I think one of the approaches the Conservatives will take with this is similar to the U.S., the privatization of prisons and using contractors to run them. It would be consistent with the direction they are goin in.

Problem - Crime and punishment.
Solution - ?
Right waing solution - Capital punishment, now usually less messy leathal injection.
Left wing solution - minimal jail time - community service, etc.

Somewhere between there must be a viable solution.

First habitual criminals, major sex offenders, 1st degree murderers should be located in maximum protection jails, located in out of the way places, like Ocean Falls. Non Canadian citizens comvicted of said offences should be deported.

Drug dealers, less nasty types should be in jails located in less out of the way places. Again, non Canadian citizens should be deported.

Blue collar crime, etc. should be in minimal protection jails or community service where rehabilitation may work.

Special facilities & sentances for young offenders. (13 to 19)

Mentally ill must be treated!

Drug dependant types must be treated!

Not a perfect solution but I think workable.

Well the system as it is does not work very well. Probation will only be effective if there is a consequence to breaking it, presently there is little consequence. My wife did a stint at Court 100, she was amazed to see people show up stoned to their hearing, not bothering to get a lawyer and having their hearing postponed or everyone pretending that the person was not stoned. All the steps in the system to save work, now seem to prevent it from actually doing what it is supposed to. Instruction to the courts from the government has been to avoid sending people to jail.

I fully agree that the mentally ill should not be on the street, they consume huge resources just to handle them on a day to day basis.

Malaysia sends their drug addicts directly to rehab, with approx. 15% success rate. They will use long prison sentences, flogging or hanging for drug dealers. You don’t see much open dealing there. They also send a flogging team around to the schools to let the student watch a simulated flogging on a dummy to make them realize what the consequence is for certain crimes.

Although I am strongly anti-drug, I am willing to experiment with the decriminalization of pot and street level assistance for drug users. If it is couple with tougher sentences for drug dealers.

I also support tougher sentences for people that uses weapons while committing a crime.

Rafe, I agree that a better, more effective parole system maybe part of the solution. I confess to not knowing what the solution is, though.

I do know one thing - our judicial system, at least sentencing, is a joke. Ask any police officer. Look at all these repeat offenders - especially car thieves - in and out of court, stealing more cars while waiting for the next court date. How many times have you heard in a news broadcast that the perpetrator was "known to police".

The purpose of sentencing is not only to "pay" for doing the crime, but it is also to protect the public. Someone who is locked up at least caan't commit any more crimes. That latter purpose has been lost through decades of liberal ideology.

Rehabilitation? That's beside the point. Some lives can be turned around, maybe, and I believe some can't.

This argument has the makings of the-perpetrator-is-the-victim tone to it.

Harper and his corporate overlords must, at any cost, divert public attention away from their own massive crimes, many forthcoming.
Hence the sudden and arbitrary focus on the crime and punishment of societie's lowest echelons. Even though almost every major crime statistic has been in decline for years.
A tried and true method of mass diversion utilized by the filthy republican party, the most corrupt and morally bankrupt collection of white-collar criminals in the history of Earth.

jesterjogger = idiot

If you have a better theory I'd like to hear it.

Sincerely,

Idiot

'The Conservatives need a catchy motto, and I think it should be: "Always a simple solution to complex problems."' says stan.
how about this stan: 'The lefties need a catchy motto, and I think it should be: "Always no solutions to complex problems."
you left something out rafe: longer sentences means keeping these assholes off our streets. the primary purpose of law is to protect society. but of course lawbreakers aren't really assholes anyway are they? victims. all victims. poor darlings.

Con crimes? What crimes? What, training a further 11,000 soldiers and 5.5 billion in spending to further Bush's empirical capitalist cause to own all of the oil in the middle East is a crime? Chaney, incidentally, was worth 14 million Haliburton shares plus at 9 bucks a share. Now its 84 dollars a share. No, Chaney doesn't have a stake in any of this. Iraq and Bin Laden just... happened.

And softwood. Former Canfor CEO Emersons Canfor shares got a boost, with 280 million bucks going back to Canfor this year. Why? Try a 1.1 billion dollar givaway so Emerson can hit the sell button, cause Canfor has overcut and can't produce like it has in the past. Yup. Sweet deal. If there was negotiating to be done, it should have been done over the disparancy in currency. We lost a further 1.5 billion there as well, thanks to the Cons. The Cons have already cost us 10X what Montgomery cost in just 3 short months.

And enforced minimum sentences... we had all better start asking why self centered rich white guys and their Con hero, mr. Harper believes "VENGENCE = JUSTICE". In reality, they happen to be two separate things. and for some reason, these Con middle aged white guys (has anyone seen an elected racial minority in the Con gov? They ran minorities, didn't they? Oops. Thats right. Con voters don't vote for minorities. They vote for themselves.

And the loud mouthed "gun registry was such a waste of money" chants (and in ways it was and still is) won't be heard saying "mandatory minimum sentencing was such a waste of money", even though it will likely cost us 10X what the gun registry did over the next 10 years. Oh, no. These yes men (and the odd yes woman like Marjorie Breton, the Mulroney lover of whom the Cons could never do wrong) won't risk themselves to look like complete fools."

"Smaller government is better! All governments should ever do is collect taxes, stroke a few cheques, put their feet up when their not stealing and call it efficiency. Governments getting involved with the universal delivery of essential services? Thats work were taking away from the private sector! Lord knows there isn't enough opportunity to make money in the "universal" markets these days. Work? No, we couldn't do that. Why, that would get in the way of U.S. corp monopolies coming in to gouge our Canadian citizens with their greed!

Remember the motto. "Vote Conservative! Good for business." Daycare, welfare, EI, workers comp, police, courts, healthcare, senior homes, insurance, the wheatboard, CBC, these essential human services can all be done by business!" Universality of essential services? Communist! Commie, Red, they killed tens of millions in the last century alone! Democracies like the U.S.? Peaceful. We need to spend 14 cents on the dollar just like them to "keep the peace".

Standards? Who needs standards! Bad for business. We need tax cuts to the rich to stimulate the economy! Why, just look at the U.S. model and the Republican way. Its working so well! Why don't you Con lovers just tell us to separate from Canada and join the states. Its what your leader wants. You know, cause its such a great model of success down there.

So buzy ranting, I forgot to offer a solution. We put someone in for deuce less when they steal a car or B & E and theft, steal a ladies purse... Take the 200,000 (plus inflation over time), give half to the victims pocket most of the rest and hire thug (someones got to give 'em a job) to blacken the thiefs eyes, bend a nose and wind up with a running kick in the groin, with broken bones and facial scars for repeat offenders. You know, for those who don't want to "save face". And those caught for possession... isn't that already justice?

Touche!!!!
harper, neo-con globalization 101:

crime: pursh snatching
punishment(china): death

crime: toxic waste spill to local river
punishment(china): corporate elite bonus to buy 18 year old $90,000 mercedes low-rider with tinted windows for robson street cruisin'

Good piece, Rafe...

Just like our medical system, crime is two-tier. "White-collar" crime probably steals more money than the ordinary criminal element. And, the ordinary kind is a public nuisance. We all read about white-collar crimes but the average joe doesn't have a fear of it. The white collar criminal usually can beat the rap with no jail time because he/she has the money. Usually a white-collar criminal is sentenced to public service.

Why not more sentences of public service? No doubt that would be a better rehab vehicle than parole.

jesterjogger

Wonderful analysis!!

Too easy to decide on punishments for crimes when the system itself is dishonest. The basis of business is to give as little as possible, in return for the most profit possible ... and it's a commercial triumph when the product creates repeat customers. As in, shall we say, the drug trade. Keep it illegal and there's no oversight on who's receiving the $6 Billionin the pot trade alone in B.C.

We've apparently allowed these factors to penetrate the electoral system and into government itself. So IMO it's preposterous to devise punishments for little crimes and little criminals while the safety umbrella of Canadian sovereignty is itself being ripped.

ELLIOT says,

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Funny, I thought the primary purpose of law was to provide Justice.

Complex problems with easy solutions.
What should be done with the two youths who beat up that bus driver?
After coming up 50 cents short for what was likely a 4 or 5 dollar public transit ride and being forced off to walk possibly miles(no refund of the majority of the fare ofcourse)I can't say how I would react in the same situation.
Why does it cost 3 dollars to ride the bus in the first place?
Why do single occupancy vehicles effectively receive billions in taxpayer subsidization while simultaneously public transit has become unaffordable for our poorest citizens who it was meant to serve in the first place?
Why are billions spent on a highway for wealthy people when our most disadvantaged and vulnerable, including children, are left to a miserable life of darwinian brutality?

The law exists to prevent or resolve conflicts that arise, ideally as impartial and arbitrary rules like "the car on the right goes first through an intersection."

But how to prevent conflicts between individuals who are determined to offend the other party? Studies have shown offenders are not deterred by the severity of the sanction but by the likelihood of getting caught, if they're deterred at all.

And it's true prison sentences make bad justice because depriving offenders of a few liberties has no restorative or rehabilitative value: put simply, prison doesn't make bad people good and it doesn't make bad deeds right.

Duncan wrote:

If you think the registry was good value for the money, I have a bridge to sell you.

Ask any of the kids in school what they think about the current system and they will tell it’s not working, they see the gangs, drugs and violence all the time and they see the perpetrators walking away without penalties. This makes them wary of coming forward to report or testify about stuff going on in schools etc, etc. The judicial system must have the confidence of the people and it is losing that confidence.

Jack
I fully agree with you, white collar crime should be treated the same as any other type of stealing. Problem is that often companies don’t want the incident to be made public or won’t follow through on pressing charges.

By the way not every punk is a “disadvantaged Kid” lots of them coming from healthy middle class families or in the case of West Vancouver& Richmond fairly wealthy families.

G west

I would say that the primary purpose of the law is to provide certainty, a amount of equality and reliability.
By having the laws written and available was to remove the ability of the king to apply or not to the laws at a whim.
Criminal law makes up only a small portion of the existing law. Much of the law deals with remedies, which I am not sure would equate to Justice. One could also ask what is Justice and for whom?

Speedo
If you remove tough sentences from the equation, how do intend to promote restorative justice, while keeping the community safe? One example leaps to mind is the hit man that carried out a killing while at a half-way house. Restorative justice is not going to happen overnight, to correct the behaviour of a 30 year old will take a great deal of time if it works at all. I think creative means to justice work best for very young offenders who have not become to hardened. I prefer to see tougher sentences for some crimes (especially involving weapons) and extra funding and programs for young offenders and first time offender.

I urge anyone who thinks that punishment equals rehabilitation to read Robert Hughes' history of Australia's early years "The Fatal Shore". Hundreds of lashes rarely fixed anyone, treatment with dignity and respect often did.

An absolute eye-opener for anyone who believes more prisons and tougher sentences are the answer.

Very few people are beyond redemption. If it were so, Australia as a country simply wouldn't exist.

Which is to say, much the way we treat children... find a way to condemn the behaviour w/out condemning the person. A person without self-respect has nothing to lose.

