I apologize. I will go more slowly.
My remarks are directed to the question of whether or not incarcerating serious or violent offenders is effective in protecting the public.
My reading of the criminological research suggests that imprisoning serious offenders is indeed effective; that increasing the number of offenders who are incarerated acts to reduce violent crime rates. This effect is especially pronounced with homicide rates. This research supports the wisdom of imprisoning those who have been convicted of serious offences; that is, those punishable by prison terms of ten years or longer.
Some Canadians have a bias against anything American, but to reject American research studies simply because they are American runs the risk of ignoring potentially effective solutions to serious Canadian problems; thus I believe responsible Canadians should examine U.S. justice policies in order to emulate their successes and to avoid their failures. The U.S., being so much larger than we are, simply has a wider and deeper bank of information from which we can learn.
The facts indicate that violent crime rates have fallen faster in the U.S. than they have in Canada. I've had some charts distributed that illustrate this. Between 1992 and 2004, for example, the overall violent crime rate fell 38% in the U.S., but only 13% in Canada. This precipitous drop is even more evident in homicide rates. During the same time period, the homicide rate in the U.S. fell by 41%, while in Canada it only fell 26%.
Criminologists have been studying this drop, which was completely unexpected, with some attention over the past decade. The results of this attention are now becoming clearer. There are literally hundreds of studies. I will limit my discussion to the most important ones.
Especially illuminating is the research conducted by Marvel and Moody, who are among the most respected criminologists in the world. In their time series studies, they found strong results at the national level affirming that expanding prison populations is convincingly tied to reducing violent crime rates.
Marvel and Moody's 1997 research demonstrates that for every 10% increase in the prison population, homicide rates drop 13%. In their studies, of course, they controlled for a wide range of other variables, such as inflation, unemployment, demographic trends, socio-economic factors of a wide variety.
Marvel and Moody found similar but weaker relationships for assault and robbery. They speculate that this weaker statistical relationship is most likely due to the lower quality of arrest data for crimes other than homicide.
Marvel and Moody's results were quite robust, and their research findings have been replicated by other researchers. One study in particular, by Kovandzic and his colleagues in 2004, deserves mention. They not only confirmed Marvel and Moody's earlier findings but also examined the effect on violent crime rates when offenders get out of prison. They found that there was no evidence of a significant positive relationship between prison releases and homicide rates.
Many researchers have observed that prisons are expensive. That's true; however, who ultimately bears the cost of crime is a question of more importance than the cost itself. Yes, prisons cost taxpayers more than does probation or house arrest, but the costs of criminal violence are paid for by the victims—their lives blighted, the lives of husbands, wives, or children lost to criminal violence.
When serious offenders are allowed to escape serious jail time, they are free to commit more violent crimes. Individual Canadians bear these costs.
To take only one example, Jane Creba, who was killed in Toronto on Boxing Day last year, might still be alive had the previous government acted to keep serious offenders in jail longer. Other examples of questionable sentencing decisions are frequently reported in the media.
Research in both the U.S. and Canada suggest that those in social minorities are the victims of violent crime at higher rates than other citizens; thus it follows that increased prison terms will be especially effective in reducing victimization rates among minority members. In Canada, aboriginal victims disproportionately bear the costs of violent crime; thus aboriginal people will be among the primary beneficiaries of a program that incarcerates serious offenders.
Before I conclude, I would like to say a few words about the tendency of some people to refuse to believe statistical studies that do not conform to their previous beliefs. Such a position is buttressed by the cynical claim that statisticians can obtain any results they wish by simply massaging the data.
Such cynicism justifies laziness and ignorance. Certainly, liars and sophists use statistics. Liars misuse words, too, but that does not mean we should give up on language.
In conclusion, despite what you may hear from special interest groups who cherry-pick data, the criminological research is quite clear: longer prison terms for serious or violent offenders has been important in the dramatic fall in violent crime in the U.S. These results support the logic behind Bill C-9, that of incarcerating those who have been convicted of serious offences.
Thank you for your attention.