Professor Emeritus Anthony Doob on "The Harper Decade: The Conservative Take on Crime Policy
"There is no question that Harper’s
Conservatives have talked tough about criminal justice, departing from
the more moderate tone that has characterized Canada’s history on this
topic. Before Conservative rule, Canada had a long tradition of allowing
criminal justice experts – like judges and prosecutors – to make
decisions in ways that were largely insulated from politics. One result
is that Canada has been able to
sustain a stable, moderate rate of imprisonment. Even during decades
when violent crime was much higher across North America – when the US
was busy generating the policies that would deliver its current
situation of ‘mass imprisonment’ – Canada relied on imprisonment
comparatively sparingly. Since
1950, imprisonment rates have varied between about 81 and 116 adults per
hundred thousand Canadian residents. In 2005 the rate was about 104.
Currently it appears to be about 115.
This
tone of moderation in crime policy has changed. With the Conservative
politicization of the field of criminal justice we have seen an uptick
in rates of imprisonment, an increase in the severity of the punishment
experience, and a new reliance on crime as a salient topic with which to
mobilize political support. Harper’s Conservatives have overseen
decisions to close prison farms, fire prison chaplains, strip judges of
sentencing discretion, and increase the use of solitary confinement. The
overrepresentation of indigenous people in our jails and prisons –
already a problem under past governments – has also become worse during
Conservative rule."
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