I don't agree with your conclusion that our penal systems are crime schools, and I don't agree with your comment that it's not a good idea to send people who have committed their first offence to jail. It depends on what that first offence is, quite frankly. When people commit very serious crime, it may be only their first crime; nonetheless these are very serious matters.
Again, we want to reach out to individuals, we want to get them help, we want them to use their time constructively if they are in fact detained, if it becomes necessary to put them in jail. But there are many who say, me included, that people who commit sexual assault, people who are in the business of, for instance, burning down homes--people who commit these serious offences shouldn't be eligible to go home to their home afterwards. That's what we're saying in this bill, and I think it's a very reasonable compromise.
If you remember, towards the end of my comments, I said, yes, for less serious offences I can see where it is appropriate that some would be given a conditional sentence and sent home. I can understand that, where it works. But I think when the crime becomes a very serious crime, which is what we have identified—these are very serious crimes—they should not be eligible to be sent home. That's what we're saying, and I think that's reasonable.