Hacks & Wonks

Dan Lett says of himself, "I'm in the front row, centre of the choir on this one," when it comes to "[taking] a bold stand against the lock-them-up-to-make-society-safer philosophy of the current federal government."

Well Dan, meet Bob. He also wrote about the issue last week.

Take it away Tarantino:

Let's start with the first portion quoted above: "[in] the United States, where it is becoming clear that mandatory sentences have been mostly ineffective". You could read the Toronto Star's entire excrutiatingly long magnum opus on imprisonment and be left entirely uninformed of the fact that violent crime rates in the United States have plummeted over the past fifteen years (at a much steeper rate than Canada's crime rates have fallen) to levels not seen since the 1960s - at precisely the time when mandatory minimum sentences have been most widely deployed. Now, is that causation or correlation? Maybe a little of both. But it is certainly not "becoming clear" that mandatory sentences have "been mostly ineffective". Criminologists (who, as a profession, seem to have a bias against actually punishing criminals) have been desperate to disprove any link between putting people in jail and falling crime rates - and they've mostly failed in those efforts (see here for an example).

Bob goes on to quote a segment of the TorStar article that Dan had linked to previously on his blog, adding, "Consider this glimpse of a state that tried to use more and longer prison sentences to clean up its streets."

So let's consider that.... (And by "let's", I of course mean, "I'm going to get the hell out of the way and watch Bob work with it because I like piggy backing on the writing of others.")

TorStar:

Today, Michigan is lock-up central. It has 50,000 inmates – Canada, with more than three times the population, has 32,000 – and 50 correctional facilities, 35 built since 1985.

But the state's "mass incarceration experiment" has achieved none of its stated objectives, says Laura Sager of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM).

"The dividends were broken families and broken communities not less crime."

... If the goal of locking up more people is to increase safety than Michigan "should be Shangri-la," said Sager in an interview in a tiny FAMM office in Lansing, the state capital 150 kilometres west of Detroit.

Yet Michigan's violent crime rate in 2006 was 562 per 100,000 people, according to the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending. Detroit alone had 400 homicides last year.

Now Bob:

Left completely unaddressed, however, is whether that violent crime rate is higher, lower or about the same as before the mandatory minimums were introduced. Presumably, we're meant to look at "562 per 100,000" and faint away in horror (that the Canadian violent crime rate is 930 per 100,000 likewise is best left buried (and, yes, thanks, I'm aware that you can't do one to one comparisons of the violent crime rate because of differences in definitions and reporting)). We have no idea what Powell is using as a reference point when she implies that the crime rate has not fallen. Other than that 35 incarceration facilities have been built since 1985, and a sidebar which indicates that the prison population has increased by about 350% since 1984, we're not sure what either Powell or, previously, Contenta and Rankin, are talking about.

So guess what?

Michigan's violent crime rate has plummeted.

That "562 per 100,000" number which Powell was kind enough to provide is, let's see, about a 25% drop from either 1984 or 1985, take your pick (when violent crime rates were 760 and 734, respectively) and a 30% drop from the peak of the violent crime rate in 1986. And 562 is the highest the violent crime rate has been this decade. The last time the violent crime rate in Michigan was consistently this low was in the 1960s. But I guess things are so much more complicated when you actually look at the underlying facts.

Friends know that I applauded the provincial Tories for promising to build a new provincial jail/drug treatment facility in the last provincial election. I would also applaud the federal Tories were we to go about building a few new federal penitentiaries. Won't make any bones about it. I'm a "Lock 'Em Up" kinda guy on violent crime and repeat offenders and for those already suggesting that prison doesn't rehabilitate, I'd ask you to show how well the rehab's been going on in the community lately.

Should guys re-offend once they paid their penance, then it's "Lock 'Em Up Longer Next Time". Unlike many a provincial expenditure I'd like to see reduced or eliminated, increasing the prison system to prevent chronic suspended sentencing for people not deserving of suspended sentences feels like a worthy place to spend the budget ducats.

I'd love to see what a decade of the policy would get us as far as the crime rates. Isn't it worthy an expenditure just to find out?

* * * * * * *

And while we're here on the provincial Tories being right a year ago about problems of today, I found it pretty interesting to read today's Freep editorial titled "Training The Police" which states, "... the development of uniform training standards for police departments across Manitoba is a worthy endeavour..."