According to Foucault's study "Discipline & Punish", flogging and public executions went out of style in the west (at least in France, in his analysis) because the public started to sympathize more with the person being punished than with the monarch or the state. Given the readiness for many of our people to sympathize with the underdog as a general principle, I think that re-introducing corporal punishment would have the same effect: sympathy for the criminal and abhorrence at state violence (even if it was "justified" on legal terms).

Stumpy so if some guy breaks into your house in the middle of the night, robs you, bounces you off a couple of walls, ties you up, forces you to watch him while he rapes your wife and daughter,then "you" are going to make sure he gets proper, treatment with dignity and respect from the system I suppose, Stumpy your so full of it, your eyes gotta be brown.

Well it's another collection of opinions blaming societal woes on Dick Cheney, republicans, neocons and just about everyone else. I don't like any of those folks either, but I sure can't see how they have any direct involvement in some meth addict stealing my car to knock off a 7-11. Or an abusive husband beating his wife. Or a drug dealer hanging around the local school.

Perhaps the root of the crime/justice problem lies in the fact we are all responsible for the state of things, but we don't like to face up to anything that may suggest each of us take personal responsibility. It's become so much easier to lay blame on anyone other than ourselves, our socio-economic group, our race. Last I checked rich and poor, black, yellow, and white share the planet and are equally impacted by murderers, kidnappers, drugs, gangs, theft, etc.

The general theme of responses has been we need a new model to deal with serious crime and habitual criminals. That's great, but it ignores completely the root problems of why teens feel empowered to beat the crap out of bus drivers over 50 cents, why addicts shoot up in broad daylight downtown in between stealing wallets, and why some of Vancouver's best car thieves keep getting out of jail to grab their 30th, 40th, or 50th car.

We (yup, you and me) have contributed to a society where everyone has an exagerated sense of what's due to them. We have engendered a misplaced sense of entitlement that makes just about any behaviour, legal or not, an A-OK thing to do. And we have a criminal justice system that pretty much goes along with that line of thinking. It's certainly shown it's no deterrent.

Just try confronting a drunken teen (from a "nice" home) trying to steal something from your home. Once the profanity dies down, and the argument that they just wanted whatever you owned, and **** you anyway for daring to question them, the whole Young Offenders Act is recited chapter and verse - they know there is nothing that can be done to them. They know they cannot have the crap beaten out of them by a citizen, because they have special rights. Ask a police officer, and you'll get a long sigh and look of resignation. I can't imagine a more frustrating job.

So where does that leave us? How about looking at the source of our problems in society, rather than arguing about which bandaid solution is best suited to staunching the blood flow?

It ultimately comes down to reinstilling a sense of personal responsibility in each and every citizen. Enough of the blame cycle, it get us nowhere.

Lyle Lovett wrote some great lyrics years ago:

"You say you're a victim, but you look like a volunteer to me".

Couldn't have said it better if I tried.

Actually, they're hazel woody. When your opinion and idiotic mis-characterizations of what I really said are relevant I'll let you know.

You sir are a jackass.

Stumpy- better a jack ass, then a chicken sh!t like you.

Please grow up.

Since Mr. Mair hasn't really spelled out what his "effective" parole alternative is, I'm assuming it's just another form of apologetics for the deterioriation of the system of justice under his favourite political party.

Let's try Mr. Mair's argument in some other areas. Some employers don't like labour laws, and are going to try to circumvent them no matter what the penalty. (And remember, employers have families to support too.) Ergo, there should be no severe penalties for violating labour laws. Some people are going to drive drunk no matter what....so why penalize them? (After all, they have families to support.) Some people are going to evade taxes no matter what, so why be heavy handed with tax evaders? (And remember, they have families to support.)

There, don't I sound convincing?

Just looka t Austrailia as a working lab for mandatory minimums .
It cost 'em a fricken fortune and produced zilch results .
This is all about our convict Justice Minister Vic Toews and his moron puppet master wanting to enact a little revenge on the people that used to beat the crap out of 'em and steal their lunch money .
It won't work . Period .
Plenty of documentation to prove it and none to support mandatory minimums .
Once again the ignorant neo-cons are going to foist a uselss program onto the population .
Way to go idiots .

Yea, do away with parole entirely .
That way the cops/parole officers will have very little to do .
Two thirds of prisoners hate the parole system anyway .
There is no way to tighten up parole provisions .
Parole is only granted (usually)to first time offenders .
Ole Ingstrup had the right idea by cascading prisoners through the system.
Start out in the max and work your way down until you reach minimum or a half way house .

No you sound like a typical neo-con phuquing idiot !

Kinda like relegation in reverse; start in Div 5 and work your way up to the Premiership and release. Always thought Ole Ingstrup was an incredibly rational individual. Unfortunately, I think he's gone back to Denmark.

Re Woody ... you don't really keep crooks off the street. Do the math. If every crook goes to jail fopr two more years you will still have them all coming out of prison, unfortuately better crooks. All you do is postpone the problem for two years.

I agree with the man who said there must be a better way. This is my concern about the Tories ... they think that the only answer is throwing people in jail. What if, as I suggest, you really toughen up the parole system? But, you see, that takes careful sober thought and doesn't translate into instant popular headlines

R

I agree with Rafe...in most cases. But for offenders with high rates of recidivism, such as child molesters and pedophiles, we should lock them up for life. No questions asked.

For Murderers, we should eliminate them.

WOODY wrote:

Woody...Simple Solution to this. Buy a gun. Problem solved.

On the other hand, if they are a career criminal, say one that steals a 3-4 cars a day or does a couple of B & E’s a week , just imagine how many cars they can’t steal or houses they won’t enter if they are in for 1 year longer. Plus just how much more “training” are they going to get from their fellow cons in that extra year?

How about the extra cost to society caused by the emotional trauma on the victims. Prime example being the guy that beat the father with a tire iron, now the family is nearly bankrupt. Not to mention the cost that will be required to get that bus driver back on his feet. Ask anyone that had their house broken into how safe they feel now.

The justice system as presently designed has been a disaster and people are fed up with the same old story of a repeat offender being released on probation and doing more crimes and then being put back on probation again.

Like I said earlier, offer them a way out, especially to the young, but make sure they know that if they continue down the road they are on that life will be miserable.

TC99:

You'd be right at home in Iraq, formerly Babylonia, home of the code of Hammurabi. An eye for an eye is really working out well there isn't it?

Vengeance isn't justice, nor does it solve the problem.

I think most of you missed Rafe’s point completely. A better, more stringent parole system makes perfect sense. By all means lock up dangerous or violent criminals for the immediate safety of the general population and get tough with repeat offenders. But for first time offenders a strict parole system with the threat of serious jail time would be far less costly and likely just as effective a deterrent as jail time. It isn’t perfect but what system is?

Rafe’s article came across to me as suggesting that overburdening the taxpayer with increased prison costs would simply be robbing Peter to pay Paul. The more money spent on the prison system the less money there is for health care and such. When (then justice Minister) Allan Rock introduced the gun registry he said "if it saved one life it would be worth the cost". Since that day more people have died waiting for surgery because of an under funded health care system than have been killed by guns.

The same will likely happen with higher costs associated with longer jail sentences but where will the money be redirected from, policing maybe? To be sure, people like Stephen Harper and Allan Rock frighten me far more than your average criminal does. One ego-maniacal stroke of their pen can do so much damage it scares the hell out of me. How about some tough sentences for politicians who play politics with our lives?

There will never be a perfect system but rather a conglomeration of mixed and matched methods tailored to the individual offence and perpetrator. A reviewed and revitalized parole system in a good place to start.

And this is where we are headed :

The US Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported on April 25, 2005 ( "Nation's Prison and Jail Population Grew by 932 Inmates Per Week") that "The nation's prisons and jails held 2,131,180 inmates as of June 30, 2004, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. Two-thirds were in federal and state prisons, and the other third were in local jails. Jail authorities were supervising an additional 70,548 men and women in the community in work release, weekend reporting, electronic monitoring and other alternative programs. The incarcerated population grew by 48,452 inmates between midyear 2003 and midyear 2004. Jail inmates grew by 3.3 percent, state prisoners by 1.3 percent, and federal prisoners by 6.3 percent. On June 30, 2004, there were an estimated 726 persons per 100,000 U.S. residents in prison or jail."

As reported by The Southern Illinoisan on April 24, 2005 ( "US Prisons Swell By Nearly 900 Inmates Per Week In 2004"): "While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the report's co-author, Paige Harrison. For example, the number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study found. Harrison said the increase can be attributed largely to get-tough policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among them are mandatory drug sentences, 'three-strikes-and-you're-out' laws for repeat offenders, and 'truth-in-sentencing' laws that restrict early releases. 'As a whole most of these policies remain in place,' she said. 'These policies were a reaction to the rise in crime in the '80s and early 90s.'"

One in four prisoners in the world are American.
Is this really what we want for Canukistan ?

Try the fact that leadership is top down. Our political leaders are supposed to be role models, not war mongers. Not traitors. Not theives. Not self centered bigots, but role models. And this blame game. Things do begin with the recognition that there is a problem and if government becomes disfunctional with systems, including EDUCATION and JUSTICE, then what do you expect people to say? Everything is just fine?

Successful systems of government cost money, right? All of the "essential services" that these Con/Rep governments want to run into the ground and get rid of, are the reason why we have close to two million prisoners in the U.S. alone. Thats one out of every 160 men, women and children. These numbers could be drastrically reduced through our systems of education, courts and law enforcement through prevention programs, social programs and diplomacy with nations who export hard drugs, but its not happening. Why? Theirs no money in it for the rich white guy. The U.S. spends 14% of every dollar on the military and it could jump to 20% tomarrow with a war declared on IRAN. The only nation that superceeds this kind of military spending in terms of percentages on a full time basis is North Korea.

Its the same with health care costs. Jack is spent on education and prevention. Why? There's no money in it. Its bad for business. The food and drug admistration North and South doesn't want to hamper their largest lobby. The food manufacturing industry. Its all about money, folks. And the social morals that have been in a steady decline in North America come from more than food that keeps our minds and bodies from working straight.

We went through a me generation, did we not? Birth control and a generation (or two) that said "geez, having kids is hardship. They cost money. 55% divorce rates... who wants that?" And the successful ones get the money and the gold diggers and the mistrust and the ego and everything else that follows.

And Colin:
You'll get your wish to talk shop with military toys soon enough. We know where you stand.

http://sympaticomsn.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060508/oconnor_military_missions_060508

Might want to take a good long look at the polls concerning military involvement with Afghanistan. Interesting message being sent there, if you still believe in democracies. But you won't see us in Darfur. No money in it for guys like yourself who've got it all figured out. And this gun registry thing. I said its necessary, except for long guns and far too expensive, along with Con ideology that is 10 times worse, so quit your lying at my expense, dipshit.

'After coming up 50 cents short for what was likely a 4 or 5 dollar public transit ride and being forced off to walk possibly miles(no refund of the majority of the fare ofcourse)I can't say how I would react in the same situation.'
this one's a beauty! jesteridiot justifying the senseless beating of a bus driver by a bunch of scumbag punks. nice. what a moron.

