Stephen Harper - tilting at windmills

No stats supporting a rise in crime? It's invisible crime! Steve will slay invisible crime for us. Ha!

No stats supporting a rise in anti-Semitism in Canada?  Never mind. Steve set up a special parliamentary committee to slay the invisible rise of anti-Semitism in Canada and give it a whole new definition that might include you.

No stats supporting public outcry against long form census? No problemo. It was an invisible public outcry. Long form census slayed, and bonus! -  cripple StatsCan's budget.

No stats supporting examples of voter fraud? Must be invisible voter fraud then, the kind only Steve and his minions can see. Best cripple Elections Canada investigations just to be on the safe side.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? Tilting at windmills and slaying invisible monsters seems to provide excellent cover for attacking whoever Steve as Donkey Otay perceives as opponents.

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Stop the presses : Unreported crime up 3% over 5 years

Whenever he's faced with StatsCan reports showing a decrease in the crime rate, including the violent crime rate over the last decade, Public Safety Minister Vic lock-'em-up Toews always attempts to refute the evidence by claiming that the unreported crime rate is going up.
And that is presumably why we have to build more prisons to house all the unreported criminals.
I know, I know, but just bear with me for a moment.

On Steve Paikin's The Agenda this week, Toews stated :

"Quite frankly Canadians don't care what the crime rate is"

and went on to produce stats on his unreported crime meme :

"From 2004 to 2009, instead of 34% of crimes being reported to police, only 31% were. So what we are seeing is a gradual decline in confidence in the justice system."

Holy crap! A 3% increase in unreported crime over 5 years.

Toews also explains that "an apples to apples comparison of Canadian victimization surveys with American victimization surveys is the proper standard to use" and recommends everyone read the Vancouver Board of Trade Victimization Survey, which he says shows an increase in unreported crime.

Did that already actually, Vic, and blogged about it back in 2007. While applauding the addition of spousal violence to the survey, I'm not convinced we need more prison spaces to deal with other survey questions such as whether the questionnaire respondent has received unwanted emails or had a window or fence broken.

To Toews' claims of public safety being the Cons first priority, Paikin asks why then did the Cons scuttle their own crime bills by proroguing parliament?
Toews :

"Essentially as a result of prorogation we were able to reconstitute the committees in the Senate which would allow us to get the criminal bills through.

We're right on track with our agenda and now we don't have to worry about the unelected Senate impeding the will of the House of Commons."

[cough]Climate bill[cough]

Indeed, yesterday the Senate voted to make possession of 6 pot plants subject to a mandatory prison sentence.

But guess what, Vic, unreported crime (click the video viewer on the right at the link) is indeed getting a massive increased airing this week.
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Doris' war on invisible crime stats - Part 2

Further to Doris' war on invisible crime stats ...

Yesterday's Con memo: “Let’s be clear, unlike the Liberals, we do not use statistics as an excuse to ignore Canadians’ concerns about crime. As far as our government is concerned, one victim of crime is one too many.”

Quite so. At Tuesday's presser, Doris addressed :

"crimes like home invasion with aggravated assault, which has to be one of the most grievous types of crimes you can think of, people’s houses being broken into and people, in many cases, senior citizens, being grievously assaulted"

While one senior's home invasion is indeed one senior's home invasion too many, you can see why the Cons are not too keen to use statistics in their efforts to shore up the wrinkly vote :

Statscan : Police-reported robbery in Canada, 2008

Break and enters were at their lowest level in 40 years, dropping by 9%.

In 2008, 6% of victims involved in a home invasion were 65 years or older, compared to 3% who were robbed on the street or other outdoor public location and 2% who were robbed in a commercial or institutional establishment. About 2% of victims of total violent crime in 2008 were 65 years or older."

Yeah, screw the stats, let's just go with feelings.

Day continues on about home invasions :

"...previously there were too many cases when those were addressed with what’s called conditional sentencing. That means the criminals in that case get sent home. They don’t have to go to jail."

John Geddes at Maclean's asked Day's office for material supporting his statement about conditional sentences. Amusingly they sent back StatsCan data that refutes their position :

"So far, they have only passed along the broad Statistics Canada data on criminal courts, which shows that 4.4 per cent of adult criminal convictions result in conditional sentences. There’s nothing in the data that I can see, though, to shore up Day’s version of reality."

Just another day in Day's version of reality.

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The Cons' copycat crime bill

Tories are copying U.S. crime laws that failed, expert says
2.3 million Americans behind bars
"The Harper government is embracing tough-on-crime policies even as the United States backs away from similar approaches that have produced record levels of incarceration, huge costs and racialized prisons, says an American expert on sentencing policy.
"We've had this get-tough movement for three decades now," says Marc Mauer, head of the Sentencing Project, which promotes reforms in sentencing law and alternatives to incarceration.
"If that's the best way to produce safety, we should be the safest country in the world, and clearly that's not the case.
Mauer's observations are relevant because the federal Tackling Violent Crime Act echoes the punitive approach to crime adopted in the U.S.
The Harper government pushed the bill through even though crime rates in Canada are falling and are now at their lowest level in 25 years."

You know, we used to know better.

Here's a page written by the head of Corrections Service of Canada, in Sept 2000 :
"HTTP Error 404 - Not Found
In an effort to serve you better, we have redesigned the Correctional Service of Canada website. As a result, many of our webpage addresses have changed and some links may be unavailable.
Date Modified: 2008-01-04"

Well, never mind, as it happens I have my own copy :
"American politicians have often found it in their self-interest to use fear of crime as a strategy to win elections, by promising to wage war on crime.It is ironic that in the United States, as in Canada, crime rates have been declining since 1991. However, by waging war on crime they have managed to double their prison population without making the United States a noticeably safer society than Canada. We would do much to advance the public interest if we can better manage the fear of crime than our American neighbours."

Currently one out of every 100 US citizens is behind bars.
Americans spend $44 BILLION a year on corrections -- six times more than they do on higher education.