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Since ancient Egypt, one of the main principles of punishment has been deterrance; widespread knowledge of undesirable consequences will prevent most people from committing criminal acts. At the extreme, cultures in which a hand is cut off for serious theft experience minimal thievery.
Western cultures have veered far too leniently, where the benefits of criminal acts outweigh the mild sanctions, if caught. Some jurisdictions view the criminals as victims, and that penalties should be avoided, in case they cause stigma. In those places, the more a criminal has a troubled past, the more entitled they are, to commit more violence or damages. There are also sub-sets and movements encouraging and celebrating death and destruction of society, but that's another topic.
one of the main principles of punishment has been deterrance; widespread knowledge of undesirable consequences will prevent most people from committing criminal acts
Actual evidence and studies into deterrence have proven that we don't really care about the consequences all that much. People who commit crimes are typically acting irrationally (crimes of passion) and don't consider them, assume they won't get caught, or don't care if they are. What does drive deterrence, as born out from study after study, is likelihood of being caught. The higher the certainty of being held accountable for your actions, the less likely one is to commit a crime.
At the extreme, cultures in which a hand is cut off for serious theft experience minimal thievery.
And yet when we look at stricter punishments like three strikes laws, high mandatory minimums, and capital punishment - there is no corresponding drop in crime. In fact crime can even go up. Singapore's crime is low not because of it's harshness, but because they have more police per capita, and much more invasive public surveillance systems. It's hard to be anonymous and hide there. It also comes at a cost: freedom of expression and association are far less extensive there.
Since ancient Egypt, one of the main principles of punishment has been deterrance;
Source?
widespread knowledge of undesirable consequences will prevent most people from committing criminal acts.
Source?
At the extreme, cultures in which a hand is cut off for serious theft experience minimal thievery.
Source?
Western cultures have veered far too leniently, where the benefits of criminal acts outweigh the mild sanctions, if caught.
Source?
Some jurisdictions view the criminals as victims, and that penalties should be avoided, in case they cause stigma. In those places, the more a criminal has a troubled past, the more entitled they are, to commit more violence or damages.
Source?
There are also sub-sets and movements encouraging and celebrating death and destruction of society, but that's another topic.
It comes back a singular fact; provinces are starving the judicial system of resources; judges and Crown prosecutors in particular. The Feds get the blame because Parliament is responsible for the Criminal Code, but this entire crisis is provincial in creation; starving the judicial system of resources, meaning fewer trials and worse, delayed trials which then give the accused a credible reason to invoke their Charter right to trial in a "reasonable time" (11b).
If you want every file to go to trial, you're probably looking at and order of magnitude more resources, so on the range of 10x increase at least. The system are currently designed is not set up to run trials for everything. Maybe the system in the 80's could manage it given sufficient resources, but our current system is not. That is, structural changes are needed, rather than burning 10x more resources.
Of course, as you note, this is a provincial issue, and each province will have different issues and challenges. Not every province is as quick to resolve and each local jurisdiction itself can be quite different.
The British courts, which, while having some organizational differences, by and large work similar to ours, are able to bring many cases to fairly swift trials.
Other areas which have discouraged plea bargains, I believe Alaska set a plea bargaining ban back in the 70s and it didn't wildly change the number of cases which when to trial.
This was a big initiative on the part of the Alaskan government, it wasn't quite as simple as just a ban, but the majority of cases which proceeded still had guilty pleas.
On top of which, 'taking it to trial and asking for a harsh sentence' is great in theory...until the judge goes and undercuts the sentence the Crown offered for an early guilty plea post-trial, because they (feel sorry for the offender/immigration status/it's now been 2 years since the offence and they think the victim should just get over it). Ask any prosecutor and they'll be able to give you multiple examples of this happening, and when it does, it reinforces the fact that taking things to trial is ultimately pointless, because there's a real risk of acquittal even in strong cases, and no guarantee that the ultimate sentence imposed will actually reflect the gravity of the offence.
