Perhaps I should have said it explicitly. I am not a lawyer. Nothing I intended to say or have said speaks to the letter of the law. If that was not obvious in claiming that I was a social scientist, I apologize. Perhaps lawyers think of themselves as social scientists.
What I am presenting to you can certainly be dismissed if you don't appreciate it, but I thought it might be valuable to the committee to understand the actuarial existence of crime and its costs in Canada.
Lawyers, despite living in legal worlds, must touch down into reality. Lawmakers' laws have real effects on real people. I certainly agree with the point that nothing I have said speaks to the details of the law. It informs you about things that other statistical witnesses did not say, and that I think are important, and that is to say that guns are not the only violent weapon that one should be concerned with. Since the word “gun” appears in the law, this strikes me as legally relevant. Second, the cost to victims is important, as well as the cost to prisoners and taxpayers, and I've not seen the emphasis.
For example, in the tables on reoffending, it's a glass half full or a glass half empty. To rehabilitate is a glorious goal, but this is not always possible. By letting out people who have not been rehabilitated, there is a high cost to the Canadian public. Statutory release forces prisons to let people out before they have even received the treatment the law suggests they be entitled to. By statutory release, not only are we imperilling citizens, but we are not fulfilling our promises to rehabilitate.
I'm not ignorant or insensible to the costs that prisoners bear.