Finally: Michigan Eliminates Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences
Before leaving office, Michigan Gov. John Engler (R) signed legislation to end mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. According to an AP report in the Holland, MI Sentinel on Dec. 28, 2002 ( "Engler Eliminates Mandatory Minimums"), "The legislation requires judges to follow state sentencing guidelines when sending drug criminals to prison but gives them more discretion by eliminating minimum sentences. Under the old law, for example, someone possessing 50 to 224 grams of narcotics or cocaine in Michigan had to be sentenced to at least 10 years and up to 20 years in prison. The new law eliminates the 10-year minimum, allowing the judge to sentence an offender for any time up to 20 years. The law will go into effect March 1. The state Department of Corrections doesn't know how many of Michigan's 49,296 inmates would be eligible for parole, but supporters of the legislation said it will help alleviate the state's skyrocketing prison population. Engler signed the bill on Christmas Day, spokesman Matt Resch said."

Advocates point to Michigan as a significant triumph, and note that several other states are also considering an end to mandatory minimum sentences. The Sentinel reported that "Michigan has had among the harshest mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines in the nation, said Laura Sager, executive director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and New Jersey also are considering eliminating their mandatory minimums, Sager said."

Work with that you neo-con cheerleaders .

More prisons and mandarory minimum jail terms will benefit no-one except those who want more recidivism, those who want more gang recruitment, those who don't care if there's more HIV in prison. And, as someone once famously said, 'prison don't reduce nothin' except heterosexuality'. The head-end construction costs and the costs of the downstream social and law enforcement effects will make the Liberals' gun registry look like a steal.

Yea, that's the answer lock up a bunch of non-violent offenders with a bunch of hard cases .
So they to can learn to use violence as a response to what's bugging 'em .
Great phuquing idea neo-cons .
You will increase the number of violent offenders exponentially. Guaranteed .
I can see this whole thing rapidly spinning out of control .
Old convict Toews says there is proof that mandatory sentences work .
Yea, and pigs habe wings .Idiot!

Simple Solution...don't put people in Prisons we have to work to pay for. Put CRIMINALS to work for their victims...cleaning up our garbage, working up north to extract resources, and doing hard labour as a punishment for their crime. The left cares more about the welfare of criminals then about the welfare of bus drivers.

So, you believe in gulags. Careful TC, your true colours are showing. You are quite a little Stalin aren't you?

Perhaps we should just have a quota of prisoners that rises and falls depending on the needs of the state? That would be quite fair and just wouldn't it.

Let me guess... shoplifting - hard labour. Tax evasion - Club Fed.

Read "The Fatal Shore" Find out why putting prisoners to work doesn't always work. It ends up being slavery.

And, do you really think having these terribly dangerous criminals out and about in the public sphere isn't a security risk for the rest of the population?

Just once, ask yourself "and then what?" Your contentions won't be so easy for even a mental midget like myself to repudiate.

And so the slippery slope begins:

People don't have to die to lose their lives. Toni Bunton of Detroit, MI, drove a car for a couple of friends so that they could try to sell a few pounds of marijuana, at least so she thought. The Detroit News reports that Ms. Bunton, a first-time offender who was at the time 17 years old, was sentenced to 25-50 years in prison.

Gulags? That's not the same as a chain gang. Yes utting them out in an oil field is dangerous. So it putting them under house arrest.

Stump your compassion for these people sickens me.

As I posted elsewhere:

We need the Giuliani solution:

In his first term as mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, in conjunction with NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, adopted an aggressive enforcement-deterrent strategy based on James Q. Wilson's Broken Windows theory. This involved crackdowns on relatively minor offenses such as jaywalking, turnstile jumping, and aggressive squeegee kids on the principle that this would send a message that order would be maintained, and that the city would be "cleaned up"
The city crime rate dropped 30 percent in the first two years when Giuliani applied zero-tolerance measures. They were the lowest they'd been in 35 years when he left office, going down 57%. Vehicle theft was at a lower level than it was in 1965!

Just like people on this board have said that they can feel compassion for the two wastes of sperm and egg who beat up that bus driver for 50 cents woth of fare because they would have to walk and buses are expensive etc...

If I tried to make those same excuses for tax evaders due to our high, crippling taxes in this country, it would be just as non-sensical.

Hey, tax cutter it must be tough to talk outta your ass,hunh ?

No because unlike you left wingers, I don't have a male organ up there...

I'm familiar with the Broken Windows theory. I know it's popular with law enforcement. I also know some of the claims may well be overstated.

I don't have compassion for "these people". It's simply the fact that your solutions don't really work. Go read the book I've mentioned. You'll see just how useless your solutions (which have been tried already) really are.

Further, how is a gov't that puts people in risky situations without their consent any different from the criminal who threatens his victim with physical harm? What kind of job performance do you think you'll get from these less-than-willing workers? TC99, I'll say it again. "And then what."

Ah, and homophobic to boot. Who'd a thunk it? Dirty sodomites eh, spreading their filthy ways.

The Conservatives maybe out to lunch on this issue, but the Liberals certainly haven't done much to fix this problem, either. Years of cuts to programs for kids, to schools, to welfare. Where do criminals get their start? More than likely they're up to no good when they're young, then it just becomes a slippery slope to a lifestyle for them. "Idle hands are the devils tools," the old saying goes.

How the phuque ddo any of you know what happened on that bus. Maybe the driver got physical with one of them which in itself is assault .
Tax Cutter get the Dyck out of your mouth .
You are a phuquing piece of shit idiot .

I guess I missed something in my growing up years. Can some one tell me when and where or even how it became acceptable, let alone cool, to gang up on someone and beat them sensless??? I'm not old by any standards but growing up in the 80's and early 90's, people bashing a bus driver for a 50 cent fare would be shunned by their peirs. When did this change? maybe parole and prison is merely treating the symptoms. Maybe some of the money should be directed at finding and correcting the cause.

We are not NY city and don't have anything to really compare it to .
Guilianis ideas were simplistic in the extreme and all he did was create a huge prison beauracracy .
Just what we need is more cop/morons on the payroll .

Tax Cutter 99
Does this mean you actually read the Atlantic Monthly? That's good, the problem is you stopped too soon - the old broken windows theory is still pretty popular I'll admit, but, the evidence was really pretty thin and anecdotal.

You'd do well to do a bit more reading. Start with this study: Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy by Felton Earls and co-authors Robert Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush.

The following was written about Earls' study in the New York Times on January 6 2004:

Will a group of local teenagers hanging out on the corner be allowed to intimidate passers-by, or will they be dispersed and their parents called? Will a vacant lot become a breeding ground for rats and drug dealers, or will it be transformed into a community garden?

Such decisions, Dr. Earls has shown, exert a power over a neighborhood's crime rate strong enough to overcome the far better known influences of race, income, family and individual temperament.

''It is far and away the most important research insight in the last decade,'' said Jeremy Travis, director of the National Institute of Justice from 1994 to 2000. ''I think it will shape policy for the next generation.''

Francis T. Cullen, immediate past president of the American Society of Criminology, said of Dr. Earls's research, ''It is perhaps the most important research undertaking ever embarked upon in the study of the development of criminal behavior.''

It's a long and detailed study, not the kind of thing for a forum like this, but, the essential point that the study proves is that most major crimes were linked not to ''broken windows'' but to two other neighborhood variables: concentrated poverty and what Earls calls, collective efficacy. Which is just an academic way of saying healthy community.

Hannibal
At the same time they were locking more people up, crime began to drop, I wonder if there is a connection.

Duncan
So you know where I stand? Gee that’s nice, so do I

Military toys? So you are trying to belittle complex pieces of equipment as toys? That must mean then that those are just big farm toys that you guys use out there?

Well we could have done Dafur far more than the 100 soldiers and “Military toy” armoured vehicles we equipped the AU forces with. But thanks to the Liberals that sliced and diced the military the cupboard is bare and what there is left was sent to Afghanistan by the Liberals. So go tell in to Chrétien and Martin.

At your expense is an excellent way to describe the gun registry.

Taxcutter99
We can’t do labour gangs as to my understanding because we signed a UN treaty against forced prison labour. However I will agree that shutting down the work camps up by Chilliwack was a foolish move.

I visited my friends husband in the minimum security prison here, it was way better than an army camp I was in and no 5:00am wakeups and pack marches.

Kispiox
That is the problem, despite a fairly decent society that offers far more than what can be found just about anywhere else, we have a generation that seems to have polarized from the very good and the very bad with far less of a muddling middle that you dealt with. Of course the “disadvantaged” kids driving SUV’s or wearing expensive clothing and jewelry are “lashing out” at society. Perhaps 6 months in the Sudan would allow them to discover that life here ain’t so bad.

Restorative justice seems to be making some headway in Canada. The implementation of RJ in schools, in particular, may act as a more effective deterrent than overly punitive "vengeance models" or other "soft options" for young offenders...or young folks on their way to being young offenders.

"Serve the state" programs seem to have been takent to nightmarish extremes in China. I was just listening to CBC this evening and caught the tail end of an interview with someone who was talking about prisoners in China having their organs harvested to implant in wealthy bidders. $65,000 for a liver, it seems.

Read The Fatal Shore, too. Interesting parallels between the over-crowded prisons of the USA and the overcrowded prison ships of England in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

An easy answer is todays youth idolizes ghetto culture the rap,hip-hop and all the rest of that nonssense .
They have jump ins for gang initiations where the whole gang beat up the prospect .
The Hells Angels are benigne in comparison .
All the underwear showing ,piercing crap is related to the MTV generation .
NOw they think that five or six on one is a fair fight because they will win .
Listen to some rap and you will see what I mean No respect for anybody all women are ho's and all their peeps(people) are niggaz .
Their attitude is straight out of Compton LA.
Why they feel they musty emulate these losers is beyond me .
I guess there aren't enough WASP role models for them to emulate .
One part of the equation .

This whole gang thing really gets to me. I remember the worst fight I was ever in. The odds were really bad, 6 against 1. I took a beating that night to be sure. But to this day I'm convinced that we could have beaten that old bastard if he hadn't used his cane!

That used to be a joke!

Colin, you make a lot of sense. I have had the good fortune to spend time with two young men, one from Belgium and one from Switzerland. Both were troubled youths heading for jail and both were forced to take manditory military training for one year, one by government order and the other by parental frustration. Both said it completely changed their outlook on life and made them better members of their communities. Could be something to boot camp after all. Maybe all some people need is to see first hand how good they really have it. Maybe minimum security prisons should have 5;00am wakeups and pack marches like the military. I'm not the first today to say, an idle mind is the devil's play ground and idle hands are the devil's tools. Occupy those minds and hands with positive alternatives at a young age and maybe, just maybe we won't need as many prisons or as many probation officers. Hey, did I just say we had to get back to responsible parenting?

"WASP" Role models?
Yeah, I don't think so. How about we scrap the role model idea and get people to think for themselves.

