Billions on Prisons no matter what Stats Can says?

Once again we see why the Harper Cons are so anxious to do away with the long form census… Ideology is much more convenient to use instead of facts and science when you are intent on making bad public policy decisions that will cost us billions of dollars.

Dinosaur Day strikes again… “Stockwell Day is facing criticism after he suggested that Ottawa needs to spend billions of dollars on new prisons in order to lock up people who commit **unreported **crimes.” … followed by … "However, Statistics Canada last month that crime rates had declined by seven percent since 2007 and have been dropping continually for nearly two decades. Criminal acts such as homicide and attempted murder, robbery and sexual assault are becoming less common, the report found. In spite of such statistics, Day maintained that the Conservatives will plough ahead with proposed justice system reforms, including building new prisons, more mandatory sentences, longer jail times and abolishing “discount sentencing.”

I guess if the facts are that crime is decreasing, you need to find ways to lock people up for crimes that haven’t been reported… I wonder if it ever crossed his pinhead brain that these billions spent on education, addiction treatment and breaking the poverty cycle is a much more effective investment in the social fabric of our nation than locking up people for unreported crimes?

ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20 … me-100803/

Nice try.

Reported crime rates are dropping because no one bothers to report crimes. No one bothers to report crimes because most often the police will not investigate, and judges will not do their jobs. If by some miracle a criminal is arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced, it is not over yet. A sentence of X number of years means much less time actually served in prison, as the truth is not something our criminal justice system values. More important to let criminals out early as a prolonged prison term might damage their self esteem.

We need to have stiff punitive sentences for all violent crimes, with time served in prison to equal the actual duration of the sentence. For crimes of lesser severity we need to look at what countries like Singapore and Malaysia do to keep drunk drivers, petty criminals and other scum in check.

The bottom line is our “justice” system is a joke. I have no respect for the politicians, judges and lawyers who are responsible for this. And kudos to the Conservatives for attempting to bring some decency back into our society.

[quote=“gum”]Nice try.

Reported crime rates are dropping because no one bothers to report crimes. [/quote]

Nice try.

How about murder rates? And no, murder rates aren’t dropping because of an increase in trauma care – otherwise you’d see an increase in attempted murder rates. They’re down too, though.

Of course, you’re not expecting us to believe that murders and attempted murders rates are decreasing because “no one bothers to report” them and that “the police will not investigate” them. Do you believe that?

They’ll need them to hold all the people they catch growing one pot plant.

[quote=“gum”]Nice try.

Reported crime rates are dropping because no one bothers to report crimes. No one bothers to report crimes because most often the police will not investigate, and judges will not do their jobs. If by some miracle a criminal is arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced, it is not over yet. A sentence of X number of years means much less time actually served in prison, as the truth is not something our criminal justice system values. More important to let criminals out early as a prolonged prison term might damage their self esteem.

We need to have stiff punitive sentences for all violent crimes, with time served in prison to equal the actual duration of the sentence. For crimes of lesser severity we need to look at what countries like Singapore and Malaysia do to keep drunk drivers, petty criminals and other scum in check.

The bottom line is our “justice” system is a joke. I have no respect for the politicians, judges and lawyers who are responsible for this. And kudos to the Conservatives for attempting to bring some decency back into our society.[/quote]

ahahahahaha ok there stockwell gay. Regardless of the stupidity of your statement even if it were true who would be filling spots in these jails for unreported crimes turdbucket?

Also I thought the conservatives were against the long form census? why are they using facts garnered from it to support their bullshit?

oh right not against it just dont want accuracy. accuracy fucks up political spin.

FYI, the only crime rate that has gone up is youth gun crimes. Those crimes are usually linked to drug gangs. Time to end prohibition against users and funnel them into a medical modality.

Wait, are people acting surprised that the Federal government isn’t paying attention to StatsCan?

In a few more years, there won’t be any accumulated statistics whatsoever and we’ll just have to take the government’s word for it.

[quote=“gum”]Nice try.

Reported crime rates are dropping because no one bothers to report crimes. No one bothers to report crimes because most often the police will not investigate, and judges will not do their jobs. If by some miracle a criminal is arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced, it is not over yet. A sentence of X number of years means much less time actually served in prison, as the truth is not something our criminal justice system values. More important to let criminals out early as a prolonged prison term might damage their self esteem.

We need to have stiff punitive sentences for all violent crimes, with time served in prison to equal the actual duration of the sentence. For crimes of lesser severity we need to look at what countries like Singapore and Malaysia do to keep drunk drivers, petty criminals and other scum in check.

