Mr. Speaker, I am sure it was not by design on the part of the hon. member to get in a mini speech while asking a question.
He cites a 1981 American study. That would put it at about a 25 year old study, in a different country, a different legal environment, and a different sentencing environment. I question the usefulness and value of any kind of study such as that.
My preference in terms of real evidence is to cite page 5 from the Library of Parliament's legislative summary on Bill C-10 which says at paragraph 3:
Mandatory minimum sentences are a subset of criminal penalties generally. Accordingly, studies on the overall effect of prison sentences on crime rates and recidivism may be useful. One Canadian meta-analysis found little difference in general recidivism rates, regardless of length of incarceration or whether the offender was given a prison or community sanction. In fact, prison produced slight increases in recidivism.
Surprise, we will end up with more people in jail for longer. That is the result of dumb legislation.
In a follow-up meta-analysis focusing on juvenile, female and minority offenders, it was tentatively concluded that increasingly lengths of incarceration were associated with slightly greater increases in recidivism. Not only are we putting the general public into prison longer, we are actually exaggerating some of the social fissures in our own society among juveniles, females and minorities.
That is just brilliant public policy. I appreciate that the hon. member does not like to deal with facts. The government opposite just hates facts when they interfere with its propaganda. There is no crime wave in this country. In fact, the crime statistics show that crime is actually declining in this country, including my own community.