Gulo
My position is that the right to vote is not a right that the government grants to it citizens and is therefor not a right that the government can take away, prisoner or not. The government exists at the pleasure of it citizens, not the other way around. This libertarian conservative position conflicts with the authoritarian conservative law-and-order position I'm hearing here.
I think the idea of prison is that you lose your privileges when you are incarcerated. You become a de facto ward of the Crown. So that theoretically by being convicted you become the equivalent of a child again.
I understand that people are concerned that criminals are treated too lightly, and I generally agree. Keep in mind, though, that Canada imprisons a greater portion of its population than almost any country in history. A large portion of those in prison are there for non-payment of fines and for victimless crimes.
I don't consider we treat criminals too softly, I think we waste the opportunity to redirect them by simply being cheap. In the prison system, there is no effort made a rehabilitation, and anyone who tells you differently either doesn't know anything on the subject, or they are a politician.
The root cause of the kind of gang crime we've seen in Toronto or Edmonton cannot be traced to the availability of guns or to weak punishments. I doubt that fear of jail or lack of a gun would be cited by anyone here as the reason they don't shoot their neighbour. Most people don't shoot people because they don't perceive that to be a reasonable way to get ahead. What is needed in the afflicted communities are government policies that
1) reduce ghettoization (e.g., immigrant language and culture integration programs may help),
2) do not put barriers to economic development (e.g., minimum wage laws that make it illegal to provide a job for a person worth less than the minimum),
3) ensure that people and their rights are protected by more policing (not more laws).
There are a couple of things there, Ghettoization usually ends
as the groups are assimilated into the community. Some groups are not being assimilated.
However, regardless of assimilation or lack thereof, anyone who picks up a gun, and goes onto Yonge Street, is not hunting rabbits, and there is a clear decision that you are going to kill someone. There is no other reason to carry a gun. Even when a policeman puts on his gun, he knows that this may be the day. Our laws need to reflect that decision. Personally I am all for taking off the trigger finger on conviction for gun offences. |
