QUALITY OF LIFE: WE CAN AFFORD TO CARE
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
For too long both the Federal and Provincial governments have downplayed the costs and consequences of Canada's high rate of incarceration. It costs Ontario $50,000 dollars per year for every inmate in a Provincial jail. A critical deficiency in good rehabilitation programs combined with the effect of sustained criminal-peer influence result in rates of re-offence of more than 40% plus. There has to be a better solution. Restorative Justice is that better way.
The Green Party believes that when a crime occurs, the victim, the community, and the offender have all been injured. We propose reforms to trial law that would increase the role of victims and the community at large in the process of judgement and sentencing. We believe that restorative-justice models, based on those used by First Nations and in some other countries (especially with young offenders), can in many cases, help heal victims and communities, as well as make offenders genuinely face what they have done.
We recognize that this is not applicable to all those engaged in crime and that a certain number will be too dangerous for this model of justice. Fortunately, they are a high-profile minority. The bottom line is that we are currently using a very blunt and often ineffective instrument of punishment and "rehabilitation" for most non-violent criminals.
Finally, the Green Party is concerned that when politicians discuss crime as an issue, they are only talking about common crime and organized crime. White-collar crime and corporate crime are seldom discussed. Yet these two types of crime can account for considerable suffering, loss of life, and loss of wealth and income. Bribery, criminal negligence causing death and injury, flagrant violations of the law, accounting fraud, price-fixing, human-rights violations, intimidation and abuse of workers, environmental degradation, false advertising, and tax evasion are examples of how some corporate leaders and organizations break the law. Yet rarely are the perpetrators of corporate crimes caught, let alone punished.
The Green Party would alter corporate and civil law so that these types of criminals are made fully accountable for their crimes and adequately punished.The Green Party does not support the model of private prisons. We should never commercialize the removal of freedom even where that removal is necessary for the safety of others. It is an ethically flawed model with disturbing implications. The private Ontario Penetang prison should be rapidly returned to public administration or closed down.