Law Times

Page 4 august 18, 2014 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com Canada], are being left in the dust." Legislation introduced under titles like the Safe Streets and Communities Act gives people the impression that their towns and cities aren't already safe, Trudell suggests. "It's really a dishonest message," he says. "The culture of risk aversion is built in from the government when they pass down legislation." Defence counsel aren't blameless either, says Hill. In- stead of seeking the appropriate prison terms for their clients, some criminal lawyers simply ask for something less than what the Crown wants, he says. "Especially at pretrial levels, the Crown would ask for a cer- tain incarceration time and I unfortunately see some of my colleagues just saying, 'OK, well, we'll take a little bit less.' I think too many defence counsel say, 'The Crown wants 12 months; I can get you seven.' It's sort of a game. They're not looking at the overall picture." Defence counsel also agree to numerous bail release condi- tions that are hard to meet, says Trudell, something that con- tributes to the high number of people who are in custody for ad- ministration-of-justice offences. Canadians pour billions annually into the corrections system. According to Statis- tics Canada, expenditures on adult corrections, excluding the Yukon and Nunavut, totalled $4 billion in 2010-11. That's a 40-per-cent increase from 10 years ago. The most troubling part of the issue, according to London, Ont., lawyer Kevin Egan, is that prisons aren't turning criminals into better people, which he says is one of the reasons for putting offenders into the corrections system. Canadian jail condi- tions don't promote respect for the law, he says. "When people are treated like animals, they tend to accept that that's what they are and begin to behave that way," he says. The problem is cyclical, he adds. "The overcrowding issue really exacerbates the problem in a way because people who aren't otherwise really bad people end up in jail and get institutionalized to the way of thinking of the more hardened type of criminals." Adding to the problem is men- tal illness, according to Trudell. When people look like they may be a danger to themselves or oth- ers due to mental illness, they're more likely to remain in remand custody, he says. With the closure of mental- health facilities across North America, "we've really turned prisons into storage houses for people who have [psychological] illnesses," Hill suggests. After a peak in the early 1990s, crime rates have gone down significantly in Canada. According to Hill, the decline in the country's crime rates is consistent with changing age demographics. He notes the "big [crime] bubble" following the rise of young baby boomers is fading away as that generation ages. He says that for the most part, "crime is a young man's disease and the only cure is birthdays." According to data collected by the International Centre for Prison Studies in 2012, Canada's incarceration rate is about one- sixth of that of the United States but is higher than in many Euro- pean countries of similar social and economic development. LT As Canada's penitentiaries begin to overflow, a four-part Law Times series this summer is looking at the issue of remand and other trends within the correctional system in Canada. Using data from various reports, the series is exploring why more people are ending up in jail even as crime rates go down. 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Crime is down across the west- ern world." LT Number of people incarcerated per 100,000 population Certificates declining Continued from page 1 n All crimes n Violent crimes n Property crimes n Other crimes

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