Re: Toronto Shooting
 

They work in the respect that they keep criminals in a situation where how they act doesn't affect the general public. However, the "rehabilitation" effect of prison is far too overrated IMO.

As someone that was once a prison officer I can tell you that the same people kept coming back time after time. At least until they hit their mid thirties to early forties. It appeared that, until such an age, they saw prison as an occupational hazard as they believed that crime was the only way they could get what they wanted. However, upon reaching such an age, it appeared to dawn on them just how much time they had "lost" and, at that time, they had additional motivation to make a change.

The more "humane" the conditions inside prison, the more it costs to keep them there. The more humane, the less the incentive to avoid returning.

I don't know what the answer is, but I am confident that politicians don't have the answers either.

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

Ill thought out, playing to the crowd today, not considering the long term; like selling off the council houses or declaring war in a far flung island.


Yes, as noted above. I see two facets to the problem; the availability of ordnance and the willingness to use it. The former is just a consequence of living next to the kind of nation that Canadians do. The latter is not, IMO, going to be addressed by locking lots of people up for long periods.

I'm speculating here but I suppose much of the gun violence to be profit driven and related to the drug trade; the answer to that is simple enough, end the drug prohibition, tax the drugs. If deried, use the tax revenue to lock up the remaining shooters.

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

I was neither agreeing nor disagreeing, simply curious as to if anyone knew if long prison sentences are beneficial as a whole.

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

There was a statistical analysis done by some research group a few years ago in Britain.

It showed that the longer the incarceration, the less likely to reoffend.

Long sentences seem beneficial as a whole to me.

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

Sentences of over 100 years do seem likely to reduce the incidence of recidivism, if the sentences in question are shorter than that then a link would be of interest.

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

That was my thought too, although I wasn't quite thinking a century.

But I do remember newspaper articles and TV documentaries about "soft" prisons in Europe (The Netherlands seems to stand out in my mind) with prison cells more like cosy bedsits with all the comforts of home and very low reoffending rates.

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

A problem with comparisons across countries is that countries have different cultures and some of them have diverse cultures. It may be that a type of prison works in Iceland because the people are all very similar in outlook, not so well in the Netherlands where the population is more diverse and not at all in Canada where some of the population do come from places where life is cheap and they just don't care about killing people ( and, no, I don't think all the criminals come from, say, the Turks and Caicos, nor that all the criminals are immigrants). It's not simple but locking people up for long periods, short of "until they're dead", doesn't seem a brilliant solution. Until they're dead doesn't quite work either as a) it's expensive and b) there's then a population with nothing to lose.

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

I'm surprised at the low rates of reoffending shown, according to that document two-thirds of adult offenders do not reoffend within a year, but I don't see any correlation between the rate of reoffending and the length of the sentence; is it in there somewhere?

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

Subtract the substantial number of convictions for things like failing to appear and breach of conditions and those rates drop a lot more.

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

Re: Toronto Shooting
 

I had a scare on Sunday. I went out for a run by the lake. My normal route consists of running from Dan Leckie down to near British Colombia drive following a lake shore trail. I then drink from a water cooler. Do some leg exercises because my knees are a bit feeble and run back. It's 3 km's in each direction and takes 40 to 50 minutes depending on my bodies condition that day.

On the way home as I ran through Coronation Park there was an army of police and spectators. It transpired that someone was shot dead right on my route. I had missed the incident by a mere 5 minutes as I ran outward.

The problem with Toronto in my opinion is they never seem to catch anyone for the shootings so people know they'll get away with it. They're going to increase.

​​​​​​https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...park-1.4808973

Re: Toronto Shooting