JUSTICE PLAN MISSING ONE DETAIL -- THE COST

Billions Would Be Needed to Put More People in Jail and Keep Them
There Longer, Writes Dan Gardner.

When Stephen Harper released the Conservative party's justice
platform yesterday, one detail conspicuously absent from the detailed
17-page handout that accompanied the release was the cost to
implement the tougher sentences his party proposes. That's not surprising.

Politicians often do not realize that laws putting more people in
prison, or keeping them there longer, raise the prison population --
and that means higher costs.

Precisely how much Mr. Harper's promises would cost is impossible to
know. But thanks to federal government documents obtained by the
Citizen through Access to Information, they can be roughly estimated.
At a minimum, the Conservative platform will cost $5 billion over 10
years, but the bill could be $11.5 billion. It could even be much
more than that.

The federal cost-estimate was prepared by the staff of Public
Security and Emergency Preparedness Canada during the last federal
election. It took into account the four main justice proposals the
Conservatives made in that campaign -- and all four of those
proposals are back in the platform Mr. Harper announced yesterday.

The first promise is to make it mandatory for criminals convicted of
"select multiple violent or sexual offences" to serve their sentences
consecutively, instead of concurrently as they now do. Depending on
the circumstances, that could, for example, turn 10 years in prison into 40.

The second idea is a variation on American "three strikes" laws. It
would see an automatic presumption of dangerous-offender status given
to anyone convicted "and sentenced to federal custody for three
violent or sexual offences." Dangerous-offender status means the
person is given an indeterminate sentence and will only be released
when deemed to be safe. Most dangerous offenders are never released.

The third proposal is to repeal the "faint hope clause," which allows
prisoners serving life sentences to apply for early parole after
serving at least 15 years.

The fourth change deals with statutory release -- the policy that
gives federal prisoners parole after serving two-thirds of their
sentences unless it can be shown that they are too dangerous to be
paroled. The Tories would abolish statutory release and replace it
with "earned parole" -- which means it would be up to the prisoner to
show why he should be paroled.

To what extent these policies would boost prison populations -- and
therefore drive up costs -- is impossible to gauge precisely. Much
would depend on the details.

To deal with that uncertainty, the federal government's analysis took
three different looks at the problem with different assumptions about
the details in each.

In the first scenario, the analysis found the Conservative policies
would require 12 new federal prisons to be built: three
maximum-security facilities, six medium and two minimum. The total
cost of building these prisons would be $1.155 billion dollars. The
annual operating budget would be $400 million. The total cost over 10
years would be $5.155 billion.

In the second scenario, 17 new prisons would have to built (four
maximum, eight medium and three minimum). The cost of construction
would be $1.57 billion and annual operating costs would be $540
million. Over 10 years, the federal government would pay a total of
$6.97 billion.

The last scenario would see 23 new prisons built (five maximum, 11
medium, and five minimum) at a cost of $2.035 billion. Operating
costs would be $950 million a year. Total cost over 10 years: $11.535 billion.

But in all likelihood, these totals seriously understate the costs of
the promises Mr. Harper made yesterday because the government
analysis did not include the cost of three new promises.

First, Mr. Harper is calling for the existing four-year mandatory
minimum sentences for certain gun crimes to cover more crimes. He
also wants the sentences to be five and ten years. It's not known
what the costs of this change would be, though it would likely be substantial.

Mr. Harper would also introduce a mandatory minimum sentence of two
years for anyone convicted of trafficking in large amounts of
marijuana or any amount of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine or other
hard drugs. This could flood the prisons.

In 2004 alone, there were 11,634 charges of trafficking in hard
drugs. There were another 10,470 charges of trafficking in marijuana
(although it's impossible to know how many of those charges involved
amounts big enough to qualify for the Conservatives' proposed
mandatory minimum sentence). By comparison, the current population of
the entire federal prison system is 12,587.

The cost of implementing Mr. Harper's drug policy could easily be
equal to or greater than the cost of the other policies combined.

Lastly, the Conservative leader called for the abolition of
conditional sentences -- which allow offenders to live at home if
they obey curfews and other restrictions -- in cases involving
certain violent or sexual crimes, weapons offences, major drug
crimes, crimes committed against children or drunk driving causing
serious harm.

It's impossible to estimate the total cost of this change, but it is
clear that it wouldn't be covered by the federal government.
Conditional sentences are only given to offenders sentenced to less
than two years. If they are taken away, those offenders would go not
to federal prisons, but provincial jails which are, in many cases,
already overflowing.

The provinces may be surprised to discover that should Mr. Harper win
the federal election and implement his ideas, they will have to dip
into their treasuries and start building jails.