Farm machinery isn't exactly what someone would confuse as weapons used to kill thousands of people, like what you try to slough off as "complex pieces of equipment", dipshit. You're only proving my point.

This is a good hot button issue and a very nice piece of written craftiness in that it opens up a gigantic amount of issues in a few paragraphs and then the old geezer slips out the back door. I guess our role here is to say the unsaid in said article. The issue seems limited to the idea of, a better way with parole as the bailiwick just what this parole looks like is a cause for self-examination of who we are and what we stand for. Rafe was calculated getting the word ‘vengeance’ out nice and early. It really goes after the hate mongers fast however the word ‘revenge’ would have been my preferred choice for bait. Not enough comments about the victims though, I would like to see restorative justice or the ‘new parole’ include an effective compensation scenario to victims, and don’t let anyone lie to you, that we can’t afford it. This compensation idea would have many looks to it besides financial and there are a great many smart people who could tell us all about what it should look like.

Now that I have mentioned the victims, the community deserves as a right their personal security what about that. We are on the right track in removing people from the community for periods of time but what about prevention? Overwhelming evidence tells us that frequently measurable numbers of people when exposed to certain hardships and traumas will behave in predictable ways rife with consequence, go ahead call me a nandy-pandy, pinko, red, lefty, thingy if you like but the stats are in and the books on these measurable behaviours have been written by many many smart people. So what about that? Should we just let people suffer and when they can’t cope any longer scoop em up like garbage to the dump? What does that say about us?

Then there’s them that’s in the clink, are there any people left out there who don’t know what goes on behind the walls of a jail or penitentiary in this country? The vengeful ones and the rest of us for that matter should confront the realities of life for inmates if we allow ‘it’ or condone ‘it’ are we not of the same character of those we incarcerate? They’re a re a great many things that can happen to you on the inside (figuratively
and literally) besides my mentioning of ‘it’ here, and when prisoners get out ‘it’ does not disappear from your psyche. Having said this ‘stuff’ about the criminal nature of our penal system, I am aware and have known some people that must not get back in to the regular community under any circumstance. You might want to keep certain people out of the community forever but to keep them under present day conditions forever is pretty disturbing to me.

As for the Police who gripe I’d prefer if they just stuck to gathering evidence and bringing accused before the courts, many of us have repetitive jobs the malcontents
should get over it or quit. Besides they can say their piece as citizens, after all political and judicial commentary is not in their job description but seems to have been normalized, what about that?

Sadly none of this really matters of course because we are on our way to replicating the U.S. model of penal-capitalization. The idea of justice is quaint but just that in these times and to our downfall facts and reasoned thinking will continue to take a backseat to popular truthinesses.

Stock (and the other clones) will follow orders on this one because not only is he reputed to be a huge ******* but also there are billions of dollars to be siphoned out of our collective purse and it aids the long-term neo-con agenda.

AH HA:
I agree wholeheartedly, thank you

Because role models are important in any young persons life.
Whether it be a parent,teacher, priest,cop or whoever.
People that don't turn to easy answers for solutions like the neo-cons .
Steve Nash is the prefect example of a good role model for youth .
And teaching people to think for themsleves.
What planet did you just arrive from ?

Duncan you’re a man of few insults, you just repeat the same thing, at least use some creativity to make it interesting.

Hannibal
Your bang on with the role model comment

Thanks Colin .

basically the lefties here are saying the same thing they've been saying since turdeau's advent: give the criminals a break, it's not their fault, we can fix them b/c we're so enlightened, the white businessman's to blame, blather, blather, blather. the problem is that they're dead wrong. those who want to reform will do so, the scumbags won't. lock 'em up and keep them off the streets so they don't threaten my children. period.

Colinsorry to inform you but the decline in the crime rate in recent decades had nothing to do with "get tough on crime" programs. It is merely a reflection of the fact that the demographic group responsible for the majority of criminal activity is a smaller portion of the population now that the boomers are retiring from crime, dead or locked up for life.

If Harper gets to play Prime Minister long enough, maybe Canada can challenge the United States as the most highly incarcerated population (per capita of course) on earth. The US now has one quarter of the imprisoned on the planet and 1 in every 160 or so of Americans (of all ages and sexes). But anything Bu$hco sez resonates with the Harp. Most countries are seeing the emptiness of the Neo-Con dream, Canada, with our new Chimporer wannabe at the helm, is just arriving at the party in time to see their heroes carted off in cuffs. We're averaging an indictment and/or guilty plea a day in Neo-Con land, and this is just the warm up.

How long should Bu$h and company be incarcerated for war crimes, bribery, perjury, negligence and conspiracy? Speaking of restorative justice how's about that onerous punishment Gordo the Grifter got for putting the residents of Maui at risk?

I won't question that it costs $80,000.00 per year to keep a prisoner in a Federal prison.
Considering how much damage these criminals do, it's worth it.
We all must realize that the amount of stolen property needed to be fenced at 10 cents on the dollar, $80K is probably what they steal in one month. they probably steal and wreck a dozen cars per year at a cost of $250K
The cost of incarcerating these criminals pales in comparison to the economic damage they cause.
I know lefties don't like rules of any kind. Look where it's got us.

I AM Clueless

Um, these lefties who've messed things up so badly, clueless - are they the same ones who've never been in power in the federal government? Or were you referring to the 13 years out of the last 106 when they were in power in BC?

You are such an idiot. You don't even know who is responsible for setting prison and legal policy in this country do you? All the provinces do is administer the criminal code which is the responsibility of Ottawa...never had anything to do with your famous lefties.

Absolutely. The recent crime statistics reflect the fact that the population is aging .
Responding to a few well publicized incidents is not good policy for a Government(?).
Fact is crime rates are much lower than they were 10,years ago . In all categories .
Harpos meetoism with concerns to the war on drugs is an admission of abject failure .
Harpo hopefully will be defeated on this budget a recent poll said 66% of Canadians saw the budget(?) as a cynical attempt to curry favour with the electorate to allow him is majority .
Canadians are a whole lot smarter than Harpo and his gang of misfits .

My favourite oracle has spoken ,Alcibiades!
You are the man .
Clueless doesn't know if his ******* is bored,reamed or punched .
Must be awfully frustrating to go through life with half a brain .
Yea, blame us for balancing the books leading to huge surpluses your pals are getting ready to squander .

alcibiades; are you contending that turdeau wasn't a lefty and that chretien didn't make a career out of catering to lefties? better check your history kid.

Alc, Liberals are lefties, there could be no more of a namby pamby bleeding heart bunch of idiots than we have had in power, appointing weird leftist Supreme Court Justices, who have liberalized Canada to the extreme.
This era has come to an end, there is no amount of ranting from you liberal leftists that is going to change the new direction Canada is going. Your side has lost, which is obvious to anyone reading the Harper bashing posts on this site.
You know, they know your type is never going to vote for them anyway, they don't care about you. You are a voice in the wilderness of idiocy. You and your buddies can cocoon in this site ranting to each other with no affect on what's really going on. It's so funny to read ha ha ha ha .

Buy a gun. It's your last line of defense.

Colinsorry to inform you but the decline in the crime rate in recent decades had nothing to do with "get tough on crime" programs. It is merely a reflection of the fact that the demographic group responsible for the majority of criminal activity is a smaller portion of the population now that the boomers are retiring from crime, dead or locked up for life.

So you are saying that being locked up does reduce crime?

Obviousley Clueless you can't read poll numbers either .
The only place the idiots numbers are going up is in Quebec and when that clown Charest loses,which,he will, Harpos efforts will amount to two thirds,of five eigths of phuque all .
No the Barnum and Baily party are merely caretakers util the Liberals have an election .
I predict the next Parliamnet will have only 50 neo-con seats. Count on it .

hannibal, good pot ? New polls came out today and although I miised the numbers they have further strengthened. I will research and get back to you.

Yea, you do that .

Okay, the latest numbers from Decima, relaesed today
CPC 41%
LIB 29%
NDP 16%
BLQ

Sorry BLC 10%
I don't have the regional numbers yet. How does that equal 50 seats for the CPC ?
Perhaps if the LIB and NDP merge you might have a hope. What drastic event could change this direction, when unemployment is at a 30 year low, the Canadian dollar is 90 cents.
Steven Harper will the PM for as long as he wants to be. It's a good thing.

That's funny because right now Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister.

You might want to learn to spell your God's name correctly, I hear he's a jealous and vengeful one.

If you can't even get that right....

LOL Stump .
Yea,and 66% of Canadians know his budget is a crock of shit.Nis mis-handling of the Afghanistan file, no money for wait times,gutting the Kelowna accords .
Raising taxes when he promised the opposite .
Getting the picture Clueless .

xtra xtra read all about it!
Aliens OK invasion plan!!!

OPED in irrational post gives "tentacles up!!" to invasion plan.
See it only in today's post!!

You know I go through so many pains not to misspell anything. I find that no matter what is said, I get no intelligent response to the facts, only someone pointing out spelling mistakes.
Now do you have something intelligent to say that counters my assertions that the CPC is increasing in popularity everyday ?
Do you have different numbers ? Perhaps a poll by The Council of Canadians or some other wacko left wing organisation ? Let's here them.
It's the old story of attacking the messenger rather than the message.
That pretty well sums up the intelligence of most that haunt this site.

I'm just the resident smartass. We've already seen you'd ignore any facts that don't fit your world-view anyway, so at this point the best tactic is to mock you until you go play your little right-wing games somewhere else and we can have some constructive dialogue without being interrupted.

maybe we should get the bctf to do a poll.

Stump. Youi wouldn't know constructive dialogue if it hit you in the ass. The NDP has existed since the 60's and can't ever get beyond 40 seats.

Again, Stump is another example of many here, when confronted with something that disturbs their comfortable view on the world cry blasphemy, but do not counter the argument with anything logical and merely shoot the messenger, hoping there won't be another coming around soon.
You can't beat down the truth forever.
I simply pointed out the latest Decima poll numbers and all I get for a response is a bunch of denial and BS.

You might want to re-read the thread. A quick scroll tells me we're about equal on the name-calling vs constructive comment count. But, since we're determined to stay on topic, connect the dots for me and explain what your poll numbers have to do with the subject at hand.

poor lefties. all victims of big white nasty businessmen.

Elliot take a number. We'll ridicule you in good time my friend.

Too bad E.T. didn't take you with him.

The line for pointy tin foil hats forms on the right .

Hey,clueless Decima is but one polling firm of many .
The Strategic Counsels numbers say that 66% of Canadians believe the neo-con budget to be full of shit as does Andrew Coyne of the Hysterical Post .
A neo-con cheerleader if there ever was one.
Coyne said " This is a Liberal budget and it is full of dishonesty "
"I don't like it"

Hey Hannibal, you failed to mention Coyne said the budget didn't cut taxes enough. He wrote "It's simply extraordinary that they would not be in a position to cut income taxes, and sharply."

I'm glad you agree

PS...Min Chen the 23 year old from China who kidnapped and killed Canadian 9 year old Celia Zhang is up for parole for in 10 to 25 years.

So hide your daughters from this "justice" system.

