Toronto's prison system is becomming overloaded and a waste of tax dollars says Toronto Star Journalist Jim Rankin, yesterday.
"It's just easy to build a prison. We're spending a lot of money on police. That's more police and more salaries," Rankin told a lecture hall of journalism students at Ryerson University.
Students listened to how the award winning journalist developed the Star's web feature Crime and Punishment.
The project shows for approximately every prisoner in jail the federal government spends $250 a day. And the province spends $160.
His work maps communities with the highest incacerations.
"It's where single mothers live. It's where high rates of diabetes occurr. It's where they have the lowest levels of eductaion."
Salaries for lawyers, courts, judges, police and maximum security prisons could be spent on other social services.
"We havem't put more social workers in schools. Instead we're putting more police officers."
ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION
· Reduce poverty and school dropout rates.
· Invest in comprehensive childhood development initiatives.
· Make housing affordable.
· Increase access to health care and rehabilitative programs.
· Reduce incarceration rates, partly through alternatives to jail, and direct savings to neighbourhoods with a high number of offenders.
Source: thestar.com
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