Doing Time: Crime and Punishment

No society can afford to tolerate criminal acts conducted by members of its population against other members, its institutions and in direct defiance of its laws. An independent judiciary and the upholding of the role of law is a useful yardstick in recognizing the maturity and justness of any society.

And in a social democracy such as Canada we have an enduring obligation to ensure, through the prosecution of criminals, that the population and the country at large is assured of protection of the person under the law and social stability.

In our liberal-leaning society we strive to understand the vicissitudes of fortune that enable some elements of society to take their place as upright citizens adding to the social fabric and the economic and political structure that elevate the country's fortunes, while other portions of society - and individuals whose anti-social tendencies have erupted from both - appear to strive with more difficulty to sustain a social balance.

Those that fall by the wayside, who feel rejected, or who have chosen to reject the norms of society form an underclass, a criminal element whose exploits continually unsettle the expectations of the majority and by their often violent nature fracture the peace and security within society. We don't waste much sleep about white-collar crime, crimes of a purely economic nature - unlike China where these are viewed as capital offences.

It is the sociopaths, the psychopaths and the petty criminals - whose ventures into the underworld of crime beyond what they themselves ever envisaged for themselves, borne along on the tide of violence that comes so readily to the former two - whose combined predations on society leave us great unease. Along with the purveyors of corrupting influences on society's young and impressionable.

There's another classification for those who prey on the young, who deal drugs, who exploit young men and women through prostitution, and possibly the worst category save the murderers, those whose own soul-shrivelling need to pursue their sexual gratification through the manipulation and torture of children represent society's true nightmares. All these and more we hold to account for their betrayal of public trust.

Our policing agencies arrest the malefactors on suspicion of guilt, and assemble appropriate evidence which our system of law then introduces to court and trial. The alleged perpetrators if found guilty as charged are then meted out sentences geared to reflect the serious nature of their crime. And because we're so concerned as a society that no one be left behind, despite the heinous nature of their crimes, we automatically discount sentencing.

Canada's "statutory release" programme, applied across the board, a method by which prisoners incarcerated in federal penitentiaries are automatically released having served two-thirds of their sentence has proven itself an outright disaster. Recently released statistics compiled by the Correctional Service of Canada review panel tell us that "violent re-offending rates are three times higher for statutory releases versus parole releases".

Over 40% of prisoners released under the programme are recidivists; representing one in ten sentenced for serious violent crimes. A quarter more tend to re-offend with less serious crimes. Roughly two-thirds of statutorily released individuals return to prison following relatively short periods of freedom. Under statutory release - which is automatic in nature - there is no need for anyone to take part in counselling or addiction therapy sessions.

Inmates understand that regardless of their behaviour while incarcerated, they will be set free automatically after having served two-thirds of their sentence. There is no need for them to take personal steps to attempt to better themselves, to self-assist before release, to enable themselves to better fit into society through education upgrading or exposure to employment-skills classes. They've just got to sit there doing time and they'll be released.

Through this system, the Canadian public is committed to seeing these malefactors back on the streets, while they themselves feel no obligation to themselves, their families or society at large, to commit to upgrading their behaviours in a socially acceptable way. The review panel advised that almost two-thirds of federal inmates "serve sentences of less than three years and have histories of violence". Sounds counter intuitive, doesn't it?

Vicious criminals put behind bars for a few years before being released - utterly unrehabilitated, either through formal neglect, or through their own device of disinterest - back into a community they've already abused time and again. "One resounding theme, heard from both within the walls of penitentiaries and in communities across Canada was that statutory release is not working." Why would it, when no expectations are placed on unrepentant criminals?

Earned parole sounds like a pretty good idea. It's worked in the past, and it's only common sense that people who commit crimes be given to understand that they're not only going to be punished for wreaking havoc in the world around them, but that society has expectations that they will make an effort to reform themselves. Prison inmates, like any other individuals who have deliberately spurned societal norms in a manner injurious to the community, should be made to understand that such behaviours are self-deleterious.

If penal holding institutions are to be truly effective, they've got to come prepared to make efforts to turn around sociopathic mindsets. Newly-introduced prisoners should be routinely and expertly psychologically assessed, their willingness and suitability - or otherwise - for correction, for amelioration of their anti-social psyche understood. Followed by recommendations for mandatory counselling, trades- and education-training.

The outcomes of their subjection to this regimen, their willingness to try to help themselves, their success in so doing, should form the basis by which their worthiness for parole should be judged. Otherwise, full time should be served, without access to early parole. This will require a funding investment, it will also require that government have a good hard look at the antiquated state of many of our penal institutions.

There is also a requirement to look a little deeper into the kind of society that we have become where an underclass of informal and organized street gang systems has ordained that one in six incarcerates are gang-affiliated, and that we've seen a doubling of the proportions of offenders classified as maximum security. This is a multi-faceted, vexatious problem facing any society. But the face that the criminal element in Canada is on the rise is especially worrying.

We're not doing a very good job of dealing with those problems at the present time. We're seeing a distinct and troubling rise in the numbers of young people - teens, in fact - whose lives have somehow become so disturbingly purposeless that they see nothing amiss in violence, including murder.