They rule on his eligibility on Friday. I hope he runs...so the cops have an excuse to shoot this waste of sperm.

Coyne also said it was a Liberal budget and it was full of dishonesty .
I don't get how you can tax low and mid income people more while giving the rich a tax break and call it fair and balanced ?
Most of these so-called grants or tax points are one time only and will do little to ease the pain at the bottom .
It is neither fair nor balanced .
If Duceppe was a little brighter we would be having an election this summer .
It may still happen if the Senate refuses to deal with any and all legislation put forth by the neo-cons.Unlikely but there is always the possibility .

'I hope he runs...so the cops have an excuse to shoot this waste of sperm.' couldn't have said it better myself.

[commentor: Stumpposted: 1 Hour Ago
Elliot take a number. We'll ridicule you in good time my friend.]

This is why I like reading here, keeps me laughing.... we'll get to you in good time. I honeslty don't understand why some people do get it. If we spend more money now, helping create a more equalitarian society, we will spend less in the future on such things as more prisons and such. Helping create healthy happy human beings, reduces many of the "societal" ills that people complain about. Prison is not the answer. Plain and simple, I have not heard one person who has gone to prison say "gee that really straightened me out- I'll never do that again." Not once. Its been more of "I won't get caught next time". Think about it- for some people prison is a great place to be. You always have a place to sleep, theres food cooked for all the time, no nasty chores to do like laundry, mow the lawn; etc. Hey they even have cable, and no wife telling you to turn the channel. No kids wanting to watch different shows from you, no kids wishing you would play with them, nice worrisome place to be. Don't have to go to work every day, and you get hang out with your buddies all the time, whats so bad about doing 2 years in jail? Well maybe the homosexual sex will get some down, but oh well, at least you don't have to call her in the morning.
Rafe's idea of a better parole system makes so much more sense than more prison's or jail time. Why can we (society) spend the money to punish people, but not spend the money to make them productive members of society? (What thats? Communisism? Helping others be better? No way, not on my tax dollar- make them do it on their own.) The short-sightness of some people constantly amazes me. A + B = C. Why treat the symtoms (crime) when curing the problem altogether would be much better and cheaper in the long run?

Colin

No, I think dipshit to describe you works just fine. (course, redneck war monger might potentially be a better fit. I'm mulling it over)

'If we spend more money now, helping create a more equalitarian society, we will spend less in the future on such things as more prisons and such.' what a perfect example of idealistic lefty blather. let's spend billions trying to achieve the impossible. hopefully if you actually believe this you're only 19.

"Why treat the symtoms (crime) when curing the problem altogether would be much better and cheaper in the long run?"

Follow the money as they say.

Elliot- you crack me up- excuse me while I laugh. And I suppose prisons are the answers? Have you ever known a so called criminal? People who have been charged and found guilty of any crime? I have and I know for a fact that prison did not phaze them. Now maybe if there had been money to help these people when they were younger and impressable it might have made a difference in their life out comes. It is not a personal failure when some one is sent to jail for anything less than warped sexual crimes, it is society's. What some people seem to forget is that we are all in this together. What I do, what you do, not only affects us personally, but other people we may or may not have met.
Prison does not do a damn thing. You can kill a person, get it reduced down to manslaughter and spend less than 5 years in jail. When you get out, are you going to be a better person? Will you have learned your lesson? No, because thats not what prison is about. So why send people there if its not going to make them better individuals when they are released? For vengence? Our justice system is supposed to be about JUSTICE, not vengence. The 5 measly years spent in prison does not bring back the person you killed, it only takes 5 years away from your life and your families lives. Longer sentences does not make better prisoners, just more jobs for guards and in the construction of more prisons.
Vengence in the answer of longer prison sentences is an emotional reaction. Now the question do we wish to ruled by emotions when deciding the fate of people? Or would we prefer to actually trust JUSTICE?
There are no easy answers to these questions, but one thing for sure, more prisons and longer sentences are not the answer.

i've been involved in the legal system for several years neets. laugh all you want but you're wrong. lots of platitudes and lefty blather but it doesn't work. as i said earlier, those who want to reform will and the scumbags won't. career criminals need a holding pen so my kids and yours aren't at risk.

That is so funny, yes apparently the prisons and the sentence structure we already have is not working- So the answer would seem to be "lets try a new thing- how about more prisons and longer prison sentences?" We are doing this already and it does not keep "us" safe from "them". What is the point (besides making more money) in trying to use the same idea that is not working, and reusing that same idea? If longer sentences and more prisons were the answer, wouldn't we already have solved the "criminal" problem? We already have those things in place, but lo and behold we still have crimes being committed. Makes me think that the concept of prisons and prison sentences just might not be working. We need a workable alternative, not more prisons or longer jail time.

are you daft neets? with the introduction of conditional sentences and liberal judges into the system, thanks to turdeau and chretien, sentences are shorter and parole is more prevalent. quit trying to complicate something that is so simple and straightforward. if the scumbag assholes are locked up they can't harm my children. is that so hard to understand? who gives a shite about skids who spend their lives engaged in anti-social behaviour besides you lefty idealists anyway? to hell with these bastards. lock 'em up!

Sieg Heil ! Elliot you right wing moron !
What prison are you a screw at Matsqui,Kent, Ferndale .
Eat shit and die you phuquing Pig !!!!

I am not sure if this was supposed to be a compliment or not [you lefty idealists ] perhaps you could clarify Elliot?

Oh,yea Elliot with an attitude like yours you are probabley a phuquing child molester .

you're not making your lefty colleagues look too good here hannibal. keep it up!

Truth hurts hunh ? You phuquing goof !

Dog the Bounty Hunter, Malcolm X, 5 guys the BBC did a documentary on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3974853.stm , Fleet Maull, Founder and director of both the Prison Dharma Network and the National Prison Hospice Association, etc.
Besides jail isn't just about reforming, its also about punishing. If we don't punish people for their crimes, we are saying its ok to committ them.

EXACTLY SIR. Now you get it! There's a federal prison with a 9 hole golf course. Let's scare these guys straight, bring them to their knees and make them so scared to go back to prison that they'd rather die than committ a crime. They took away from society, let's make them give back. How about diggin for oil off the coast?

PRECISELY! This is the problem with our justice system. If you kill someone, you should fry. Or atleast be thrown in jail and locked away for life.

Society creates itself. It is the sum of what we individuals bring to it. Besides, you think money is easy to come by? You must still be in college, you haven't lived. We should spend money on whatever we want to spend on: for some that means their families, for some it means their livelihood, and for you it might mean Che Gueverra T-shirts. Wither way, you earned it, and its yours. And we can protect it by making the bad (and women) stay behind bars.

I suggest you open a newspaper if you think we're already tough on prisoners. Canadian judges are the worst on the planet.

This Chen Ming dude KILLED A 10 YEAR OLD GIRL!!!! If she were in Iraq and a US soldier killed her, you would be screaming bloody murder. But it happens here, and you want to "spend money" because he wasn't loved and take him out for Dim Sum to make him feel better. He could get parole in ten years!!!!! She would've been 20 years old!

Karla Homolka???? Hello? What world do you live in? You must live in some backwoods area where there are no bad people.

the bad (and women) stay behind bars SHOULD READ the bad men (and women)...Freudian?

Tax Cutter it's time for your medication .
Think our jails are easy.Check out the Swedish,Danish or Norweigan models .
Live in suites so the wife and family can stay with the convict.
Unescorted trips to work so the family doesn't suffer the indignity of poverty .
Yea, our prisons are just like that .
The myth of club Fed is just that, a myth perpetrated by idiots like Elliot .
Yea, Ferndale and William Head have 8,hole golf courses built and maintained by the prisoners .
So what ?
You keep spouting off about isolated incidence that really have no weight to the current issue.
Karla Homolka and Min Chen.Both aberrations .
Crimes of notoriety as the parole board calls them .
If you want to apportion blame then Homolka's lawyer comes in for full measure as he hid the tapes from LEO's until he had the deal signed .
Min Chen will get life 25. And life 25,means life 25. You are on parole forever .
Your PO even thinks your phuquing up you go back inside for a couple more years .
Learn some facts before you go spouting off making yourself look stupid to those who know the facts .

How in the hell did Melcolm X or El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, do a documentary for the BBC .
That bastard has been dead since 65'
Way to go Cutter quoting stuff from a dead convict who was a total racist .

Late response to I am Clueless.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060505/conservative_poll_060505?s_name=&no_ads=

hannibal; you're out of control and you're making a damn fool of yourself. take your meds and get some sleep.

btw hannibal; does the editor know that you used to be sleepswithangels and deep forbidden lake?

All I am saying is that the current system is not working- the whole point of the above article. If the system was working why would this current government be in such a hurry to change it? But the answer to "fixing" this broken system, is not in reusing the same methods that are not currently working. Tougher jail sentences are not the answer. If this was so, states like Texas that have the death penatlty would not have crime, would they? Looking at crime as the beginning and end of the problem is extremely short-sighted. What conditions made the "crime" happen? According to your logic it is just bad people and theres no hope for them at all, might as well lock them up. As far as I can see, locking people up does not stop crime. Even if we ignore that criminal law was created to protect the capitalists interest's and not the the rest of us. It makes no sense to me to attempt to fix the problem of "crime" after the fact. Why not prevent it to begin with? But of course we couldn't do that - that smacks of socialism.
Instead of this effort placed on locking up the "bad" people, why not put more effort in attempting to fix the parole system or a combined effort of parole and community service. It does not matter how much longer a jail sentence is or how many prisons are built, it will not stop crime from happening.
The people who commit crimes do not view prison as a deterent. And it is not, even if you are locked up, away from your families, it is still not a punishment. It may punish your familiy- the loss of income of one member can really suck- and hey welfare isn't enough to live on- might as well get a side line of criminal activity and start the whole process all over again.
If we are hellbent on punishment, make "criminals" do community service or some community hours. How about the "criminals" can pick garbage as community hours, instead for limited pay that they get as prisoners? The answer of putting people away to "pay" for their crimes does not work. As is proven by the fact that the new government wants to change the sentencing guidelines, the prison system we have is not working. The answer of course is not to make more prisons, but to think of the problem of crime differently.If we want criminals to pay- make parole restrictions tougher, and community service manditory.
As for the personal attacks, can't anyone here who disagrees with some else find a way to counter attack without the need to resort to name calling? What does it matter if I am apparenly a 19 year old university student who lives in the backwoods? Would that make my life experiences less valuable than yours? Yes, I know people who have been in prison, but I also know people who have university degrees. And yes I know that serving a longer prison sentence would not have stopped them from committing the crimes that they were sentenced for. All it does is to serve as a reminder that they must be more careful next time around. There must be a better way to solve the problem of crime.

hannibal I will never go to any link posted here. I am hoping you can explain , in your own words, what you have to say.

'Even if we ignore that criminal law was created to protect the capitalists interest's and not the the rest of us.' what a crock of shite. what a first class moron.

Hannibal,
1) I would suggest you stop typing in hip-hop lyrics

2) If our justice system isn't soft, you wouldn' see conditional sentences given out to people who kill.

