The New Role of Parliament in Canadian Sentencing

Abstract

Introduction If locking up those who violate the law contrib uted to safer societies, then the United States should be the safest country in the world. In fact, the United States affords a glaring example of the limited impact that criminal justice responses may have on This comment, contained in the Twelfth Report of the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General (February 1993) of the Canadian House of Commons was remarkable not because of what it said, but of who said it. The chair of the committee, a self described supporter of strict law and order and former member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and member of Canada's Progressive Conser vative party, said We can't just continue to build more jails and spend more money on police budgets and have crime increasing the way it is. A fellow Conservative member of the committee, who had sponsored a bill in Parliament attempting to re introduce the death penalty in 1987, also supported the view that prisons don't make us safe. The committee ? dominated by conservative members of Canada's federal parliament ? recommended that, instead of focusing largely on the criminal justice system to improve the nation's security, Canada should dedicate substantial resources to preventing crime. The view that Canada imprisons more people than it needs to is part of criminal justice culture in Canada. Even those responsible for policies that increase prison populations seem to believe that we incarcerate too many people. In the past thirty years, there have been at least six other federal reports to the same effect. Most pointed to Canada's lack of sentencing policy as the primary explanation for the problem. A recent report prepared for the federal/ provincial/territorial ministers responsible for justice had at least four recommendations that appeared designed to reduce Canada's reliance on imprison ment.1