflect the severity of 
their crimes."

The money will cover the cost of building a new 96-bed residence at 
the Kent Institution and Matsqui Institution as well as a new 96-bed 
chronic care centre at the Ferndale Institution. Additionally the 
funds will help facilitate the creation of 24 new beds at the Fraser 
Valley Institution.

Provincial correction centres have also recently received increased 
infrastructure investment. Last year the provincial government 
earmarked $3,9 million upgrades to the PGRCC as part of a 
federal/provincial accelerated infrastructure program.

That expansion was part of a $185-million capital plan to increase 
prison capacity across the province.

The reason that both governments are ratcheting up their corrections 
spending is a series of laws passed by the Conservative government as 
part of their tough-on-crime agenda will dramatically increase the 
number of prisoners going through the system and the length of time 
they stay there.

S-10 would impose "mandatory minimum" sentences on minor drug 
convictions, effectively tying the arms of judges who could otherwise 
use discretion when sentencing convicts to time in jam-packed prisons.

Correctional Services of Canada Commissioner Don Head testified to a 
parliamentary committee in October that the government would need to 
spend $2 billion in order to deal with 4,500 new prisoners as result 
of the new legislation.

At the same time that Canada is looking to introduce mandatory 
minimum sentences, states across the U.S. are repealing laws that 
failed to decrease crime and led to an explosion in their prison populations.

Critics of prison expansion say that the government is moving in the 
wrong direction and that increasing prison populations actually makes 
crime worse.

SFY Criminology professor Liz Hill was honoured by the Correctional 
Service of Canada for being the driving force behind a different 
approach to dealing with conflict: restorative justice.

But she stressed that restorative justice needs to flow from the 
community as a whole, rather than through institutions like the RCMP 
who send first time offenders who admit guilt to the Fort St. John 
Restorative Justice Society.

She said this reliance on the existing justice system has limited the 
scope of restorative justice in the province so that it has become 
tethered to what Hill called an archaic system designed in the 1800s 
that doesn't reflect a vastly changed society.

The problem with relying too much on the RCMP is that the victims are 
still being used for a means to an end Hill said.

"You invite victims to come in but at the end of the day they're 
still being used to process a case through a system where punishment 
is not for the offender or for the victim, it's for everyone else,"  said Hill.

Currently in Fort St. John restorative justice is used primarily for 
first time offenders who face mischief, vandalism, and shoplifting charges.

However, Hill said that studies have proven that a restorative 
justice approach actually works better for violent crimes because in 
the case of shoplifting the victim is a corporation rather than an individual.

"Violent offence mediation is much more powerful and that's not 
surprising,"  said Hill.

In comparison to the bevy of funds earmarked for B.C.'s prisons, the 
amount of money spent on restorative justice is negligible.

Each community qualifies for a grant of $2,500 and most of that money 
goes to police and community services, said Hill.

"B.C.'s a joke in the restorative justice community,"  said Hill.

The upside of the situation, Hill said is that "If they're not giving 
you the money they can't tell you what to do."

More money for prisons rather than innovative conflict mediation is 
laughable to Hill.

"A bunch of frightened men who don't know how to handle the problem 
so they revert to 18th century ideas of how this work should be 
done,"  said Hill.

It's not that Hill is against prisons per se.

"I believe in the need for restraint, but for six pot plants, 
please,"  she said.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart