We can never lose sight of who has suffered the harm and the loss here. If we look at the issues and principles of sentencing, we can see that this is about reparation of harm to victims and to the community at large, but it's also about the accountability and responsibility of the offender.
I am going to use my line about a longer-term lens. I'll use one example from the United States, where people can understand that people might not have the ability to make an immediate payment.
With this legislation, the amendment would allow people to do community service and to give back to their communities. I recognize that some provinces may have to look at how they are doing that.
My one example from the United States is the federal inmate financial responsibility program. It's voluntary. Over the last 10 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of inmates participating in that and the moneys raised.
So I think that sometimes.... I hesitate to use one meeting with a group of offenders, but when I actually met with offenders on one occasion, they told me that they don't have a mechanism, that they want to contribute back, so part of that rehabilitation for some is to do that in their corrections plan. So our recommendation is in the report, Shifting the Conversation, and it's looking at multiple ways that we can look for involvement and in society supporting...because, really, if you want to talk about a balanced criminal justice system, it's one that also recognizes the rights and the needs of and the supports for victims of crime.
I'll just say I agree with your comment about prevention. There is an entire continuum out here. It starts with prevention. When that doesn't work, it's early intervention, and when that doesn't work it's enforcement, and then we're into the criminal justice system. They're all important. It's not an either-or here.
But we can never forget that for the victims it's not a balance right now. We need to rebalance that. We need to ensure that victims have those supports in place and can deal with the aftermath of that crime. That's what victims struggle with. They understand that people are coming back into the community and they don't want them to reoffend.
But what they can't understand is why they don't have a lot of these supports and a lot of the rights in place. That's what I think this is a positive step towards.