I don't feel at this point that institutions, both federal and provincial, do a good job of rehabilitating people. If there's any diversion that you can do.... There are many things, such as restorative justice, and I've already mentioned drug court, mental health court, and things like that. There are many diversions you can do to avoid someone's going to jail. Not only is it costly, but it doesn't really help, oftentimes.
I keep bringing up community courts, but we need to be looking at the issues you're in for. For instance, if you're in for theft because you're stealing because you're in poverty, maybe you need to be set up with income support, but if you're homeless, that's not going to work; you need to be set up with housing and those kinds of things.
The problem with legal aid and with many of the other institutions we have is that we don't give warm transfers. When someone is in the justice system, we tell them to go and apply for housing, and they may never get there. In the community courts, when someone gets there and you identify what the problems are, the defence works in conjunction with the crown to figure out how to tackle those issues. It's a much more collaborative way of dealing with things, rather than just punishing someone, putting them in jail, and then hoping they get better.