The bottom line is our “justice” system is a joke. I have no respect for the politicians, judges and lawyers who are responsible for this. And kudos to the Conservatives for attempting to bring some decency back into our society.[/quote]

Did you even bother to read the article before foaming at the mouth? Try reasoning from a fact based place before giving Kudos to the Neo Cons for following the failed policies of our American Brethren who have higher crime rates than us despite the fact tha the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Though home to a little less than 5% of the world’s population, the US holds 25% of the world’s prisoners. As for bringing decency back into our society, turning to prisons as the answer to an issue that is already trending in the right direction rather than spending money to correct the social ills that are the most common root causes of crime in our socieity is frankly **indecent, wasteful and imprudent on the part of Harper and his band of fools **, .

Despite your protestations to the contrary, I’ll go with what Don Davies and Stats Canada has to say about unreported crimes.

New Democrat MP Don Davies said the Tories were embracing ideology and ignoring hard facts.

“Crime rates have been dropping steadily and consistently across categories for decades,” he said. “So faced with those statistics, they turn to unreported crimes. Why in 2010 would you be less likely to report a crime than in 1980 or 1990?” A StatsCan analyst said the most common reason people give for opting not to call police is because they believe an incident wasn’t serious. Another two per cent of respondents said they feared revenge, and one per cent said they thought police could be biased.

Good point on dealing with users. However despite the facts that the safe injection site in Vancouver saves both lives and money, our Neo Con Bullies in power are going to the Supreme Court of Canada to force their senseless ideology down our throats. Funny that most Canadians (Who I think are on whole a pretty decent lot for Gum’s benefit) think we should keep it open.

Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Support for the city of Vancouver’s safe injection site, Insite, is high across Canada, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 43 per cent of respondents back the operations at Insite, while 24 per cent oppose them. Insite is a supervised drug-injection site, the first of its kind in North America. The facility, launched by the province of British Columbia’s health authority, has been operating since 2003 in Vancouver. Insite offers clean needles, health services and counselling for addicts.

The federal government led by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper opposes the operations at Insite, and is currently asking the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by B.C.’s Appeal Court that keeps the facility operational. In February, Canadian justice minister Rob Nicholson announced the decision to request a ruling by the Supreme Court on the Insite facility’s operations, adding that the federal government thinks safe injection sites are the wrong approach to drug policy, saying, “Our national anti-drug strategy focuses on prevention and access to treatment for those with drug dependencies.”

I guess Harper and his band of fools believe their ideology is more effective when it comes to treating drug addiction than the professionals who are actually in the field.

Frankly if we want to regain a “Decent” Society, it’s time to get rid of the Harper Neo Cons the same way we had to with lying baloney Mulroney.

angus-reid.com/polls/view/35 … ction_site
supervisedinjection.vch.ca/

[quote=“Eso”]Wait, are people acting surprised that the Federal government isn’t paying attention to StatsCan?

In a few more years, there won’t be any accumulated statistics whatsoever and we’ll just have to take the government’s word for it.[/quote]

Exactly, the Harper Con’s long term strategy for dumbing down the population and ruling by ignorance rather than fact.

The first time I was a victim of a crime was in the 1970’s. Our house was burglarized while we were out. The police came, asked questions and looked around, brought a tracking dog in, and spent a couple of hours. The scum who robbed our house weren’t caught but the police took the situation seriously. Nowadays I understand they will take a report of a home burglary over the phone just so you can file an insurance report. If my house is burglarized again I won’t report it to the police as it will just cause my insurance rate to go up.

The second time I was a victim of a crime was in 1992. A group of us (including a pregnant woman) were assaulted by a group of young men. My friend got put in the hospital. We had the license plate number and vehicle description. An independent witness volunteered to testify. The police took a brief statement and informed us it would be a waste of time to pursue it further. Although the police had ID’s on the assailants it was not worth their time and effort to investigate or lay charges. The next time I am the victim of an assault I will not report it to the police.

The third fourth and fifth times I was a victim of a crime were in the 1990’s to mid 2000’s. My wallet was stolen with about a hundred bucks in it, I knew who did it. My vehicle was vandalized for a few hundred dollars worth of damages. A window was smashed, I spoke to the person who did it. I did not even consider informing the police about the third fourth and fifth crimes.

It is easy to see why “crime rates are dropping” according to the well-meaning but confused liberal left. Perhaps if the police stop investigating homicides then we will no longer have any murders reported in Canada either. Then we can do away with police, judges and prisons altogether.

