Civil Society Organizations: Locking Individuals up is Not the Reply, Put money into Communities to Enhance Public Security

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OTTAWA, Ontario, Oct. 30, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Civil society organizations concern letter responding to the shortsighted and harmful requires amendments to the Felony Code from the Ontario authorities, geared toward tightening bail laws, signed by The Canadian Affiliation of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS), The Council of Elizabeth Fry Societies of Ontario (CEFSO), The Canadian Civil Liberties Affiliation (CCLA), The Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, Luke’s Place, and Professor Nicole Myers, Queen’s College. 

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We, the undersigned, are organizations that work every single day with the consequences of our authorized and jail system. We work to create secure and higher communities for everybody by championing packages, companies, and social responses which are rooted in evidence-based practices. We all know that safer communities are well-resourced so that everybody has what they should thrive.

The proposed adjustments are slender and ignore the realities of Canada’s judicial and jail system. Extra importantly, they won’t solely proceed to place susceptible and marginalized individuals in additional hazard however will lower public security.

As a substitute of specializing in punitive measures which have failed in the US and past, the federal government must be focusing all of its efforts on complete options that deal with the systemic components that contribute to safer communities, like housing, schooling, well being care, and evidence-based helps for the present bail system, like bail mattress packages.

“Proposals resembling reinstating obligatory minimal sentences and eliminating bail for sure offenses don’t successfully stop violence or defend communities and worse, they violate our Constitution rights,” mentioned Shakir Rahim, Director of the Felony Justice Program on the Canadian Civil Liberties Affiliation. These excessive measures exacerbate points for all individuals in Canada, however particularly for socio-economically deprived populations, and too, for the numerous survivors of gender-based violence who again and again discover themselves unfairly prosecuted or caught in a punitive cycle that fails to maintain them secure.

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Moreover, the emphasis on measures like a three-strike rule and imposing ankle displays highlights a troubling development in the direction of elevated punishment relatively than care. Emilie Coyle Govt Director of the Canadian Affiliation of Elizabeth Fry Societies says that “these methods will compound current points in Canada’s authorized system and work towards public security. They may proceed to perpetuate a cycle of incarceration that additional isolates individuals, particularly these from racialized and marginalized communities, from the mandatory social helps and sources that they want”.

Everybody desires safer and extra simply communities, however neighborhood security is not going to be achieved by creating mass incarceration practices in Canada. We want solely look to the devastating penalties these insurance policies have had in the US to grasp what they are going to do to our society.

Calling on the federal authorities to implement failed insurance policies primarily based on worry will solely persist in harming all Canadians. Not solely are prisons already overcrowded and insufficiently structured to function a social response to habit and financial insecurity, however incarceration makes lots of the social issues that Canada is dealing with worse.

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Being incarcerated is traumatic. Incarceration itself creates plenty of adversarial psychological well being outcomes, from post-traumatic stress dysfunction to despair and beyond-these are devastating particular person penalties that then result in worse issues for each people and society as individuals are launched from jail in worse form than once they entered.

“Creating significant social responses to the rising presence of people that undergo from habit and who’re unable to afford housing by means of community-based packages, psychological well being companies, and preventative measures that deal with the underlying circumstances resulting in crime will enhance public security,” mentioned Nicole Myers a professor at Queen’s College.

Already, Canada is confronted with the human rights disaster of the mass incarceration of Indigenous individuals. These proposed adjustments will definitely ship extra Indigenous, Black, and deprived individuals into prisons. The issue with legal guidelines like these is that they don’t goal people who find themselves committing precise social harms—they aim society’s most deprived populations.

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Finally, the Ontario authorities should rethink its strategy and work on responses which are evidence-based and essentially geared toward selling justice, fairness, and neighborhood well-being, relatively than doubling down on punitive measures that incite worry and can add billions in dangerous public spending.

For Media Inquiries please contact

The Canadian Affiliation of Elizabeth Fry Societies: ecoyle@caefs.ca Nicole Myers: nicole.myers@queensu.ca

The Canadian Civil Liberties Affiliation: CCLA: media@ccla.org

Signed by the next organizations and people:
The Canadian Affiliation of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS)
The Council of Elizabeth Fry Societies of Ontario (CEFSO)
The Canadian Civil Liberties Affiliation (CCLA)
The Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
Luke’s Place
Professor Nicole Myers, Queen’s College

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