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Stephen Harper pledging to eliminate statutory release

Conservatives fear-mongering distracts from real issues

To the editor:

The Conservatives proposal to eliminate statutory release at two-thirds of sentence served, and entirely for lifers, is yet another fear driven, and not evidence-based law.

The crime rate is at a 45-year low, the murder rate is at 50-year low. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are fear-mongering over a crime wave that just hasn't hit the country.

It is a cynical political ploy from a government distracting people from a stalled economy with job losses, declining revenues and scandals.

The facts: Offenders on parole commit very few offences. About 150,000 adults a year are charged with violent offences, but just 16 federal parolees are convicted of such offences each year, 97% released on full parole last year did so without reoffending.

Canada already has among the highest incarceration rate and toughest parole laws in the developed world. We imprison a lot of people and it is expensive: $148,000 a year per federal prisoner versus $35,000 on parole.

The changes would cost billions of dollars. Forty years in jail for a lifer would cost nearly $6 million, with 1,100 lifers in Canada that amounts to $6 billion (that's just for the lifers).

The Conservatives are making laws more incoherent. It is becoming increasingly difficult for judges to follow simple, long-standing principles that the sentence should be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and degree of responsibility of the offender.

The very worst offenders never will and never should get parole.

The Tories’ proposal tips the balance too far away from prevention and rehabilitation.

A 19-year-old, drug addict who commits a robbery or driving offence may not need to be warehoused for years to full sentence. He may be suitable for supervision in the community.

This Conservative law is vulnerable to successful constitutional challenge.

Eliminating parole also makes prisons more violent. What does a lifer have to lose by killing a guard? It takes us back to an era before rehabilitation was a goal of the system.

Once again, fear and ideology trumps fact-based law-making by the Conservatives. They have no respect for real evidence.

Bill Sundhu

Federal NDP candidate

Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo