tough on crime

By ROB TRIPP, THE WHIG-STANDARD

 

The federal Tories have politicized a prison space crisis in a bid to make emergency spending look like economic development, charges a Liberal MP.

 

Conservative MPs and ministers have begun criss-crossing the country, making campaign-style announcements at each one of 35 federal penitentiaries where new cells will be built to accommodate an exploding inmate population.

 

"The Conservatives don't miss an opportunity to try to turn anything into pork barrelling, and so what they're doing of course is to masquerade this outrageous and outlandish prison spending as somehow being a stimulus to the economy," Ajax-Pickering MP Mark Holland told the Whig-Standard Wednesday.

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LTE The Star: Alex Long

 

The Harper Conservatives are at it again with their costly conduct-no-research policy making. Rob Nicholson and Stephen Harper are spearheading a campaign to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for a litany of drug crimes.

 

After their first two attempts failed (Bill C-26 and Bill C-15), the Conservatives are hoping the newly stacked Senate will pass this bill unamended. The bill introduces mandatory minimum drug penalties for offenses like growing six marijuana plants or making a pot brownie and sharing it with friends. This comes at a time when recent polls suggest more than half of Canadians want marijuana legalized.

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By Sherri Zickefoose, Calgary Herald

 

A $50-million expansion to two federal prisons in southern Alberta will add nearly 300 inmate beds in time for tougher sentencing laws designed for criminals to serve more time before being paroled.

 

Bowden and Drumheller institutions will each increase capacity by constructing 96 medium security beds, and both will add 50 minimum security spots, the federal government announced Tuesday.

 

The funding comes months after the new Truth in Sentencing Act came into effect in February, ending the practice of judges handing offenders credit, on a two-for-one basis, to compensate for time spent in pre-sentence remand.

 

It is anticipated that the new spaces will be completed in 2012-13.

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CBC News

 

Two federal prisons in southern Alberta will receive dozens of new beds as part of a $50-million expansion plan.

 

The Drumheller and Bowden Institutions will each receive an additional 96 medium-security beds while another 50 beds will be added to each prison's minimum-security areas.

 

Crowfoot MP Kevin Sorenson made the announcement Tuesday in Drumheller on behalf of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

 

"The expansion of Drumheller and Bowden Institutions is the next step in helping ensure that criminals serve sentences that better reflect the severity of their crimes," Sorenson said in a news release.

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By Christina Toth, The Times

 

Mission Institution will be the first federal prison in the Pacific Region to see expansion to take in an expected increase in inmates, following a change in federal law regarding time served prior to conviction.

 

On Monday morning, Okanagan-Coquihalla MP Stockwell Day made the official announcement at the federal prison, outlining the new $15-million, 96-bed unit to be built on the south side of the medium-security institution's perimeter. Day, the former Minister of Public Safety, was filling on behalf of the current minister, Vic Toews.

 

The increase is due to the federal Truth in Sentencing Act passed in February, which ends the two-for-one credit for time served by inmates while they are in remand and on trial in provincial custody.

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By: Eugene Lang, The Star

 

Progressive-minded Canadians are bewildered.

 

As the fall sitting of Parliament approaches, opinion surveys show the Harper Conservatives retain a comfortable lead over all parties and in most regions of the country, save Quebec. A Leger poll released last weekend gives the Conservative’s 37 per cent support, suggesting they are again edging close to majority government numbers.

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By Antonia Zerbisias, The Star

 

It's hard to picture Claire Jones in bed with organized crime.

 

The curvy sex worker, who has been plying her prodigious assets for seven years now, could one day face five years in jail if she works with other “girls'' at her luxury downtown condo.

 

And she does, at least sometimes.

 

New regulations announced earlier this month by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, regulations aimed at strengthening “the ability of law enforcement to fight organized crime,'' put her at risk.

 

Enacted in the dead of summer without Parliamentary debate, the regulations give government the powers to wiretap, deny bail, and move in on people without the usual safeguards such as warrants. Read more »

By Michael McKiernan, Law Times

 

Lawyers took federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson to task for his party’s tough-on-crime agenda during a question-and-answer session at the Canadian Bar Association’s annual conference in Niagara Falls, Ont., last week.

 

But a defiant Nicholson held firm throughout while insisting that harsher sentences and changes to the Criminal Code are necessary to maintain public confidence in the justice system.

 

Nicholson spearheaded the Truth in Sentencing Act, which ended two-for-one credit for pretrial detention. The government has also eliminated conditional sentences for crimes involving serious personal injuries and has vowed to continue the push to toughen up the Criminal Code in other areas. Read more »

By: Glenn Kauth, Law Times

 

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said lots of words but offered little substance during his question-and-answer session with lawyers at the Canadian Bar Association conference in his hometown of Niagara Falls, Ont., last week.

 

In typical fashion for a local MP, Nicholson praised the CBA’s choice of the tourist mecca for the annual event.

At the same time, we heard lots of generalities about what the government plans to do to address crime in Canada.

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CBC News

 

P.E.I.'s top provincial court judge is speaking out against allegations by Charlottetown's mayor that the justice system is to blame for some of the city's property crime.

 

Mayor Clifford Lee recently suggested the courts were partly to blame because they were releasing too many people immediately after they were charged.

 

Judge John Douglas told CBC News Wednesday that locking up everyone before they're convicted isn't the answer.

 

"The presumption of innocence is not a protection for the guilty. It's there to protect you and I," said Douglas.

 

"Any attempt to reduce that presumption or limit its effect should be resisted."

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