I enjoyed this because it was just yesterday that I went back and forth on the issue with a friend and he reminded me that my buddy Kelvin Goertzen had kinda said something along the same lines last year when he was still representing the party on justice. Sure enough, here's the press release still on Kelvin's website:

Manitoba Progressive Conservative Justice Critic, Kelvin Goertzen, is calling on the provincial Minister of Justice to modernize The Provincial Police Act to ensure there is uniform and appropriate training for all levels of law enforcement and security personnel in the province.

"The Minister of Justice has committed to review the operations of the East St. Paul Police Detachment. While there is merit in that review and I support it, it is not a proactive or long-term response to what is a more significant problem," said Goertzen. "The Provincial Police Act in Manitoba is decades old and has virtually no direction in terms of police standards or training. This is a greater concern today than ever before because there are more levels of policing than ever before."

While it would be nice for some acknowledgment of the fact that this was yet another classic example of the province acting well after the fact on an issue, but Kelvin and the provincial Tories can take solace in the fact that this helps set up the table going forward. Sure the paper and the gov't aren't about to write "The Tories Were On The Issue Like Eleven Months Before We Were", but you have to think that the paper and its staff will at least know in the back of their minds that it was an issue where the Tories spoke credibly. And credibility of the issues is what the party needs to build and solidify before 2010/11ish. Once that is in place, the promises of an election and the criticisms of the government go a lot further with the public.

Policy Frog's "I Want My Airport To Stop Raiding My Downtown" yesterday left me chuckling, but as I read today's Freep article on the new proposed airport hotel, I can't help but think that the Frog's got a point. 

 

Lakeview CEO Jack Levit said the Grand Winnipeg Airport Hotel will be built to five-star specifications. If it's awarded a five-star designation, it will be the city's first such hotel, he added.

I'm all for business development and competition in the sector, but do we really want our nicest digs in the city to be at the airport?  Does that not just send the oddest message to travellers?  Or maybe I'm wrong and the global trend is towards luxary hostings whilest waiting for a six a.m. departure...

 

The Policy Frog, in a post a 100% agree with:

In the big scheme of things, 143 lost jobs is a blip, not a "blow". Companies regularly lay off a few dozen or a few hundred people, and it gets nothing more than a passing mention in the business briefs section. And, with all due respect, it's not like flight attendants are a strategic industry sector for our province anyway.

Or are they? At a local rally today, "Manitoba Premier Gary Doer earned cheers from the crowd as he vowed to do everything possible to keep the flight attendants in Winnipeg" according to the CBC. Glad to see you've got your priorities in order there Mr. Premier.

By contrast, Doer and the local media all but ignored the 400+ head office positions that were lost when Sask Pool (now Viterra) took over Agricore and transferred most of its operations to Regina. To me, that was a much bigger story with a far more significant economic impact.

Of course the Agricore employees didn't have the backing of a big union like CUPE to stir up public opinion and buy expensive newspaper ads featuring ironically accurate images of grumpy employees who constantly feel hard done by.

Methinks that Rex Murphy might be onto the Democratic Nominee:

But what was the idea behind a nominee for the highest office of the United States conducting a campaign rally in Berlin? Throw away those disclaimers from the Obama camp that the rally wasn't political. Mr. Obama doesn't knot his tie without politics providing the mirror.

It's strange to have to note this, but, he isn't yet president. He has absolutely no record at all of involvement in foreign policy.

Correction: He did offer unqualified, insistent opposition to the Petraeus surge in Iraq, which turned the war around to the point that some of its most relentless critics now maintain "it cannot be lost." In other words, on the one definitive issue, post-invasion, on his country's most important foreign involvement, the one decision the inarticulate and sublimely unhip Texan in the White House made alone, and got right, Mr. Obama was perfectly, publicly wrong.

There's very little wood - if you'll allow the metaphor - in that record, on which to build a podium to address Europe at a mass rally on your first visit to one of its ancient capitals. But Mr. Obama has self-confidence, he has sublime self-assurance. It's hardly more than two years ago that he was but a Chicago politician whose entire national resumé was a speech to John Kerry's nominating convention.

And it's less than two months ago that, ever so narrowly, he managed to edge Hillary Clinton out of contention for the nomination yet to be confirmed. It was razor close.

