To the degree to which there's evidence—it's not very strong evidence, but it is significant evidence—it would be reduced by....
Professor Paul Gendreau of St. Thomas University shows the degree to which there's a correlation. The correlation is that longer time spent in prison increases recidivism. The notion is that prison is a school for crime. It tends to reinforce anti-social values. It tends to disengage the person from community supports and responsibilities that actually support making them more likely to succeed.
But I could also say that we spent last week—“we” being those in criminal justice—at a major conference here in Ottawa sponsored by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada on what works with the reintegration of high-risk offenders. And we're talking about high risk here; we're not talking about the average federal prisoner, even.
I would just say that in the two days of that conference there was no one who ever suggested that sentencing was a solution. There's no one who ever suggested that imprisonment had achieved anything.
At the same time, there was all sorts of evidence presented, time and again, of studies and programs that had actually reduced reoffending by very serious offenders by 50%.
We have the potential to do things that make a real difference and have a real impact on real people. My whole argument is, we have to make a choice. Let's put our resources into the things for which there's solid evidence that something works.