I'll be very quick and to the point.
It seems to me we can cut through all of these disputes by making a very strong distinction between violent crime and non-violent crime or property crime. My own sense--and I picked this up over the years from talking to many people, including the hundreds of students I have coming through each year--is that there isn't an appetite in Canada to incarcerate people for stealing a pizza. I think that's the fundamental difference between the United States and Canada. They incarcerate for property crimes, as Professor Waller was just noting.
I think there is very strong support, certainly from me and many others, for incarcerating people who are violent, who are willing to commit murder or rape--or sexual assault, as it's now called--because that's considered absolutely unacceptable, no excuse, full stop. So we incarcerate violent people, but we should not be incarcerating non-violent people, because the return on investment is terrible.