Crime is way down but we're paying more and more for policing, the legal system and prisons under the federal Conservatives.
While the crime rate fell 23 per cent over the last decade, the cost of dealing with it skyrocketed by a similar amount - to $20.3 billion a year, the Parliamentary budget officer reported Wednesday.
That's about the same amount Canada spends on military defence.
And that's not including the rising costs of victims' compensation, private security or related civil bills.
Kevin Page, whose five-year tenure in the independent office ends Monday, says the exorbitant increases occurred during the last seven years of Tory administration.
Moreover, while Ottawa has constitutional responsibility for criminal justice, it's paying less and less of the bill and other levels of government more and more.
Most of the burden - 73 per cent or $15 billion - is being borne by provincial, territorial and municipal treasuries.
Regardless, it all comes out of the same pocket - taxpayers'.
The report, the first multiyear look at criminal justice spending, is important for putting a figure on the Conservatives' anti-crime approach.
But it also underscores the need for such data as B.C. confronts a worsening crisis in its legal system and major decisions about its patchwork law-enforcement regime.
Victoria doesn't provide court hours, expenditures for our courts or really any kind of financial information that allows us to analyze what is happening in the criminal justice system - to see where our money is going, to whom and to what effect.
Page did his own calculations, using information from a number of sources.
He examined the federal books and four jurisdictions - B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec - and found the largest spending increases were for policing.
Between 2002 and 2012, those costs, provincial court expenditures and federal spending on corrections all increased by more than 40 per cent.
Federal spending on policing increased by 53 per cent over the same time period.
Total policing costs, Page said, jumped 41 per cent to $2.3 billion over the last 10 years; provincial court spending spiked 45 per cent to $800 million.
Most of those increases can be attributed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper taking office in 2006.
The federal Conservatives have long maintained crime was costing victims too much - $100 billion a year was one figure they threw around.
They stridently advocated for longer prison stretches, stiffer enforcement and introduced dozens of bills in the teeth of widespread criticism that there was little if any evidence to support their hard-nosed lack of compassion.
Other jurisdictions, most notably Europe, have eschewed the kind of 19th-century penology reflected in the Tory rhetoric and have embarked on more modern restorative-justice, community-based approaches to crime. Even American states that once championed similar spare-the-rod-spoil-the-offender policies have abandoned them because they bankrupted their treasuries.
The courts ordered thousands of inmates freed in California because the state couldn't afford to look after them and they were at risk.
Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the government "makes no apologies for cracking down on crime."
Well, how about saying sorry for being way too generous to your legal-system friends with our tax money?
From 2002 to 2006, Ottawa took roughly $400 a year per capita from taxpayers to pay for the criminal justice industry; it's now taking nearly $480 a year from our jeans.
I guess cops, judges, lawyers, correctional officers and their ilk need the cash more than doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers.
Too bad the evidence indicates investing in that second cohort pays far greater dividends for our communities and costs taxpayers far less in the long run.
But at least now we know that it isn't crime that is bleeding us dry, it's these criminal policies.
As interim Liberal leader Bob Rae quipped - the Tory agenda isn't tough on crime, it's "tough on taxpayers."
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Ian Mulgrew,
While the crime rate fell 23 per cent over the last decade, the cost of dealing with it skyrocketed by a similar amount - to $20.3 billion a year, the Parliamentary budget officer reported Wednesday.
That's about the same amount Canada spends on military defence.
And that's not including the rising costs of victims' compensation, private security or related civil bills.
Kevin Page, whose five-year tenure in the independent office ends Monday, says the exorbitant increases occurred during the last seven years of Tory administration.
Moreover, while Ottawa has constitutional responsibility for criminal justice, it's paying less and less of the bill and other levels of government more and more.
Most of the burden - 73 per cent or $15 billion - is being borne by provincial, territorial and municipal treasuries.
Regardless, it all comes out of the same pocket - taxpayers'.
The report, the first multiyear look at criminal justice spending, is important for putting a figure on the Conservatives' anti-crime approach.
But it also underscores the need for such data as B.C. confronts a worsening crisis in its legal system and major decisions about its patchwork law-enforcement regime.
Victoria doesn't provide court hours, expenditures for our courts or really any kind of financial information that allows us to analyze what is happening in the criminal justice system - to see where our money is going, to whom and to what effect.
Page did his own calculations, using information from a number of sources.
He examined the federal books and four jurisdictions - B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec - and found the largest spending increases were for policing.
Between 2002 and 2012, those costs, provincial court expenditures and federal spending on corrections all increased by more than 40 per cent.
Federal spending on policing increased by 53 per cent over the same time period.
Total policing costs, Page said, jumped 41 per cent to $2.3 billion over the last 10 years; provincial court spending spiked 45 per cent to $800 million.
Most of those increases can be attributed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper taking office in 2006.
The federal Conservatives have long maintained crime was costing victims too much - $100 billion a year was one figure they threw around.
They stridently advocated for longer prison stretches, stiffer enforcement and introduced dozens of bills in the teeth of widespread criticism that there was little if any evidence to support their hard-nosed lack of compassion.
Other jurisdictions, most notably Europe, have eschewed the kind of 19th-century penology reflected in the Tory rhetoric and have embarked on more modern restorative-justice, community-based approaches to crime. Even American states that once championed similar spare-the-rod-spoil-the-offender policies have abandoned them because they bankrupted their treasuries.
The courts ordered thousands of inmates freed in California because the state couldn't afford to look after them and they were at risk.
Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the government "makes no apologies for cracking down on crime."
Well, how about saying sorry for being way too generous to your legal-system friends with our tax money?
From 2002 to 2006, Ottawa took roughly $400 a year per capita from taxpayers to pay for the criminal justice industry; it's now taking nearly $480 a year from our jeans.
I guess cops, judges, lawyers, correctional officers and their ilk need the cash more than doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers.
Too bad the evidence indicates investing in that second cohort pays far greater dividends for our communities and costs taxpayers far less in the long run.
But at least now we know that it isn't crime that is bleeding us dry, it's these criminal policies.
As interim Liberal leader Bob Rae quipped - the Tory agenda isn't tough on crime, it's "tough on taxpayers."
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Ian Mulgrew,
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