At the end of the day, the judge is the one that imposes the sentence, and the decisions prosecutors make are circumscribed by what they expect that the judge is ultimately going to do. If you want to change prosecutors' decision making, you need judges that are willing to detain when appropriate, and impose harsh sentences for serious crimes.
the judge goes and undercuts the sentence the Crown offered for an early guilty plea post-trial, because they (feel sorry for the offender/immigration status/it's now been 2 years since the offence and they think the victim should just get over it).
This is nonsensical.
First off, you can't offer a plea deal post-trial. Once a verdict is entered, there is nothing to plea to: you're either guilty or acquitted.
Second, while the Crown is free to make a sentencing recommendation to the court, the judge is required to make sentence according to the criminal code, including Section 718 and its various principles. It has nothing to do with 'feeling bad', but legal recognition of the circumstances of the victim, the offender, and the crime.
Thirdly, no judge on the bench would ever respond that the victim should just, 'get over it'. In fact victims are strongly considered throughout the process including sentencing via impact statements.
Ask any prosecutor and they'll be able to give you multiple examples of this happening,
You would be hard pressed to find any lawyer, Crown or defence, who would describe the sentencing process the way you have. Particularly because framing it as judges acting out of sympathy or telling victims to "get over it" veers into disparaging the court, something lawyers are careful about given their professional and ethical obligations. They may disagree with a given outcome, but they wouldn't characterize it in the deliberately emotional language you used.
taking things to trial is ultimately pointless, because there's a real risk of acquittal even in strong cases, and no guarantee that the ultimate sentence imposed will actually reflect the gravity of the offence.
What. The. Actual. F.
Are you really taking the view that all accusations should be treated as guilt? That the accused is not entitled to a robust and vigorous defence? There really is no charitable way to take the claim that "because the Crown can lose, that going to trial is pointless". The right to trial and to contest the evidence against you are core to a justice system and rule of law.
I'd also note that the vast majority of sentences do reflect the circumstances of the offender and victim, along with the crime. Most sentences are not overturned on appeal.
The point of trial isn't the sentence, it's the ascertain the guilt or innocence of the accused, and establish the facts of the crime. That's why sentencing is after the trial, often by a substantive margin.
At the end of the day, the judge is the one that imposes the sentence, and the decisions prosecutors make are circumscribed by what they expect that the judge is ultimately going to do. If you want to change prosecutors' decision making, you need judges that are willing to detain when appropriate, and impose harsh sentences for serious crimes.
None of this is accurate. Prosecutors make independent decisions based on evidence, public interest, and policy, not simply what they expect a judge to do, and sentencing is guided by law, not the desire to influence prosecutorial behaviour.
And when everything goes to trial, a ton of cases get thrown out because our jails are in sorry state and unable to safely house people - again another Provincial failure.
“We don’t have the political will, energy or resources to prosecute criminals to the degree their crimes could warrant” is kind of the point Selley is making.
Not that I'm advocating building a shit ton of prisons and creating a prison industrial complex, but the number of correctional facilities in Canada has not kept up with the population at all, even with a decrease in crime.
It's a delicate balance between trying to counteract the factors that lead to crime while ensuring those that commit violent crimes aren't out in the public.
Looking at the numbers. Canada's prison rate was 90 persons 100k population while the US was 542 persons per 100k.
Right now it does seem like we are building a few new prisons, but there is still the overall issue of overcrowding in some prisons.
Comparing prison populations with the US is a worthless exercise. You should compare to a country with a functional criminal justice system to make your point.
Comparing to the USA on prison rates is like comparing to the USA on gun crime rates.
The US is in the company of Honduras and El Salvador (unofficial civil wars with extremely high murder rates) and Rwanda (exceptional statistically because of all the genocidists still in jail) in having over 500 prisoners per 100K.
America is sometimes called a carceral state for how much imprisonment is a defining social and even economic force in their society. It's completely exceptional and no other developed country behaves like they do.
Frankly the only major country with a comparable imprisonment rate is the old USSR back in the day.
Fair, I was just using the US to illustrate the point that Canadian crime rates are still significantly lower than the US so it's hyperbole to suggest that somehow Canada is this dangerous place and you can't go outside with the risk of experiencing violent crime.
It's a delicate balance between trying to counteract the factors that lead to crime
We don't actually do this at all though. Poverty is the greatest predictor of criminality and social assistance rates (in ontario at least) have been decreasing relative to inflation for the past 20 years.
Looking at the numbers. Canada's prison rate was 90 persons 100k population while the US was 542 persons per 100k.
I'm curious what you mean readers to draw from this? Do you think our rate should be closer the the US rate? We are just about in line with the rate in Sweden which seems like a better comparison than the US.
Poverty is the greatest predictor of criminality and social assistance rates (in ontario at least) have been decreasing relative to inflation for the past 20 years.
crime rate in Ontario has decreased by more than 20% in the past 20 years.
I don't really believe that crime is much of an issue in Canada, it's dramatically over represented in media to keep people afraid. We have seen the trend reverse (slightly) in the last 10 years and I think we can all agree that cost of living has changed dramatically in the past 10 years.
I don't think our rate should be closer to the US, but our overall capacity should be increased to reflect our population increase over the last 25 years. Just to prevent overcrowding. While the most recent data I'm seeing here shows that we're slightly under the max, for the last number of years, we've been over 100% of our official capacity. I'm grateful we don't have a for-profit system.
Regarding my first point, that's what I was getting at. The two main predictors for crime are usually poverty and mental health. Addressing those issues tends to reduce crime significantly.
Yeah, that our incarceration rate isn't close to America isn't an indictment on the Canadian system or our society at all.
The American Prison Industrial Complex is widely known to be the most corrupt, ineffective, punitive and expensive system in the world, and they have some of the highest reincarceration rates in the world as well to prove it.
The reason the USA has such a big rate is because the USA's and the Prison Industrial Complex has done everything possible to criminalize being poor.
Yes we have problems with our system here in Canada, but our problems stem largely from an unwillingness of the Provinces to do their bloody jobs by appointing a proper number of judges to get through backlogs in the Supreme Court designated fair amount of time, and building facilities to then house the incarcerated once a trial deems it necessary.
The USA isnt a rolemodel that's worth even looking at.
You have a typo. My last comment about it was removed for being "unsubstantive", so I guess I have to be more dull about it: reincarnation should be recidivism.
Prisons aren't nearly the issue. Last I checked we were at something like 80% capacity in our prison system. The federal government has been responsible in maintaining adequate levels and alternative streams to incarceration where needed.
The issue is our jails. These are for pretrial detainment and lighter sentences (under two years). These are, in many provinces are at anywhere from 120-175% capacity. Jails are strictly a provincial responsibility and much like every other issue in Canadian lives, neglected.
Honestly if we had provinces actually funding the things they're responsible for, and managing their portfolios better, a lot of our problems wouldn't exist to the same extent. Instead we allow them to push the blame onto the federal government and escape accountability.
If the goal is to do this so that the more serious crimes can actually get to trial, than it makes sense.
It sucks. cause we are a total joke in terms of sentencing and id love to see harsher sentences almost across the board. But the pragmatist in me thinks that given where we're at, it makes sense. We dont want those accused of the worst crimes to just skate out of custody because their trial took too long to get started
Hidden cost are the victims of these criminals who rightly feel like the justice system failed them. Not to mention new victims created because they were let out too early.
Canada doesn't deny bail even if the person has violently reoffended while on bail.
We didn't even deny bail to the automatic weapons toting, ISIS connected terrorists who were violating weapons bans when they were attempting to kidnap, sexually assault and murder people.
The answer to this is mandatory minimum sentences. They allow longer sentences without increasing burdens on the system. But unfortunately that would be cruel to imaginary criminals, so the judges don't let us.
