The Globe and Mail published an article recently voicing the growing concerns from the Provinces about the hidden costs of the Federal Conservatives tough on crime agenda.

Among other items such as mandatory minimum sentences, there has been a push by the government to increase the size and number of penitentiaries across the country.  Six of the ten provinces voicing concern say the massive expansion will be a financial burden to them and the other four provinces say they don't have enough information to make an assessment.  For its part, the government as represented by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, has said that he's not comfortable talking about the actual estimated costs attached to their multiple crime bills.

It seems ironic that a government which has taken such a tough stance on balancing the budget while cutting the GST and proposing cutting corporate taxes, would feel comfortable spending tens of billions of extra dollars a year for something which appears more and more a political gift to their base.  The Conservatives plan to offer to pay 25% of the costs while the rest of the funds are to be made up by the Provinces themselves, which is why the Provinces are beginning to become uncomfortable.

As the Canadian government runs to embrace a criminal policy of not trusting the judgment of its judges, targeting non-violent offenders for jail in order to increase the prison population, it occurs to me that our best example of what lies down that road is the United States.  With 5% of the worlds population it has 25% of the worlds criminal population, the vast majority of whom are non-violent drug offenders.  Senator Jim Webb from Virginia wrote a piece in the Huffington Post what the U.S. Congress will be taking on over the next few years. 

Some numbers from his article are quite revealing as to what lays ahead for Canadians if our government decides to to emulate the failed practices of our friends to the South:

America's criminal justice system is broken.

How broken? The numbers are stark:

• The United States has 5% of the world's population, yet possesses 25% of the world's prison population;

• More than 2.38 million Americans are now in prison, and another 5 million remain on probation or parole. That amounts to 1 in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release;

• Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980, up from 41,000 to 500,000 in 2008; and

• 60% of offenders are arrested for non-violent offensives--many driven by mental illness or drug addiction.

The system in the United States has become a colossal waste of money and completely ineffective as a rehabilitation method for non-violent offenders.  We need to step back and walk away from doing this.