What Is Happening In Our Prisons?
EDITORIAL: A raise? When hell freezes
The problem with having a federal ombudsman for prisoners is that, well, he's the federal ombudsman for prisoners.
Which means he has to do something to earn his keep.
And since we don't execute, torture, beat or starve prisoners in Canada, the alleged injustices about which their ombudsman can complain are pretty limited.
Which is why, we suppose, federal ombudsman for prisoners Howard Sapers says convicts deserve an "enormous" pay raise.
Last month he said prisoners should be given access to computers inside their cells. Good grief. What's next?
Meanwhile, Correctional Service Canada says (of course) that it's studying a pay raise for convicts, including indexing it to inflation.
For crying out loud, when is this madness going to end? Since the cost of keeping a convict in prison is up to $110,000 a year per man and $150,000 per woman, we doubt taxpayers are in any mood to hike prison pay.
Sapers said their pay of up to $6.90 a day, which they use to buy treats such as cigarettes and chocolates, hasn't been raised in almost 20 years. So what?
The difference between convicts and law-abiding workers and taxpayers is that convicts don't have expenses for shelter and food.
Sapers' arguments in favour of the raise make no sense. He says hiking prison pay will stop prisoners borrowing money from other prisoners and the physical violence and mental harassment that can result.
How? That's like saying if you give a spendthrift convict who can't manage $30 a week $300 instead, he'll do a better job of staying out of the way of prison loan sharks. C'mon!
We'll consider supporting a pay hike for convicts after minimum wages across Canada are high enough to give law-abiding working stiffs a decent standard of living. But we are sick and tired -- along with, we suspect, most Canadians -- of this constant mollycoddling of criminals by our lax justice system, from the moment they're caught to the moment they typically get early parole from "Club Fed" prisons.
Enough is enough!
What taxpayers need is an ombudsman to protect them from our catch-and-release criminal justice system.
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