News | Senator Mitchell speaks on the Conservative Crime Bill C-10

Hon. Grant Mitchell: Honourable senators, I would like to say that the government's Bill C-10 has been put into stark relief and contrast by the comments by Senator Dyck, who has pointed out a much more compassionate, effective, enlightened way of structuring a criminal justice system for certain groups in our society and demonstrated just how unfair the structure of Bill C-10 would be to some of those certain groups in our society.

My comments will focus on the other side of that stark contrast just to underline, and it has been said before here a number of times, but to underline how poorly structured this bill is, how wrong-headed it is, how damaging it will be both to victims who seem to be — in fact, are, I am sure — the government's concern and to victims who will be created in turn as an unintended consequence, unfortunate as it will be, by this government's Bill C-10.

One of the most key, although not the key, elements of this is the value for money, the cost benefit of this approach to a crime agenda. It is difficult to assess exactly what the costs will be. It may be equally difficult to assess what the government thinks exactly any positive results will be because in both cases we have not received any kind of structured cost-benefit analysis at all. In fact, all the evidence that they would allude to, however vaguely, is contradicted by study after study after study, the science of crime agenda, which demonstrates that what they are doing is going down exactly the wrong track.

There have been numbers. They range from $500 million extra cost annually for the bill that has been passed within the last year or so, the one that says you cannot give credit for time spent in remand centres before sentencing, and that has increased the prison population to the tune of about $500 million a year. The upper end seems to be about $19 billion in a study presented by Quebec. Somewhere in between, there are a lot of big numbers. It is hard to get a hold of it. I thought I would take a number that is perhaps a little more manageable, that people can get their head around, and put into perspective what exactly that portion of this crime agenda would do.

I said let us take $100 million and see what that would do by way of increased incarceration, if you believe for a moment that incarceration is actually the panacea for crime prevention and crime reduction that the government says it is.

Imagine this: $100 million dollars will build 416 new cells, just 416 new cells, and put 416 people into those cells for one year. So $100 million takes 416 individuals off the streets for one year. Who would those 416 individuals be? They might be 416 18-year-olds who had six marijuana plants and who had no business having to go to prison. There is no justifiable reason to put those 416 young people in prison because they had six marijuana plants. It will not deter them, and it will not enhance their likelihood of offending less. That is to say, it will not reduce their likelihood of offending. In fact, it will actually increase it. That is 416.

Let us say that this bill in its application nets 4,000 such new inmates. That would mean that over 10 years, the bill would cost about $6 billion. That is just 4,000 inmates. Take my province of Alberta, about one tenth. That would be 400 newly incarcerated people over 10 years for about $600 million — 400 people out of 3.4 million people, 400 people who probably do not even have to be in jail, who did not really do anything particularly criminal, who were not going to offend anyone else, and there was no victim; they were victimless crimes. That will somehow make the people of Alberta safer? Four hundred people out of 3.4 million people put in jail when they do not have to be there — that somehow will make Albertans safer? Four thousand people over 10 years out of 34 million people, and that is somehow going to make us safer? It defies the imagination.

If you went on, let us say it netted 10,000 new people. Let us say they could measure their success by putting 10,000 new people in jail who probably do not have to be there. That would cost $12 billion. Ten thousand people out of 34 million people. It will have a negligible effect on any quality or standard of safety in our society, particularly because the numbers are relatively small, but particularly in addition because they probably do not need to be there, and it will literally cost a fortune.

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What do we get for that? In summary, we will not get less crime; we will actually get more crime. All the studies underline time and time again that, if you put people in jail who do not need to be there, they will become better criminals. Recidivism will rise and we will have more crime. The studies are so clear and the science is so clear that it is very difficult to know how a government can stand without shame and argue that somehow this will be to the benefit of a society.

When confronted with that science, which the government cannot resist and they cannot contradict, they resort to the argument that they are doing this for victims. It was yelled out by one of the senators yesterday, "Who will speak for the victims?" The fact of the matter is that all of us should and do speak for victims, but this bill does not particularly speak for victims.

This is not a bill about psychological services for victims. It is not a bill about compensation for victims. It is a kind of bill about somehow helping victims if we are punitive to the people who victimize them. It might make some victims feel better, but really and truly it will create far more victims. Bill C-10 will not reduce the number of victims because it will not reduce crime. Therefore the bill will create far more victims. If the purpose of the bill is to fix victims, it is simply not going to do that and it will be very expensive in the process.

Honourable senators, there are far better ways to help victims. There is, of course, prevention of crime. You do not have to read very far or analyze very deeply to know that prevention is absolutely possible. Many of my colleagues have talked time and time again about that in this debate. There is certainly much literature on the subject of prevention and there is much evidence.

I want to mention a program that has started in Edmonton. It is an organization called YOUCAN and it is designed to help young people at risk. A report was published about a young woman who has been literally saved by this program. She began drinking at 10 years of age. By the time she was 12 or 13, she said that she loved drinking. It was all she wanted to do and she hated the thought of being sober. That young woman dropped out of school. She became addicted to alcohol, abused other substances and left home. Imagine what her chances were in life and what the odds were that she would end up in prison at $120,000 to $200,000 a year. The cost to keep a woman in prison can range to as much as $200,000 a year. Imagine what that would have cost.

The YOUCAN program, which deals with children and costs $10,000 per individual child, has worked remarkably well with her. This is a program that teaches participants interview skills, resumé writing and conflict resolution through peacemaking circles. It gives them life skills with workshops about shopping on a budget, healthy eating habits, computer training and access to online facilities. The program gives them access to professional psychological and sociological services.

At 17, this young girl has now re-enrolled in school and she is sober. YOUCAN has provided programs to help get her off a drug and alcohol addiction cycle. This is a young woman who has a chance in the future and is very less likely to end up in a prison at $200,000 a year. The YOUCAN program cost us $10,000. The proof is in the pudding.

Interestingly, the cost of incarcerating a male in Canada is about $120,000, but the cost of incarcerating a female can range from $120,000 up to $200,000. The female institutions are smaller and therefore there are not the same economies of scale. The cost for one year is $120,000. In Canada, it costs $170,000 to educate a child for 17 years. The juxtaposition shows that incarcerating someone who could have been saved for $10,000 will instead cost $120,000 per year. Educating that same person for 17 years, from kindergarten through to a first-level degree or diploma, is $177,000. There is no cost benefit to incarcerating people in the way that this bill contemplates.

Honourable senators, there is all kinds of science that begins to suggest there is a solution that will work, other than the "solutions" this government has chosen. You would think that if the government truly wanted to solve the problem, they would think to pick out programs like YOUCAN, preventive programs and other programs, some of which are applied within institutions, and do some fundamental analysis.

We have heard a great deal in the debate about the U.S. and about how Texas has pointed out to Canada how we are going down the wrong trail. I have not yet seen this in the debate, but I will mention the work done in the State of Washington.

The State of Washington decided about 10 years ago that this form of incarcerating people and being hard on crime was not productive and did not work. They took a very scientific, proactive, organized approach to analyzing programs that might be in place elsewhere in the world to see if they would work. They brought it down to numbers and they did cost-benefit analysis.

By doing this, the government of the State of Washington was able to identify public policies that have been shown to improve the following outcomes: They have reduced child maltreatment; they have reduced crime; and they have improved and increased education, labour earnings, mental health, public assistance, public health and substance abuse — all the things that could lead to incarceration. They have a well-defined and developed methodology, with four points in their structured approach.

The first point is that they systematically assess evidence on what works and what does not work to improve outcomes. They assess best practices. Second, they calculated costs and benefits for Washington State and produced a kind of Consumer Reports-like ranking of public policy options. Third, they measured the riskiness of their conclusions by testing how bottom lines vary when estimates and assumptions change. That is to say, they test to see what the risk is that they could get the outcomes that they predict from these programs or that they will not. These are highly sophisticated kinds of analyses. Where feasible, they provide a portfolio analysis of how a combination of various public policy options could affect state-wide outcomes of interest.

Critical in this process of analysis is that the state presents these as monetary estimates from three distinct perspectives, which are: the benefits that accrue solely to program participants, financial and otherwise; those received by taxpayers, which of course is a concern to everyone on that side of the house and everyone on this side of the house, too; and any other measurable, nonparticipant and non-taxpayer monetary benefits. They put this right down to money. Money is invested in a program. Do you get money back? Do you get more than you invested? Lo and behold, they actually do, and they have lists from over 10 years of programs that they have structured and analyzed in this way.

For example, they have juvenile justice preventive programs. One is called the Functional Family Therapy Program, where they work with a family of a juvenile offender or a juvenile in distress. For this program the total benefit assessed was about $38,000. The taxpayer saves $8,500 because of this program — this is per person — and the non-taxpayer, that is to say employers, health care systems and the individuals themselves, would save about $29,000.

The total savings are $38,000, real money, to taxpayers, potential victims and the actual person in distress. What did that cost? It cost $3,190 to implement. The return on their investment of $3,100 is about 10 times, therefore it can be ranked. They say the return, the benefit-to-cost ratio, is about 11:86 and the actual rate of return on investment is 641 per cent. In this day and age, I do not think anyone can suggest any social investment that gives you that. These are hard core numbers, analyzed carefully, analyzed clearly, checked and double-checked, and brought down to dollars.

On the other hand, there is this Scared Straight Program, which we are seeing so much on television, and of course it sells television. I am sure it is very gratifying to some people to see young people being treated in that harsh way, but Scared Straight does not work. The total benefits are a negative $6,000. It does not help these kids that go through it. It is cheap. It only costs $63 to put them through it, but it does not do anything. It has negative benefits.

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They have listed all of these programs under juvenile justice, adult criminal justice and child welfare. They point out that the Nurse-Family Partnership for low-income families has a return of $20,000 per child put into that program and that that is real money that keeps people out of incarceration, which costs as much as $120,000 a year.

Unfortunately, I could find no such analysis in Canada. All of these programs to which I am referring are preventive programs, so they prevent people who are not in jail from ever going. Some of them who have been come back.

The Hon. the Speaker: The honourable senator's time has expired. Are you asking for more time?

Senator Mitchell: Yes.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, is more time granted?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

Senator Mitchell: Thank you.

In Canada the figures are not as clear. There is some information, although it is not from the government and not from a structured analysis. The Conference Board of Canada has done some studies of correctional programs, that is programs given to people in jails. These are not programs for people who might be diverted from going to jail.

The study says that there have been about $58 million worth of these programs in our correction system within the last couple of years — a $20-million cost and a $38-million benefit. The good news is that there is a $38-million benefit. The bad news is that the money for these programs is less than 2 per cent of the $3 billion that we spent last year on corrections. The other bad news is that these are programs that you get, if you are lucky, only once you are in jail. They are not there to help prevent you from going to jail. The other unfortunate news is that there are nowhere near enough of these programs.

There is a medium security facility in Canada with 461 inmates. Eighty per cent of the inmates in medium security prisons in Canada are known to have drug and alcohol abuse programs, and 50 per cent of them are intoxicated when they offend. Of the 461 people in this jail, 80 per cent have drug and alcohol abuse problems. Only 25 of the 461 inmates are in a drug or alcohol program in that jail, while there are probably another 300 or 350 who need such a program. Those programs are not particularly expensive. They sure do not cost the $120,000 a year that it costs to incarcerate an individual.

The situation is even worse for women. There is one forensic women's clinic in the jail system in Canada serving the 600 women who are incarcerated in Canada. Worse, that forensic centre is not in a women's institution; it is in men's institution, and it serves only a handful of people. There are estimates that as many as 80 per cent of incarcerated women have serious mental health problems and a large percentage have probably been brutally sexually, physically or psychologically abused at some point in their lives. Yet we have one centre, which will be far away from the support of family and friends in their communities. Only a handful of the women who need help get it, and those women have to go to a male institution to get the help.

We will spend up to $19 billion to incarcerate more people, and we will not give them the kind of services that would help to prevent the need to incarcerate them.

What is really galling about this and what is more important in many ways than even the cost benefit is that this will simply hurt young people. The 18-year-old who has not yet reached full maturity and makes an error of judgment by growing six marijuana plants will go to jail and very likely have his life ruined. He will never be able to leave the country because he has a criminal record and he will probably not get a good job. He will never be able to join a professional group. All this will be as a result of having made one mistake, probably not all that serious a mistake and not having victimized anyone but himself. He will have his life literally ruined.

To summarize, Bill C-10 is not going to reduce crime. We know that. In fact, it will increase crime. It will not reduce victims, because if it increases crime it will increase the victimization of Canadians, and it will cost a huge amount of money. We could be smart and state of the art with that money. We could inspire our corrections people and others to study and implement programs that could work effectively and get real results. Rather, we will have none of that and we will hurt people.

Yesterday I said that the Canadian Wheat Board bill was the triumph of ideology over common sense. Today I ask: If this bill does nothing that is good and much that is bad, why would the government go ahead with it? I think it is a political calculation for which they will get some votes. They do not care about what this will do to the people in the system and the people who will be victimized. Instead, they care about the votes. That is a very ruthless political calculation. It is a sad day that we are seeing it with this bill.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Mitchell, will you accept a question?

Senator Mitchell: Yes.