Yet, there he was on Thursday, acting in every way as if he were already president delivering, Urbi et Orbi, a proclamation. There was something almost glorious about the presumption: Call it the audacity of hubris. There was also and equally something very reckless about it. The only set who seem more enraptured than a good part of the U.S. media about the Obama campaign is the Obama campaign and the candidate himself.

The self-assurance, the commanding confidence of his campaign may turn out to be a transcending dynamic that rockets him into the White House while Mr. McCain is still trying to find a reporter to talk with. On the other hand, he may be signalling millions of voters that this untested candidate is just a damn sight too cocky for his own, and their, good.

Kives on Manitoba's need for an identity in marketing.

I believe Mary Agnes has her legal facts wrong - namely what she's saying the courts are saying with their decision - but can't argue as such based on the limited knowledge of the ruling that I can recall at this time.

The province can't enforce the ban on First Nations. It doesn't apply there and never has, and the courts said so. In a back-and-forth case that ended in March, Manitoba's Court of Appeal reaffirmed the rights of First Nations to be exempt from provincial law. That was, you'll recall, the case of Treherne bar owner Robert Jenkinson who challenged the law as unfair because it applied only to off-reserve bars like his. The court sided with the First Nations, not Mr. Jenkinson.

Thing is, I'm really sure that the court case in question just sided against Mr. Jenkinson by suggesting that he did not have the right to allow smoking in his bar because it wasn't breaking his rights that First Nations still allowed smoking.  Can anyone out there confirm one of our takes on this?  Or add a new, possibly even correct, version of the decision?

Forgot to mention.  Out in BC for a number of days.  No new posting until Monday.  (As in...*next* Monday.)

Have a good week gang.

Another media member heads to communications staff for politicians.

Oh wait.  Maybe it won't be the BTs firing away at this one.

 

Baird hires reporter Day

Former CTV reporter Chris Day will join Environment Minister John Baird's (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.) staff as a press secretary.

Mr. Day, who starts Aug. 4, will be replacing Eric Richer, who originally took a leave of absence from the public service to work for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.) office, and then went to work for Mr. Baird after the January 2007 Cabinet shuffle when he was moved from the Treasury Board to the environment portfolio.

Gary Keller, director of communications for Mr. Baird, said Mr. Richer is returning to the public service.

"We certainly wish him well in his new responsibilities as he goes back to the public service and understand his decision to do so," said Mr. Keller.

Mr. Keller said Mr. Day, who is a long-time Ottawa resident, was hired because of his "strong local ties" as well as his experience in the media.

"He'll be the first point of contact for a lot of the media.... He'll be certainly following what happens in the minister's riding as well, and be involved with promoting local events and that sort of thing. He's spent a number of years in Ottawa and the area, so he's well known in the community and knows a lot of the people who are involved in major events, so that's always helpful."

Mia Rabson on the swearing in ceremony for Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk:

Natynczyk has spent much of the time since he was announced as the new Chief of the Defence Staff, fielding questions about what will make him different from Hillier. Today he told the crowd the answer is easy - Hillier is from Newfoundland, and cheers for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Natynczyk said.

"I am from Manitoba and I support the Ottawa Senators and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers."

[link]

 

Some are those who might be expected to celebrate if there were any other single field in which Canada was distinguished by its lack of regulation. Indeed, the system of abortion provision that Morgentaler dominates could be cited as a triumphant demonstration of the merits of private medicine: it's profitable, yet safe and cheap.

Long time readers know that my abortion thoughts have been evolving over the last few years.  Where I was once default and knee jerk pro-choice, I'm no longer comfortable holding that position across the board.  Haven't made it to the pro-life camp either, but struggling to place myself somewhere on the spectrum in between the two extremes.

I'm hesitantly opposed to Dr. Morgentaler receiving the Order Of Canada. 

 

Not because of his cause (which has merit) or because I feel some of this tactics are horrifyingly (complete denial of fetal life).  No, I oppose his honour because I do not believe for once that a pro-life champion would ever receive the honour and that fact alone should set off the klaxons.   

Dr. Morgentaler is receiving the honour based on his work championing a single cause.  There are legitimate points of debate surrounding his cause.  By honouring Dr. Morgentaler, but not those who oppose his goals, the Order Of Canada has now taken a side in the debate.

And that is wrong.