The only accurate measure of crime rates is a survey of victims of crime. Surveys of crime victims consistently show that crime has increased markedly.

Homicide rates are a proxy for the overall crime rate and they are frequently used by the liberal left to confuse the issue. In the past 40 years we have had an immense improvement in trauma care, from development of the 911 system, to markedly improved ambulance care, to higher standards of emergency room trauma care, and huge advances in the fields of neurosurgery, thoracic surgery and ICU care. All of these medical advancements taken together mean that a trauma patient who would die in 1970, would have a much better chance of surviving his injuries in 2010. If homicide rates have decreased, we can attribute it to improvements in medical care of trauma patients.

The bottom line is that crime, including violent crime, is increasing despite people’s attempts to ignore it. Perhaps the weather in Prince Rupert would improve if we all put on sunglasses and shorts in October and pretended it weren’t raining.

Are you saying that the murder rate would be higher if it weren’t for the emergency room? If so, does that mean that the attempted murder rate is much higher? Surely a crime that needs advanced trauma care to save someone would be reported by the ambulance attendants, doctors, nurses, right?

Well? Are attempted murder rates climbing like crazy?

Nope.

Bad logic, clouded by your ideology.

[quote=“gum”]The only accurate measure of crime rates is a survey of victims of crime. Surveys of crime victims consistently show that crime has increased markedly.

The bottom line is that crime, including violent crime, is increasing despite people’s attempts to ignore it. Perhaps the weather in Prince Rupert would improve if we all put on sunglasses and shorts in October and pretended it weren’t raining.[/quote]

I regret the number of times you’ve been victimized over the past number of decades but to say your experience is common place may be a bit of a stretch. It certainly does not reflect my experience over the past decades.

However, lets leave aside our own personal antedotal experiences. You point to surveys of crime victims showing that crime has increased markedly. ** Given that the Harper Cons are hell bent on spending billions of dollars to americanize our approach to crime and punishment, it would certainly add to our understanding of this complex issue if you shared the sources of information that you are basing your opinions on. Kindly provide links to these surveys that support your position. That is you are able to.**

I’ll be interested to see how the results from a survey of “Crime” victims runs counter to overall trends as reported by Stats Canada when presumable the crimes committed against them have been reported in the official crime statistics that Stats Canada has sifted through. **Show us the money Gum! **

Until you provide some evidence to support your position, I have to go with what Stats Canada is providing in terms of overall crime trends in Canada and also the results of their surveys that show the reasons some crimes go unreported rather than your antedotal experience and interpretation of national trends. Please note the crime severity index calculated by Stats Canada is not based soley on homicides but is a compilation of all Criminal Code violations including traffic, as well as drug violations and all Federal Statutes. It’s not the liberal left that is asserting that crime in Canada is decreasing but an unbiased and well respected Canadian Goverment department.

www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/legal51a-eng.htm

In short, the Harper Cons are playing the fear/ Tough on Crime card in the same manner as their mentors from the Bush Administration did. We’ve been fortunate to have an agency such as Stats Canada that used to provide a solid basis for tackling public policy issues that was free of Liberal or Conservative bias. Regrettably, the Harper Cons recognize the greatest threat to their ideology is the truth and facts and are setting about to destroy this Canadian Asset.

[quote=“MiG”]Are you saying that the murder rate would be higher if it weren’t for the emergency room? If so, does that mean that the attempted murder rate is much higher? Surely a crime that needs advanced trauma care to save someone would be reported by the ambulance attendants, doctors, nurses, right?

Well? Are attempted murder rates climbing like crazy?

Nope.

Bad logic, clouded by your ideology.[/quote]

Yes our murder rates would be much higher if our medical system had stagnated since 1970. As would our death rates from any other cause of trauma, or diseases such as heart disease, cancer, etc. Most people accept that the death rate from cancer and heart attacks is much less than it was in 1970. Would you not expect the death rate from violent trauma to have dropped as well? Or has all of medicine advanced in the past 40 years, except trauma care which has stood still for some unexplained reason? I think you have demonstrated bad logic, clouded by your ideology.

I don’t have an ideology, other than an affinity for the truth and an instinctive revulsion toward those who ignore, bend, or flat out deny the truth. Argue against ideas, not an alleged ideology.

I would be delighted if putting money into social programs and education would decrease our crime rate, and if a soft and rehabilitative approach to criminals would turn them around. Experience has shown that this does not work. A small percentage of our population is complete scum. The best solution would be to lock them up until they are too old to harm anyone.

Ignoring what is right and wrong and just focusing on the costs, take a look at the total lifetime costs of our mollycoddling approach to criminal justice, versus the up-front cost of jailing someone for 20 years. The math would look like this: imprisoning someone for 20 years costs a few million dollars. Letting them run loose on the streets costs a few hundred thousand dollars in police services, a few hundred thousand dollars in insurance claims, a couple of million for long-term care for the guy whose brain the criminal bashed in, a few hundred thousand in legal aid, probation officers etc, and who knows how much money spent preventing, repairing, or replacing all the things destroyed or stolen by the criminal over all of those years. When you look at the total cost to society in dealing with repeat offenders, the most cost-effective approach is long-term incarceration.

I don’t think that it has to be one or the other. When is the last time a new prison was opened in the country that did not replace an old one? (I looked but couldn’t find out) Maybe we could use a few more. On the other hand, perhaps billions is excessive.

I’ve witnessed individuals get some pretty lame sentences for some pretty serious offences. I’ve been the victim of a serious offence, the offender was sentenced to a year, given double credit for five months of pre-sentence custody and was released a couple weeks after the trial. People get charged with twenty different counts and are allowed to plead guilty to only six. Is it right that individuals can have criminal records that include over a hundred convictions and still get paroled early? Is it right that dangerous offenders (keeping in mind how difficult it is to get declared a dangerous offender) are housed in minimum security institutions that they just walk away from?

If the Conservative’s plan would remedy some of the above, I would welcome the discussion. At least it’s on the agenda, it never seemed like it was in the past. I would rather explore improvements to the justice system that a large number of people are dissatisfied with than some of the other useless shit the government spends time on.

I think they do the topic a disservice by going overboard (“Billions… To hell with Stats Can…”) but perhaps in a minority government situation they have to go big to come out with a happy middle result.

And just a note about attempted murders… Do the stats come from what police call the occurrence or what the offender is actually charged with? I’ve known of incidents where individuals have been stabbed in the neck where the police allege attempted murder and Crown approves aggravated assault. Person gets stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle, police allege aggravated assault, Crown approves assault with a weapon (agg assault is a straight indictable offence = hard to schedule Supreme Court time. Keep it assault with a weapon and Crown can proceed summarily = provincial court time = smaller sentence)

Here’s a great example, stab your lover in the groin and kill him, get a conditional sentence,

standyourground.com/forums/index … 400.0;wap2

If a man stabbed a woman in the groin killing her, would he avoid jail?

I appreciate your attempt to compile evidence to support your position. Let me point out the obvious error you have made.

Clicking through to your link I read that

  1. StatsCan’s crime severity index is dropping – sounds good so far

  2. The crime severity index is compiled from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey Data. And the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey data are compiled from… you guessed it, “UCR data reflect reported crime that has been substantiated by police” – so they haven’t recorded crime, they have just recorded crime that has been reported to police.

  3. “In the index, all crimes are assigned a weight based on their seriousness. The level of seriousness is based on actual sentences handed down by the courts in all provinces and territories.” – this one is so bad I couldn’t have made it up myself. They are saying if sentences are short, the crime must not have been serious.

So the StatsCan logic goes around in a circle. We will make an index to report the frequency and severity of crime. We will base our index only on reported crime, ignoring those crimes that go unreported. And we will assess the severity of crime by looking at the length of time a criminal is sentenced to serve. Now we can use this data to show that crime is going down, justifying lesser sentences, which will mean crime must be going down even more, since lower sentences mean less severe crime.

These gaping flaws can be found in two minutes of browsing StatsCan’s website. It is the worst attempt at logic I have seen anywhere. It would be a shame if public policy is based on such amateurish science.

[quote=“gum”]

[quote=“MiG”]Are you saying that the murder rate would be higher if it weren’t for the emergency room? If so, does that mean that the attempted murder rate is much higher? Surely a crime that needs advanced trauma care to save someone would be reported by the ambulance attendants, doctors, nurses, right?

Well? Are attempted murder rates climbing like crazy?

Nope.

Bad logic, clouded by your ideology.[/quote]

Yes our murder rates would be much higher if our medical system had stagnated since 1970. As would our death rates from any other cause of trauma, or diseases such as heart disease, cancer, etc. Most people accept that the death rate from cancer and heart attacks is much less than it was in 1970. Would you not expect the death rate from violent trauma to have dropped as well? Or has all of medicine advanced in the past 40 years, except trauma care which has stood still for some unexplained reason? I think you have demonstrated bad logic, clouded by your ideology.

