Pubdate: Sat, 15 Jan 2011
Source: Nanaimo Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2011 Nanaimo Daily News
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1608
Author: Russell Barth

HARPER'S PRISON PLAN HEADED IN BAD DIRECTION

It should be obvious to everyone now that what Stephen Harper has 
planned is a U.S.-style, for-profit prison system. This policy has 
been wildly successful in the U.S.: increased crime and violence, the 
largest prison population in the history of mankind, huge debt, and a 
handful of wealthy jailers getting even wealthier on the taxpayers' 
dime. This is what Harper wants for Canada.

He has already changed the laws to make anything involving marijuana 
a "serious" crime, making it harder for your kid to make bail or get 
plea bargains. He is about to pass S-10, which will impose mandatory 
jail time for growing one pot plant in a rented unit, and six months 
jail for making pot brownies! That is aimed at your kid, obviously, 
and not the Hell's Angels.

All evidence shows that this policy will increase crime, further 
subsidize the 98% of gangsters who will never be caught, further 
contaminate the products being sold to your kids, and sink us into 
decades of debt, to be paid off by -- you guessed it -- your kids!

It will also saddle tens of thousands of Canadians -- mostly men, 
mostly between the ages of 18 and 40, our future work force -- with 
criminal records that will hinder their ability to travel and find 
employment and secure housing. He will also use this inevitable 
increase in crime as justification for future erosions of civil 
rights and liberties, and future expansions of police powers and 
budgets. All this at a time when crime is at a 33-year low. Harper 
isn't trying to protect Canadians, he is trying to hobble us. He is 
trying to get Canada into the U.S.-dominated Inmate-Manufacturing 
Industry, using your kids as raw materials. Serves you right for electing him.

Russell Barth

Nepean, Ont.
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