Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very important point in his very good question, in asking what our objective is. If our endgame is to hope to have safer communities with less crime, to reduce the rate recidivism and to reduce victimization, then clearly the answer is not a larger, permanent prison population.
We have been shown, not only in the United States, but also in England and other places, terrible failures. They are running from these disasters at 100 miles an hour. Even Texas, which was known for having the longest, toughest sentences anywhere, is now acknowledging that this experiment was a total disaster, and it is running the opposite way.
We know that having a large, permanent prison population is enormously expensive, creates more crime and creates more problems. Our objectives should be, wherever possible, to use the best techniques that we can see have been succeeding, not only here in Canada, but in other parts of the world; to stop victimization before it occurs; to make sure that when a young person begins to turn down that dark path we intervene and make sure they do not continue on it.
I mentioned something the other day, and it bears mentioning again because it was something that was most telling to me. I went through some of the worst neighbourhoods in this country in Regina with the former Chief of Police, Cal Johnston. Cal pointed out the different points at which there were young people who were beginning to head down dark paths. We could see the shambles they were living in: homes without heat, homes without sewage systems, and homes in which, in the wintertime, they would have to put tarps around an oven in order to stay warm as they slept. The children would then go to school with no food, from a single parent-home in which the parent did not have the tools to give a child the education they needed. We see that and yet we are surprised when those children begin to turn toward a life of crime.
There is a way to stop crime. It requires balance and intelligence. We have to look at what really works and what really does not.