Mr. Speaker, I would draw my colleague's attention to a report in the United States entitled “Unlocking America”. The top nine criminologists produced the report and essentially said that the policies of get tough on crime in the United States were totally counterproductive.
The United States has about two million people incarcerated at any particular time and the report shows a racial basis for who is incarcerated. The report says that one-third of all black males and one-sixth of Latino males versus 1 in 17 white males will go to prison during their lives.
Why would the neo-conservative government copy the tactics of another neo-conservative government when it has been clearly shown that they do not work? When the Conservatives talk about producing safety, they actually are making things more unsafe.