3) I hope the leftist people on this site look at your postings and realize what their way of life has bred

4) Good job picking out the softest systems in the world to point to. Doesn't matter. My tax dollars shouldn't go to golf courses for scumbags. Prisons should be places to serve hard time for the crimes you committed. YOU committed them and have no excuse but to suffer.

5) LIFE 25? WHat the hell is that 25 even doing there? Will Min Chen's victim get 25 minutes back? No, she was kidnapped and strangled. How about life with no chance of parole?

You will never stop crim from happening. But you can punish the individuals who CHOOSE to do it. No one held a gun to Clifford Olson's head.

speaking of olsen: notice he hasn't killed any children since he was put in prison. that piece of shit that killed little cecilia zhang might be eligible for parole after only ten years because he pled guilty to SECOND-DEGREE murder. how do you lefties think her parents will feel about that? homolka killed her little sister and two lovely 15 year-old girls and spent only twelve years in prison, if you can call it that. and some of these lefties think our justice system isn't soft on crime. what a bunch of clowns. thank god the tide has turned in this great country. god bless canada.

Hey does this mean I am a part of the gang- Gwest, Coyote and others now that they call me names? Do I get a badge or something? What is the point of trying to sway me to their views if they have to resort to name calling? Maybe my backwoods 19 year old naive self that is apparently full of shite, (well my eyes are brown...)should like (sorry had to do that if I am going to pretend that I am 19) ummmm go out into the real world some more and learn all about the way it works in Elliot's and TC's reality. Unfortunatly this reality is nowhere close to the reality I live in. Apparently in their reality, poor people are that way because they spend their money on booze and smokes (get it right its gambling and crack). Of course poor people are poor because they are that way. Not one of them can do a honest day's work. Some of the poorest people I know are extremely hard workers, but oh well, their still poor. But hey, we all couldn't have been born the kids of Ol' Gordo and his cronies. Someone has to do the actual work.
Hey wait a minute, that could have been me, white middle class parents- father made lots of money, could have sent me to private school and paid for my university, but guess what life happens. The parental units got divorced I was no longer a part of a white (well at least the father was white) middle class family, but rather the child of a single(native- shes status remember) woman, who had no immediate job, since she had spent the last decade having and raising children for my father. But hey, I don't mind, it has given me insight into how the rest of society live, not just those who have every thing handed to them, and think the rest of us just don't try hard enough.

blather blather blather....yawn.

Crime and Punishment
Three fourteen year old rob a dozen banks in the lower mainland over the last couple of weeks.
True story.
I guess they figured out that if you are going to rob banks it;s smart to do it while you face no consequences for your crime.
When I was raised in conservative Alberta in the sixties we would have faced a criminal justice system that pre-dated the Charter.
If you screwed up you would have been sent to REFORM SCHOOL. Nobody wanted to go there.
The young criminal had no rights. He was shipped off to Bowden to face years or education and rehabilitation.
Sadly, when the Charter came into play, you could now get away with murder.
Canada became way too liberal.
I know most of the writers on this site applaud this current lack of rules, I have many friends trying to change this ultra liberal tendency in our local society.

elliot
stop talking about your stupid kids... i doubt if anyone here really needs to hear that tired old "protect my children" cliche... its boring, kind of like your bland children are.

too many goddamn humans anyhow... the last thing we need is a bunch of anthropocentric little shits wandering around looking for ways to phuq over mother earth a little more.

Hey Neets, does that mean you're gonna take your anger out on an old lady and snatch her purse?

Thanks Rafe,
Once again an excellent article. It is capable of stretching a few minds here to be sure. You know what they say...a mind stretched is never the same...

Steve Earl has a song out about "retribution". It is awesome...!! I myself am not sure how far to carry the "release" of prisonsers, but, I would venture to guess that MOST people behind bars are capable, with support, of being a fully contributing member in our society. Really, anything short of "rehab" for these people is unethical and a waste of tax money. Keeping these people behind bars looks to me more like societal retribution at its fullest. Money comes and goes, but an unethical, ventictive mindset in society, carries on like a plague through to the future generations. It is a sad, somewhat "godlike", and spiritully comprimised attitude to pass on to our children... We as parents and as human beings are capable of so much more then this...

I think Rafe has exposed here, an issue of the heart. What is the REAL intention behind locking people up who could be helped??

Rock on Steve Earl...!!!

Peace

RTB

By the way...IAMCreepy, don't forget to take your "halucinogenics" before posting today...RTB

Idiots all.Escept for RTB and Inkioko .
Morons these people represent less than 1% of our society and population .
Don't talk to me about Homolka as that sentence was a total injustice she should have gotten life.
And idiots life 25, means you serve 25, before you are even eligible for parole . It is not a guarantee.It is not automatic that you are releasd you phuquing dummies .
There are a lot of prisones who are well past the 25,years who will die behind the walls so your sense of retribution should be well satisfied .
Haven't heard one of you clowns mention Robert'pig boy'Pickton.
Worst serial murderer in Canadian history .
He will never get out .
Also there is something called a judicial review that a persons sentence can be reviewed and a recommendation of further incarceration happens .Prisoners can be gated and many are .
Martin Luther King said " Take an eye for an eye and you soon go blind "
I know that will go right over your heads .
Quit talking about shit you have no clue about it makes you look,really,stpuid .

Oh,yea Elliot I am neither of those people but if they are the'I Hate Elliot Club' then yea, I am a card carrying member.Goof!

Well Duncan since your selected manner of debate is to make personal insults, you will fit in quite nicely here. It just reduces the quality of your comments and makes you look immature.

Here ,ya go Clueless. Read 'em and weep .
Harpo's numbers should be much,much higher than they are as he is the PM that can do no wrong .
A budget(full of crap) the softwood lumber deal(Gave away a billion and a half dollars)
Non existent child care reforms.Gutting the Kelowna accord .
These numbera are where they were during the election.
Only now he has alienated Ontario entirely with their 106,seats .
His suck holing to Qubec is pissing people off in BC as well .

Post-budget poll shows slip in support for Tories

CTV.ca News Staff

A new poll suggests Conservative support has slipped, despite a month that saw the government end the softwood lumber dispute and unveil a budget that cut the GST.

"I think that's the real surprise: this has been an activist government with a lot of initiatives and with a very, very popular, broad-based, focused budget -- and they failed to really move their numbers," Tim Woolstencroft of The Strategic Counsel told CTV.ca.

His firm conducted the poll for CTV and The Globe and Mail on May 3 and 4.

When asked which political party's candidate they would vote for tomorrow, 35 per cent of Canadians said a Conservative candidate -- down four per cent from a poll released in April.

For other party candidates (with +/- change since April in brackets):

* 31 per cent said Liberal (+2);
* 16 per cent said NDP (+2);
* 10 per cent said Bloc Quebecois (-1); and
* 9 per cent said Green Party (+2).

The Strategic Counsel interviewed 1,000 Canadians, just after the Tory government released its first budget on May 2. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Part of the support drop might be a suspicion about the government's motivations in crafting its May 2 budget -- delivered on the government's 100th day in office.

Sixty-four per cent of respondents said the government sought to win a majority in the next election rather than act in the interests of Canadians.

Most people feel the budget was "political manoeuvring, rather than long-term planning," Woolstencroft said.

Only 22 per cent said the budget showed the government was thinking about the long-term interests of Canadians.

But 56 per cent of people still thought the budget was good. Only 26 per cent said it was poor, with 19 per cent not answering the question.

A key budget measure for the Tories is providing a $1,200 payment to parents for each child under age six.

Respondents were asked if they preferred funding spaces in licenced daycare centres or to provide parents with a tax credit.

Fifty per cent supported funding daycare spaces versus 44 per cent for the alternative.

Regional support

The poll showed Conservative support in Quebec is at 30 per cent -- one percentage point up from the last poll, although with a sample size of 246 people, the margin of error for the province is 6.3 per cent.

However, the Bloc Quebecois still leads with 40 per cent support. The Liberals have 16 per cent support. The NDP and Green Party are in single digits.

In Ontario, where support for the Liberal party is at 42 per cent compared to 34 per cent for the Tories, Woolstencroft said the province has shown a general reluctance to embrace the new Conservative government.

"Clearly, Ontario remains a little wary of (Prime Minister Stephen Harper's) government, whereas Quebec is embracing it, wrapping Harper up in its arms," he said.

Canadians were also asked whether the Harper government was doing a good, average or poor job.

Nationally, 39 per cent rated the Harper government as good, 45 per cent as average and 12 per cent as poor.

In Quebec, however, 55 per cent rated the Harper government's performance as good, versus only 29 per cent in Ontario.

While a high proportion of Conservative MPs are from the West, the percentage of those saying the new government was doing a good job was only 41 per cent.

It's interesting that (excuse me while I use idiotic labels) the right will use tragedies that represent a fraction of crimes to justify stiffer sentences and tougher punishments for all and damn the cost. But when the left suggests that extending some benefits to all -- with its attendant costs, to ensure the minority who truly need them get them, there is a great hue and cry.

Perhaps it's not about the money, but more about control thru fear rather than liberty thru knowledge?

The world is not a perfect place, but it's not a cesspool of crime either. Remember, the media is in the entertainment business. Ratings count. If it bleeds it leads.

Watch a non-profit news hour sometime, (Newsworld, MacNeil-Lehrer, BBC) and see if they start the programme with the latest car crash/killing/meth lab bust, or if more substantive issues take priority.

Actually, that was Gandhi, idiot.

He'll be able to torture his victims families by applying for parole like Olson does.

Prove it? It seems to me like the Tories won the last election. The NDP...when was their last win?

thanks to hannibal/sleeps and inkioko for representing the left so wonderfully on this site. keep it up guys! you're making gordo and harpo's job easy. is it any wonder lefties will never again hold power in b.c.?

Tax Cutter 99

News flash: Victims of murderers are dead. It's the left you're always accusing of the culture of victimization, remember. Or didn't you get that press release from Rush?

It doesn't matter asswipe Harpo is hanging on by the skin of his teeth and if we had an election this summer they would be back in opposition so fast it would make your head spin .
His grip on power is tenuous at best .
He keeps acting like he has a majority and daring the Senate to shut him down they will.Guaranteed.
Moron !!

is that why they're so far ahead in the polls? who's going to beat them, a used-car salesman with a bad moustache or an unknown intellectual who spent most of his life in the excited states of america? dream on sleeps.

Hannibal
You're funny. Yesterday two more polls were released. Decima has CPC at 41% and LIB at 25%.
Ontario 40% CPC 33% LIB.
You must know something different than the managers of the opposition parties know. I mean if they thought they had any chance of winning an election, then all they would need to do is defeat the budget tonight and force an election. This won't happen, you know that. They are afraid of a CPC majority .
You must be trying to pull my leg or you are delusional. Are you reading tea leaves or something ? or maybe smoking them.

The Crown is seeking to have Chen serve between 17 and 20 years of his sentence before he is eligible for parole while the defence is asking Chen be granted parole no later than 12 years into his term...