Mandatory minimums absolutely increase the burden on the system. You remove Crown leverage in plea bargains while also incentivizing more accused to gamble and take their matter to trial in hopes of an acquittal, since the only available outcome of a guilty plea is a harsh sentence anyway.
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Since ancient Egypt, one of the main principles of punishment has been deterrance; widespread knowledge of undesirable consequences will prevent most people from committing criminal acts. At the extreme, cultures in which a hand is cut off for serious theft experience minimal thievery.
Western cultures have veered far too leniently, where the benefits of criminal acts outweigh the mild sanctions, if caught. Some jurisdictions view the criminals as victims, and that penalties should be avoided, in case they cause stigma. In those places, the more a criminal has a troubled past, the more entitled they are, to commit more violence or damages. There are also sub-sets and movements encouraging and celebrating death and destruction of society, but that's another topic.
Actual evidence and studies into deterrence have proven that we don't really care about the consequences all that much. People who commit crimes are typically acting irrationally (crimes of passion) and don't consider them, assume they won't get caught, or don't care if they are. What does drive deterrence, as born out from study after study, is likelihood of being caught. The higher the certainty of being held accountable for your actions, the less likely one is to commit a crime.
And yet when we look at stricter punishments like three strikes laws, high mandatory minimums, and capital punishment - there is no corresponding drop in crime. In fact crime can even go up. Singapore's crime is low not because of it's harshness, but because they have more police per capita, and much more invasive public surveillance systems. It's hard to be anonymous and hide there. It also comes at a cost: freedom of expression and association are far less extensive there.
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Yes Selley, if prosecutors go knives out defense will set everything to trial and the system collapses on itself.
It comes back a singular fact; provinces are starving the judicial system of resources; judges and Crown prosecutors in particular. The Feds get the blame because Parliament is responsible for the Criminal Code, but this entire crisis is provincial in creation; starving the judicial system of resources, meaning fewer trials and worse, delayed trials which then give the accused a credible reason to invoke their Charter right to trial in a "reasonable time" (11b).
The number of judges has gone up and judicial resources are roughly in line with inflation.
Despite this cases completed has fallen substantially. Consider the last two decades, in 2003/2004 we had 382k decisions, in the 2023/2024 data we had 228k
The blame falling in the provinces is misleading. It is a pervasive disconnect by our legal system from the rest of society.
If you want every file to go to trial, you're probably looking at and order of magnitude more resources, so on the range of 10x increase at least. The system are currently designed is not set up to run trials for everything. Maybe the system in the 80's could manage it given sufficient resources, but our current system is not. That is, structural changes are needed, rather than burning 10x more resources.
Of course, as you note, this is a provincial issue, and each province will have different issues and challenges. Not every province is as quick to resolve and each local jurisdiction itself can be quite different.
The British courts, which, while having some organizational differences, by and large work similar to ours, are able to bring many cases to fairly swift trials.
Other areas which have discouraged plea bargains, I believe Alaska set a plea bargaining ban back in the 70s and it didn't wildly change the number of cases which when to trial.
This was a big initiative on the part of the Alaskan government, it wasn't quite as simple as just a ban, but the majority of cases which proceeded still had guilty pleas.
On top of which, 'taking it to trial and asking for a harsh sentence' is great in theory...until the judge goes and undercuts the sentence the Crown offered for an early guilty plea post-trial, because they (feel sorry for the offender/immigration status/it's now been 2 years since the offence and they think the victim should just get over it). Ask any prosecutor and they'll be able to give you multiple examples of this happening, and when it does, it reinforces the fact that taking things to trial is ultimately pointless, because there's a real risk of acquittal even in strong cases, and no guarantee that the ultimate sentence imposed will actually reflect the gravity of the offence.
At the end of the day, the judge is the one that imposes the sentence, and the decisions prosecutors make are circumscribed by what they expect that the judge is ultimately going to do. If you want to change prosecutors' decision making, you need judges that are willing to detain when appropriate, and impose harsh sentences for serious crimes.
