An email interview with criminal justice reform worker James Scott
Straight Goods: Has the federal government resisted or caved in to right-wing pressure for a more vindictive justice system?
James Scott: I do not profess to know what goes on within the federal government or what kinds of pressures they are feeling from the law and order crowd. I believe that there are many informed people within the Justice and Correctional departments who are working very hard on progressive, informed and restorative policies. And I believe that there have been real attempts to resist or mitigate the demands of the right. However, politics being what it is (vulnerable to collective ignorance) I'm sure that the desired policies of those working in the area occasionally fall victim to the "pragmatic" needs of their political masters who want to get re-elected. An example would be the gradual erosion of the Young Offenders Act (1984) which has been toughened several times since its inception in response to critics. Yet the Act was never fully implemented by several of the provinces, including Ontario, who did not put adequate resources into alternative measures. So we end up making the Act harsher in response to pressure based on "extreme cases" when we never really tried it. Now our treatment of youth is among the harshest in the western world, even though we know that harsh punishment does not work.
Straight Goods: If crime is going down statistically, why do Canadians seem vulnerable to get-tough politics?
James Scott: I think the political success of a law and order message is due, in part, to the growing sense of alienation, fear and loss of control among the public. Rapid change, the breakdown of community, of families, of social norms and the sensationalism of the media in regard to extreme cases, I believe, make people feel cynical, stressed and vulnerable. When we are feeling vulnerable and afraid, we retrench, concern ourselves with self-protection against the "threat", and we look for scapegoats, someone to blame. It happened in Germany prior to the second world war when the Jews were demonized. When the cold war ended and we no longer demonized the communists, we have found new scapegoats in the poor, marginalized, mentally ill and addicted, and incarceration rates have skyrocketed since the mid-seventies.
Make no mistake. Get-tough politics has nothing to do with actual crime rates or with what we know about where crime comes from and what is effective in addressing it. If it did, these law and order politicians would be advocating for "serious" funding to address poverty, early childhood development, social support programs, addiction and psychological treatment etc. etc. etc.
Straight Goods: Do you see evidence that get-tough anti-crime politics is waning in effectiveness in Canada or the US?
James Scott: No. Just last night, I was at a public forum with Dr. Nils Christie, the noted Norwegian criminologist who specializes in research on international incarceration rates. The latest figures show Canada at a rate of 123 per 100,000 (high in comparison to western Europe) while the US has now moved up to 704 per 100,000. And George W. Bush who could very well be the next President of the US is currently governor of Texas where the incarceration rate is over 1,000 per 100,000 and the death penalty is in active use. The crime rate in Texas is not significantly lower that other states with much lower incarceration rates. Its not about crime - its about finding a scapegoat for our fears and negativity.
Given the political success of the "law and order" focus in recent US elections, the mystery is that Canada has done as well as it has in resisting the temptation to follow American trends more closely.
I do not believe we will see a waning of this direction until we are caught up in a positive vision of what we can be as a nation - something to be striving for, calling out the best in us, calling us to openness and engagement instead of the current negative politics of exclusion, fortification mentality and punishment.
James Scott is a United Church minister who has been working in the area of peacemaking, conflict resolution and criminal justice reform for the past 20 years. Currently, he is the Co-ordinator of the Collaborative Justice Project at the provincial courthouse in Ottawa.
You've heard from James Scott. Now we'd like to hear from you.
See what Larry Solway has to say.
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