Crime Explosion and Liberalism

The numbers I will refer to come from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Center for Justice Statistics. During the 60’s Canada & Ontario began to shift the emphasis in criminal sentencing away from responsibility and punishment and began a move toward understanding and rehabilitation. Now this may sound very nice and very compassionate which is much of what Liberalism is based upon. However, as judges became more Liberal (compassionate) in their sentencing several things began to happen. First overall crime numbers increased and secondly violent crime stats began to rise dramatically. We also began to see an increase in repeat offenders as the criminals found that the price they had to pay for their indiscretions made good sense in a cost/benefit analysis. As this alarming data became a concern to the public, the Liberal Judicial system decided that society was the cause of the criminal’s behaviour not the perpetrator and because of this we (society) had to spend more money to help them. Better jails, less prison time, more psychology and more welfare assistance to get restarted in life. Regardless of the failure of these mistaken attempts to try and stem the tide of crime we continued down this road and proceeded to add the” Young Offenders Act`` in order that younger criminals could ply their trade with almost complete immunity. We have also taken steps right up to the present day to keep more criminals on the street with the increase in use of conditional sentences and probation. Even the process of obtaining bail is so watered down we recently saw a young man commit homicide while out on bail, not once but twice for two separate pending charges (also violent crimes). The following stats should be cause for worry:
Canadian Population increase 1962 to 2003 170%
Increase in crimes 500%
Increase in violent crime 741%

Ontario Justice 2005-2006
Violent Crimes as a percent of all crime 32%
Convictions for violent crimes resulted in prison terms for only 29% of these criminals and believe it or not 65% of those convicted got probation! Thankfully 85% of those that committed homicide received some type of prison term but incredibly 9% also received probation. Of those convicted of sexual assault only 45% saw the inside of a prison while 37% got probation.
Remember these are sentences for people guilty and convicted. Statistics are not readily available for the duration of sentences but if you have been reading the newspaper over the past ten years you have an idea of how short most of them can be. Can you imagine that in 2005/2006 9% or 10 people actually got probation for murdering someone! These well meaning `compassionate` Liberals` have totally forgotten about the majority of citizens who abide by the law and want to feel safe in their communities. They have also forgotten about the victims of crime that deserve justice and are getting very little. If we stay on this path what kind of crime rates will our children and grandchildren be facing in several years? Let`s restore accountability to our Justice System and work to keep everybody safe first before we try and figure out what went wrong with the bad guys.