This is nonsensical.
First off, you can't offer a plea deal post-trial. Once a verdict is entered, there is nothing to plea to: you're either guilty or acquitted.
Second, while the Crown is free to make a sentencing recommendation to the court, the judge is required to make sentence according to the criminal code, including Section 718 and its various principles. It has nothing to do with 'feeling bad', but legal recognition of the circumstances of the victim, the offender, and the crime.
Thirdly, no judge on the bench would ever respond that the victim should just, 'get over it'. In fact victims are strongly considered throughout the process including sentencing via impact statements.
You would be hard pressed to find any lawyer, Crown or defence, who would describe the sentencing process the way you have. Particularly because framing it as judges acting out of sympathy or telling victims to "get over it" veers into disparaging the court, something lawyers are careful about given their professional and ethical obligations. They may disagree with a given outcome, but they wouldn't characterize it in the deliberately emotional language you used.
What. The. Actual. F.
Are you really taking the view that all accusations should be treated as guilt? That the accused is not entitled to a robust and vigorous defence? There really is no charitable way to take the claim that "because the Crown can lose, that going to trial is pointless". The right to trial and to contest the evidence against you are core to a justice system and rule of law.
I'd also note that the vast majority of sentences do reflect the circumstances of the offender and victim, along with the crime. Most sentences are not overturned on appeal.
The point of trial isn't the sentence, it's the ascertain the guilt or innocence of the accused, and establish the facts of the crime. That's why sentencing is after the trial, often by a substantive margin.
None of this is accurate. Prosecutors make independent decisions based on evidence, public interest, and policy, not simply what they expect a judge to do, and sentencing is guided by law, not the desire to influence prosecutorial behaviour.
Crowns can start asking for more, it provides ammunition for the politicians to push for reform.
Doing otherwise let's the judges hide behind the indifference of the crowns.
And when everything goes to trial, a ton of cases get thrown out because our jails are in sorry state and unable to safely house people - again another Provincial failure.
Why? That doesn’t seem very nice.
Because they'd have nothing to lose by doing so.
“We don’t have the political will, energy or resources to prosecute criminals to the degree their crimes could warrant” is kind of the point Selley is making.
Not that I'm advocating building a shit ton of prisons and creating a prison industrial complex, but the number of correctional facilities in Canada has not kept up with the population at all, even with a decrease in crime.
It's a delicate balance between trying to counteract the factors that lead to crime while ensuring those that commit violent crimes aren't out in the public.
Looking at the numbers. Canada's prison rate was 90 persons 100k population while the US was 542 persons per 100k.
Right now it does seem like we are building a few new prisons, but there is still the overall issue of overcrowding in some prisons.
Comparing prison populations with the US is a worthless exercise. You should compare to a country with a functional criminal justice system to make your point.
The United States has built a system where they profit from putting people in prison so don't compare our numbers to theirs!!
Only a small minority of US jails and prisons are private
They incarcerate more people in total than China and are a terrible example
Maybe but that doesn’t change what I said
What you said doesn't change that they're not a good example.
Comparing to the USA on prison rates is like comparing to the USA on gun crime rates.
The US is in the company of Honduras and El Salvador (unofficial civil wars with extremely high murder rates) and Rwanda (exceptional statistically because of all the genocidists still in jail) in having over 500 prisoners per 100K.
America is sometimes called a carceral state for how much imprisonment is a defining social and even economic force in their society. It's completely exceptional and no other developed country behaves like they do.
Frankly the only major country with a comparable imprisonment rate is the old USSR back in the day.
Fair, I was just using the US to illustrate the point that Canadian crime rates are still significantly lower than the US so it's hyperbole to suggest that somehow Canada is this dangerous place and you can't go outside with the risk of experiencing violent crime.
You can't possibly be suggesting that this is a bad thing right?You explained your position further on in the thread.