I don’t have an ideology, other than an affinity for the truth and an instinctive revulsion toward those who ignore, bend, or flat out deny the truth. Argue against ideas, not an alleged ideology.

I would be delighted if putting money into social programs and education would decrease our crime rate, and if a soft and rehabilitative approach to criminals would turn them around. Experience has shown that this does not work. A small percentage of our population is complete scum. The best solution would be to lock them up until they are too old to harm anyone.

Ignoring what is right and wrong and just focusing on the costs, take a look at the total lifetime costs of our mollycoddling approach to criminal justice, versus the up-front cost of jailing someone for 20 years. The math would look like this: imprisoning someone for 20 years costs a few million dollars. Letting them run loose on the streets costs a few hundred thousand dollars in police services, a few hundred thousand dollars in insurance claims, a couple of million for long-term care for the guy whose brain the criminal bashed in, a few hundred thousand in legal aid, probation officers etc, and who knows how much money spent preventing, repairing, or replacing all the things destroyed or stolen by the criminal over all of those years. When you look at the total cost to society in dealing with repeat offenders, the most cost-effective approach is long-term incarceration.[/quote]

Um, I just asked a simple question, which you have ignored.

If trauma care is the cause of a declining murder rate, it should result in a higher attempted murder rate. Unless doctors and nurses and ambulance drivers are in on the liberal conspiracy to under-report crimes as well.

But you can reply to this with another long post, ignoring this flaw in your logic. Just like you did in a previous thread, and just like you have already (twice) in this one.

Nobody’s gonna argue that violent criminals shouldn’t get locked up for a long time.
But we’ll sure as hell argue that it’s stupid for some kid who swipes a car to be ‘mandatorily’ locked up with those people so they can train him to be even worse.
Lock the little shit up at BCIT…

According to gum, it’s from Police reporting:

So if a person is (almost) fatally wounded, and brought to the hospital, where the advances in trauma care save his life, the crime isn’t counted as a murder. But surely it’s reported to the police, where it’s counted as an attempted murder or some other serious crime.

Yes, trauma care has improved in the last 40 years. And it’s surely saving lives. But if it’s the reason the murder rate is dropping, then the other stats should be shooting up at the same rate that murder rates are dropping (assuming the crime rate is steady) or increasing at an alarming rate (assuming the crime rate is going up). Right?

So even in your example (guy stabbed in groin), it’s reported as a murder, since it’s reported by the police, not the courts. And if advances in trauma care saved the guy, it would still be reported as attempted murder or some other crime.

[quote=“gum”]

I appreciate your attempt to compile evidence to support your position. Let me point out the obvious error you have made.
Clicking through to your link I read that

  1. StatsCan’s crime severity index is dropping – sounds good so far

  2. The crime severity index is compiled from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey Data. And the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey data are compiled from… you guessed it, “UCR data reflect reported crime that has been substantiated by police” – so they haven’t recorded crime, they have just recorded crime that has been reported to police.

  3. “In the index, all crimes are assigned a weight based on their seriousness. The level of seriousness is based on actual sentences handed down by the courts in all provinces and territories.” – this one is so bad I couldn’t have made it up myself. They are saying if sentences are short, the crime must not have been serious.

So the StatsCan logic goes around in a circle. We will make an index to report the frequency and severity of crime. We will base our index only on reported crime, ignoring those crimes that go unreported. And we will assess the severity of crime by looking at the length of time a criminal is sentenced to serve. Now we can use this data to show that crime is going down, justifying lesser sentences, which will mean crime must be going down even more, since lower sentences mean less severe crime.

These gaping flaws can be found in two minutes of browsing StatsCan’s website. It is the worst attempt at logic I have seen anywhere. It would be a shame if public policy is based on such amateurish science.[/quote]

You obviously appreciate rigorous methodologies and Stats Canada does not measure up to your expectations (Although they measure up to mine and I accept the conclusions from the professionals we pay to measure these things). With this in mind you previously stated the following

[quote=“gum”]
The only accurate measure of crime rates is a survey of victims of crime. Surveys of crime victims consistently show that crime has increased markedly. [/quote]

Once again I’m posing the following request to you… ** it would certainly add to our understanding of this complex issue if you shared the sources of information that you are basing your opinions on. Kindly provide links to these surveys that support your position. That is you are able to.**

I’m sure we will all be extremely interested in the methodologies behind your survey data that shows crime rates are increasing. That is if you have any objective references and are not simply making up statements to support your world view.