Why are we not extraditing him to China? He should serve there.

Get a grip clueless. They can't bring the morons down as that idiot Duceppe is propping them up .
Even leaderless the Grits have more support in Ontario.
Don't know where you get your info but its bullshit !

After his sentence is completed in Canada MORON he will have to face Chinese justice .
This guy will get buried so deep they'll have to pump him sunshine .

Oh,yea Clueless Decima was also the polling firm that aid the all moron party(Tories) were well on their way to a majority in the last election .
Didn't quite work out that way now did it ?

We should send him to China where they'd pull out his fingernails like George Clooney in Syriana.

Hannibal, of course you are right, there is such a groundswell of rejection against the CPC that I am surprised there isn't a revolution on the horizon. But you are not a rational person of course. But keep it up, you are a tremendous spokesperson for your side as well as being a complete idiot

Live with the faccts idiot the neo-morons only poll 35% on Ontario to the Liberals 41.
Get over it ya phuquing clown .
You ain't seen nothing yet . I see another 93' on the horizon .

hannibal; you got the figures backwards, actually it's 41% CPC in any poll you read. Are you reading through mirror, is that how you get everything backwards ?
Let me say this clearly, the CPC is leading the LIB in Ontario. Your bravado is unfounded and you are obviously a nut case.
I don't care if you respond to this because I am never again going to respond to any of your comments. You are the dumbest person I have ever encountered anywhere, anytime, any place.
You must be twelve years old.

For every 10,prisoners it will cost tax payers one million dollars. That is without infrastructure and the average max pen costs in the neighborhood of seventy five million .
As we have one tenth the population of the US that will amount to ninety new inmates a week or three hundred and sixty a month at a cost of $86,000 per year.
And you want to pay for this how ?
Raising taxes and scrapping a lot of programs .
Okay idiots .
Will the crime rate decrease.No.
Will society exact a pound of flesh.No.
Yea, your guy is a real phuquig genius.Not.

And then there is this:

VANCOUVER - The Canada-U.S softwood lumber compromise won't become a deal unless three Canadian companies with lumber litigation still before U.S. courts agree to drop their cases, according to a confidential report highly critical of the April 27 framework agreement.

The report, commissioned by the Free Trade Lumber Council and two Ontario forest industry associations, calls the framework agreement "a political bargain forsaking entirely the rule of law enshrined in the free trade agreement.

"Anyone able to remember why Canada entered the free trade agreement ought to be able to recognize the deal here for what it is, and ought to rally behind any industry that says its government has betrayed it," trade lawyer Elliot Feldman says in his 31-page report, stamped "privileged and confidential."

"I am surprised there isn't a revolution on the horizon."

There is. These things take time. Be patient. The neo-cons might measure progress by the quarter, but real change is usually imperceptible to those inside the moment.

You might consider what Canada was like one hundred years ago compared to today... and whether the shift has been "right" or "left"

Beat it Cluless ! You are just another moron.

Here 'ya go you phuquing goof Clueless Moron .

In Ontario, where support for the Liberal party is at 42 per cent compared to 34 per cent for the Tories, Woolstencroft said the province has shown a general reluctance to embrace the new Conservative government.

Hannibal, people like you should be Guinea Pigs for aids vaccines

Yea, first we kill all the politicians strarting with the Great Dictator."Just call me Dick"

the fact that the editor let's this obscene fool carry on here does not bode well for the integrity of the tyee.

Yea, and you should get aids ya' prick .

Quit crying Elliot .

"the fact that the editor let's this obscene fool carry on here does not bode well for the integrity of the tyee."

Don't drag Woody into this.

I'm all done anyway .
Nothing more to say to these mental defectives .
All of it is so far over their heads it is ridiculous .

now that's a laugh! thanks sleeps.

There you go again Stumphole Turd, just can't keep you five hole shut can you, just got to keep stiring the pot don't you,go get a real job will ya, numb skull. Oh right I shouldn't say that or you may accuse me of being homo- skulldry or something.Your a typical left wing, wing nut, Stumphole Turd.

Woody leave him alone, his magazine doesn't make any money and he's upset because the Tories, BC Libs, are up in the polls, and the Olympics are comin, and the NPA is in...and...oh yeah...the NDP is down in both Ottawa and BC in the polls. Now all h has left is the eagle ridge bluffs and we're gonna blow that bastard to smitherines and pave a highway down the middle!

PS: We're at war too! And the National Daycare Program is Kaput!

He lets you post here, doesn't he?

If you could ever make consistent sense, I'd be inclined to agree. The fact that your a dipshit really isn't up to debate from where I'm standing. Your a military man who naturally supports more police, more guns, more military, more war, well just about anything that supports your military world. Not much to debate here, either.

The U.S. is by far the world’s most powerful nation, with an arsenal and military budget roughly equal to that of the rest of the world combined. In comparative and absolute terms U.S. power vastly exceeds that of World War II Germany. It is the U.S. that has invaded a succession of countries in recent decades, in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia -- leaving six million killed and wounded in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos alone.

You, Colin, are a supporter of this current Harper government with a leader who in my view, after being a 20 year western separatist (to annex later to the states) schooled by the NCC, a pro U.S. integration organization that wants to get rid of and fight against every essential service we have in Canada to divide and conquer this nation. You use Liberal corruption as an excuse to support theives of another feather, not to mention war mongers and traitors to this country.

If it looks like sh**, smells like... lets just say I don't have to taste it because it looks like a fudgsicle. Crude as it may be, there's no debate here at all.

saskatchewan pig farmer; i've been called many things, but obscene has never been one of them. no excuse for that.

dude, I think he meant the 'fool' part.

you should know better than to call me that g. shall i unload on you?

I just didn't want you to think anybody'd call you obscene, dude...around here I'm sure you've heard the other label lots of times.

Did you see petey in Afghanistan? where the hell do he and pee wee get their fashion tips?

y'know elliot, you're not a bad guy. What I can't understand is why you hang around here echoing the clueless garbage spouted by posters like TC99, neocon, IAMC and the like. You must know they're a bunch of phonies who haven't got a clue about what real life is actually like for somebody who's had to dig a puck out of the corner in heavy traffic. You ought to reconsider where you stand. Seriously. There is no virtue in selfishness and we're all gonna end up dead one day.

Elliot, don't worry about G West, he thinks he owns this site, but he doesn't yet realize he(she) (it) is obsolete, and those old fashioned ideas are being swept away by the overwhelming success of modern conservatism in Canada, things couldn't be much better, but G West would be out of business if this truth got out.

Duncan I see why you use insults, all that writing and absolutely no point to make.

why assume right-wingers are selfish g? i can tell you unequivically that i'm not. most want exactly the same things for society that you do, but have a different view on how to get there. maybe we get nasty sometimes b/c we get tired of the baseless insulting cliches.

Elliot: Agreed. As with most progressives, when their argument doesn't hold water they revert to hurling insults.

G West: Just to allay any concerns you might have had; the fellow arrested from High Level for the murder of a sex trade worker wasn't me. Hell, I didn't even know we had any working here. I have to get out more. Also, in another thread, you admonished me for beating myself up for past failures. Nothing could be further from the truth. Like most of a conservative bent, I try to recognize my human flaws and work to become a better person. All part of growing and usually includes a move from the left of the political spectrum to the right. That part is called growing up!

Elliot
Why did you think I'd reach out to you? You obviously don't come from the same place those other guys do. My point is that I watch what people post and I try to analyze what they're saying and thinking. I can tell you're not a knee jerk right-winger. If you're really not selfish, and I accept you think you're not, then you're not a right winger at all in my opinion.

You may be a conservative - in the traditional sense of the word - which is not really a problem for me.

I think you have a problem with Glen Clark, teachers and some unions and you think there's a lot of hypocrisy going on there - you might be surprised to know I have some problems with those things too. In fact I'm really not very political at all - but I do have a thing about trying to reason things out logically and I have what I'd like to think is a predisposition for the truth.

I can't believe you come from the same place IAMC does. Sometimes I think you just do it for sport!
‘Nuff said, it's up to you.

oilbertan
I'm sure you noticed I didn't include you in the list. When I find my arguments don't hold water I'll drop them. As for throwing insults I think you need to be a little more observant - there are a great many people around here of a progressive bent that never do that; and the few that do usually are responding to similar provocation.
I believe what I do for what I think are very valid and evidence based reasons and I work damn hard at proving that. You've read enough of my stuff to know that is not b s. As for that maturity trope, I've never known anyone to trot it out who actually could make a real case without it, it's nothing but a fall-back red herring.

Oilbertan
Hey, you brought it up! I think these threads are almost never well served by bringing personal details into the mix. We should stick to ideas and illustrations from verifiable sources. You must know I have nothing against small business, I just can't understand the kinds of divisions and walls we put up between us when in effect we're all looking for the same thing and we all end up dead in the end. I just know that that the idea of one class hanging on to its privilege and money isn't working and I only have to look south to see it - by the way, Oilbertan, you must know I'd never think badly of you in that sense - I assume you're joking.
My object is to bring people of good will together to work for goals that apply to as many human beings as possible. To me, that's what being a mensch is all about.

Rafe says, Re Woody,

Good idea Rafe, lets get the parole system toughen up, as yet I haven’t read a viable suggestion in regards to doing just that.

You mention in your post to me about your concerns regarding sentences for crooks I would say your wrong on this one as they (govt.) mention minimal sentences only in regards to the use of guns while in the commission of a crime and minimal sentences for some other serious crimes.Over all I don’t feel there will be much change in the sentencing laws.

What tickles me is all the negativism in regards to the present government ,who as were all aware have only been in power a few months, thank the Liberals for the lax Parole regulations, faint hope clause, conditional sentences, gun regulations that do squat to control criminal activity.
One last comment, it was the Liberals who were in power and sent our soldiers to AFGHANISTAN, not the Conservatives as so many lefties keep bleating about, therefore you lefty wing nuts give the credit where its due, the Liberals.

<<<>>>
See what I mean Elliot! You want to be associated with that?

Woody, Woody, Woody:

Keep it up big fella, keep flinging the sh*t. It looks good on you.

I'll just re-iterate. If you think the right-wing is ascendant I suggest you take a look at Canada one hundred years ago and then take a gander at today. Then tell me all about how you're on the rise. You win the occasional battle and think it's the war. But the trend over the long-term isn't going your way. Not here, not globally. No wonder there's always a little bit of panic in your screeds.

TC99:

Momentum magazine isn't my baby. Although I was there for the birth. You might find it interesting that the mag doesn't need grants to survive (donations welcomed however!) pays its writers (a pittance), and the advertising base is on the grow. One of those entrepeneurial success stories that you'd be raving about if it were called Global Hegemony Weekly. Funny what a few people working hard, making sacrifices, and staying true to their vision can achieve. From little seeds grow mighty oaks. Just ask Dan McLeod and Jan Wenner what's possible. Raise your eyes above the bottom line of the next quarter and take the long view and things have a disconcerting habit of not being exactly as you mis-believe.