We don't actually do this at all though. Poverty is the greatest predictor of criminality and social assistance rates (in ontario at least) have been decreasing relative to inflation for the past 20 years.
I'm curious what you mean readers to draw from this? Do you think our rate should be closer the the US rate? We are just about in line with the rate in Sweden which seems like a better comparison than the US.
crime rate in Ontario has decreased by more than 20% in the past 20 years.
yup! I post this graph seemingly once a week in this sub.
I don't really believe that crime is much of an issue in Canada, it's dramatically over represented in media to keep people afraid. We have seen the trend reverse (slightly) in the last 10 years and I think we can all agree that cost of living has changed dramatically in the past 10 years.
I don't think our rate should be closer to the US, but our overall capacity should be increased to reflect our population increase over the last 25 years. Just to prevent overcrowding. While the most recent data I'm seeing here shows that we're slightly under the max, for the last number of years, we've been over 100% of our official capacity. I'm grateful we don't have a for-profit system.
Regarding my first point, that's what I was getting at. The two main predictors for crime are usually poverty and mental health. Addressing those issues tends to reduce crime significantly.
Definitely agree with building enough to address overcrowding. Wouldnt want to be in an induced demand situation though.
Yeah, that our incarceration rate isn't close to America isn't an indictment on the Canadian system or our society at all.
The American Prison Industrial Complex is widely known to be the most corrupt, ineffective, punitive and expensive system in the world, and they have some of the highest reincarceration rates in the world as well to prove it.
The reason the USA has such a big rate is because the USA's and the Prison Industrial Complex has done everything possible to criminalize being poor.
Yes we have problems with our system here in Canada, but our problems stem largely from an unwillingness of the Provinces to do their bloody jobs by appointing a proper number of judges to get through backlogs in the Supreme Court designated fair amount of time, and building facilities to then house the incarcerated once a trial deems it necessary.
The USA isnt a rolemodel that's worth even looking at.
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couldn't agree more.
You have a typo. My last comment about it was removed for being "unsubstantive", so I guess I have to be more dull about it: reincarnation should be recidivism.
No jokes, please, this is not the place.
Prisons aren't nearly the issue. Last I checked we were at something like 80% capacity in our prison system. The federal government has been responsible in maintaining adequate levels and alternative streams to incarceration where needed.
The issue is our jails. These are for pretrial detainment and lighter sentences (under two years). These are, in many provinces are at anywhere from 120-175% capacity. Jails are strictly a provincial responsibility and much like every other issue in Canadian lives, neglected.
Honestly if we had provinces actually funding the things they're responsible for, and managing their portfolios better, a lot of our problems wouldn't exist to the same extent. Instead we allow them to push the blame onto the federal government and escape accountability.
If the goal is to do this so that the more serious crimes can actually get to trial, than it makes sense.
It sucks. cause we are a total joke in terms of sentencing and id love to see harsher sentences almost across the board. But the pragmatist in me thinks that given where we're at, it makes sense. We dont want those accused of the worst crimes to just skate out of custody because their trial took too long to get started
Hidden cost are the victims of these criminals who rightly feel like the justice system failed them. Not to mention new victims created because they were let out too early.
another hidden cost is that some wrongfully accused will take a plea bargain rather than be imprisoned for a year pending trial.
Canada doesn't deny bail even if the person has violently reoffended while on bail.
We didn't even deny bail to the automatic weapons toting, ISIS connected terrorists who were violating weapons bans when they were attempting to kidnap, sexually assault and murder people.
The answer to this is mandatory minimum sentences. They allow longer sentences without increasing burdens on the system. But unfortunately that would be cruel to imaginary criminals, so the judges don't let us.
Mandatory minimums absolutely increase the burden on the system. You remove Crown leverage in plea bargains while also incentivizing more accused to gamble and take their matter to trial in hopes of an acquittal, since the only available outcome of a guilty plea is a harsh sentence anyway.