Mr. Speaker, that study, which was conducted by the U.S. attorney general in 1999, came to two conclusions. First, after looking into the history of 300,000 prisoners, some of whom came from places where there was a “three strikes and you go to jail for a long time” rule, and others from places where there was no such rule, they realized that there was no effect on the recidivism rate.
However, what they observed was that, in some places, the longer the sentence, the higher the risk of reoffending. They found a correlation. Once we accept the fact that people who commit crimes are still people, that we cannot get rid of them and that we have to work on them, rehabilitation becomes the obvious option.