Stumpy--Stumpy you have never had it so good,but then some people just have to bitch, even when their eating ice-cream.
Now I, unlike you who has a silver spoon sticking out his ass, has to go to work for a few hours.
(panic in your sreeds) give me a break.

you're quite perceptive g. except that i don't have a problem with teachers or unions per se, mostly the bitch is with the bctf and their blatant left-wing politicking. it's screwing up the education system big-time. btw; what's on tonight?

Stump, conrgrats on the success of that magazine. I think that's a wonderful story. I love the smell of free enterprise in the morning.

Now, as for the world going more left or right, there was an article in the Atlantic this month, where Russell Shorto writes "the conservative tide has continued to swell."

According to another article by Phil Longman (of the left leaning New America Foundation), all around the world, fertility is falling, but it's falling least among Mormons, Islamic Fundamentalists, Christian Fundamentalists, people who adhere to a more traditional and socially conservative way of life. The three big Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all relentlessly pro-natal. They counsel to go forth and multiply. So it's not entirely surprising that people who take their scripture literally act on it.

He points out that the birth rates in Utah and Vermont, for example, vary by 40%. Dissecting the 2004 Unites States presidential race, Longman writes: "In states where Bush won a popular majority in 2000, the average woman bears 2.11 children in her lifetime -- which is enough to replace the population. In states where Gore won a majority of votes in 2000, the average woman bears 1.89 children, which is not enough to avoid population decline. Indeed, if the Gore states seceded from the Bush states and formed a new nation, it would have the same fertility rate, and the same rapidly aging population, as France -- that bastion of "old Europe." In the red states that voted for George W. Bush, the fertility rate is 12 per cent higher than in the blue states that supported John Kerry.

By the sheer weight of numbers, the result is a more socially conservative society.
Longman does not believe that these children will rebel against their parents, as the '60s generation did.

according to polling data assembled by demographers Ronny Lesthaeghe and Johan Surkyn, you are less likely to be married and have kids—or ever to get married and have kids—than those who say they have no objection to the military. Or again, do you find soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia acceptable? Do you seldom, if ever, attend church? For whatever reason, people answering affirmatively to such questions are far more likely to live alone, or in childless, cohabitating unions, than those who answer negatively. the 1950s about 10 per cent of women were childless. That number is now 20 per cent. As well, those who support gay marriage, euthanasia and legalized abortion tend to have one child. As well, birthrates in Quebec and Ireland have both dropped dramatically as residents have abandoned their strong Catholic faiths.

elliot
Ottawa/Buffalo - 4pm
Colorado/Anahiem - 7pm

Just heard that Floyd Patterson died. Remember him?

TC99
Birth rates in Quebec are actually up, TC, along with Alberta - the only provinces where that's true - as someone posted on another thread here yesterday - check it out!

While you're at it, you might want to look at Niall Ferguson's column in Monday's LA Times too. If you can't find it, let me know, I'll post it for you.

Keep going Woody, you're very entertaining when you're panicking.

Take the long view TC99. Are we more or less "liberal" than one hundred years ago?

Quebec's birth rate has increased one year after 40 years of decline. I think this had to do with the fact that there was a hockey lockout last season...Quebecois had more leisure time...

But don't ignore the other Liberal places in the world where the babies are rare.

I'm not talking about the past. My post above refers to the future.

It seems like a yes or no question. You don't have to answer it obviously, but we both know the right answer.

gwest: loved the guy. all style and skill. wonderful boxer though undersized for the big guys.

Stump...If it was a yes or no question, you wouldn't have to put the term in question in quotes.

TC99:

Think about this. We're at 6 billion and counting. Too many people already. Your god-fearing people can procreate like crazy, but just like a cancer that metastasizes, they'll kill the host. Win the battle, lose the war... again.

If it was a yes or no question (and a simple one at that) I'd think you'd have the intelligence to answer it truthfully. Don't disappoint me.

Based on what? With our replacement rates we'll have way less than this in the future.

TC99 answer stumprot will you or none of us will get any sleep tonight.
remember tc99 DON'T disapoint him-her-it.

Glad to know I keep you up at night Woodrow. Gotch worried yeah?

Stump, before you were cut down to size (when you were still a full blown tree)
Im curious as to what species you were,for sure you weren't Popular thats very apparent, you sound and appear fishy to me, which leads me to believe, there is only specie with these attributes Pussy willow.

So there is this joke:

A stump and a woody were talking in the bar, about who was the better wood……..

Good one Colin ,that gave me good chuckle, by the way where is the stump? I hope the poor dear,( gender neutral) is not lost and wondering around aimlessly out in cyber space,all by himself.

Majority Of Canadians Not On Side With Conservative Crime Platform

A new poll commissioned by the 340,000-member National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) indicates that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is out of sync with the views of a strong majority of Canadians on the best approach to lowering the country's crime rate.

By a wide margin, Canadians say the best way to reduce crime is to attack its root causes through better education, social programs and job training. A total of 62% of respondents say focusing on the social and economic problems that breed crime is a better approach than building more prisons and hiring more police and judges (23%). In Quebec, 68% of respondents agree this is the best approach to lowering the crime rate (vs. 17%).

The NUPGE-sponsored national poll comes as MPs prepare to debate new legislative measures introduced by the Harper Conservatives to impose mandatory minimum jail sentences for certain crimes and to eliminate conditional sentences for a long list of crimes.

The government has acknowledged that more prisons will be required as the number of inmates rise in response to the new anti-crime program. The government has also committed $161 million in new spending to hire 1,000 new RCMP officers and federal prosecutors.

"Contrary to the government's approach, more prisons, police and prosecutors are not the solutions most Canadians prefer," says James Clancy, NUPGE national president. "The majority of Canadians simply don't share the Harper government's lock-em-up mentality."

"The Conservative plan would be more in tune with Canadians' views if it focused more on crime prevention coupled with more investment in staffing levels, training, and programs in provincial jails and communities," says Clancy.

All 3, opposition parties have vowed to scarp this bit of Nazi legislation .

hannibal, problem with polls is, they can and are skewed by its supporter or providers.

woody
The problem with polls is that two days ago creatures from the right were posting them as evidence that conservative fortunes were rising and chortling with evident glee. Perhaps I'll keep a copy of your post this morning and post it in next time that happens.
Problem with conservatives and neo conmen is they aren't much good at making their point without resorting to anger and verbal violence.

Oh,I am fully aware of the pit falls of polling and actually belieiving in them .
Depending on how the question is framed,who is polled , and who is doing the asking all factor into it .
At best a poll provides a snaphot of how the population is thinking at any given moment .
Who is called is a big factor.
If you call 1,000 neo-con supporters your results will be vastly different if you call the same amount of Libs,NDP .I know, no kidding,eh .
But like I said as a snapshot they are fascinating.
Last polls before the election had Harpo comfortable in majority territory and it didn't quite work out that way .

hannibal-John Diefenbaker said it right, all polls are good for are for dogs to piss on

G West- keep a copy, and would you like me to autograph it?

Problem with left wing nuts is just that, their wing nuts,and don't own mirrors.

Couldn't have asked for better evidence of my theory than your own good self. No autograph necessary - your reputation is quite enough!

i thought hannibal/sleeps was going away? too bad. just when the editor was starting to relax too.

Elsinore:

The connection is rooted in that old bromide: "Do as I say, not as I do". If Dicky C. can "knock over" the US govt. for a few millions, the only reason some guy can't snatch a purse is....better lawyers?

kispiox:

Are you talking about Iraq here? Or anyone who happens to have the bigger stick?

Just finished reading a few quotes from a study, the average career criminal commits an average of 187 crimes a year. 80-90% of violent crimes were committed by people with a criminal record. Where a couple of items I picked out of it.

So there is a price being paid by society by giving early parole to someone that is not ready for it.

I am not in favouring of total denial of the faint hope clause or even parole, as it gives something for the prisoner to obtain and a reason to modify their behaviour while in prison. However it must have limits on it and the person should have to wait a lengthy period before applying and satisfy a series of internal reviews prior to applying. This would help reduce stress and heavy expenses on victims and their families having to contest parole and early release of people they feel are still a threat.

Celilli Zhangs killer has to wait 15 years for Parole, there is no parole for Celilli,she's dead forever, there is no parole or faint hope clause for her parents either,faint hope clause, bull sh!t.

Woddy, PLUS this is a Chinese dude we let into our country to kill a Canadian girl! Let's send him to China now and let the commis sort him out!

Woody
I was initially opposed to such measures myself. However after speaking to a few correctional Officers with long experience, they feel that a majority of the prisoners need something to work for or towards. Also it give leverage over the prisoners to ensure good behaviour while incarcerated. Once they are in jail there is only a limited amount you can do to them if they start harming other inmates or guards.

Petty thieves and low level criminals are one thing , killers and rapist are a separate kettle of fish speaking of Fish look what happened in Vernon to the retired old age pensioner, the old guy is dead to today due to a defunct Parole and sympathetic sentencing system, in the states they have a super max.where lifers are looked up in a cell 23 hrs per day with 1 hr of exercise, their cell has a 6 inch by 6 inch window that’s it, they are there, until they die.

We also have a SHU(Special Handling Unit) that does the same thing.
Twenty three hour lock down.One hour for excercise .
No communication .

From today's New York Times
May 18, 2006
Tate Is Sentenced to 30 Years, and Faces Life
By TERRY AGUAYO and MARIA NEWMAN

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 18 — Lionel Tate, on probation for murdering a younger playmate in 1999 when he was 12 years old, was sentenced today to 30 years in prison for violating the terms of his probation. But Mr. Tate, whose original life sentence in the killing set off a nationwide debate over sentencing of youthful offenders, still faces the possibility of life in prison for the act that constituted the probation violation, robbing a pizza deliveryman at gunpoint in 2004.

Mr. Tate, now 19, pleaded guilty to armed robbery while on probation, charges that could have led to 10 to 30 years in prison. Later, however, he changed his mind and asked the judge, Joel T. Lazarus of Broward County Circuit Court, to withdraw that plea.

Today, the judge accepted the plea withdrawal for the armed robbery charge and set that case for trial on Sept. 18, but he refused to let Mr. Tate withdraw his plea for the charge of violating his probation. He scolded Mr. Tate for using up his second chance.

"In plain English, Lionel Tate, you've run out of chances. You do not get any more," Judge Lazarus told Mr. Tate. "The choices were there for you and you chose wrong. You must bear full responsibility for all that has transpired."

Mr. Tate, 18, received a life sentence in 2001 for stomping a younger playmate to death in 1999, when he was 12. An appeals court reversed his conviction in 2003, after the panel found it wasn't clear whether Tate understood the charges.

Under a new agreement with prosecutors, Mr. Tate pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years' probation and a year under house arrest.

That agreement heartened critics of Florida's stiff juvenile-offender laws, who said locking up a child for life was itself a crime.

Mr. Tate had been free for a little over a year when he was arrested in May 2004 and charged with the armed robbery and probation violation.

Terry Aguayo reported from Fort Lauderdale for this article and Maria Newman from New York.