Federal Prison Inmates' Wish List
Canada's Corrections Ombudsman Goes Off the Rails
Canada has had an ombusdman in place charged with investigating federal prison inmates' complaints.
News Link: News Nation
Being a forward-looking country with a tradition of upholding human rights, Canada has had an ombusdman in place charged with investigating federal prison inmates' complaints. The current ombudsman, Correctional Investigator for Corrections Canada Howard Sapers, recently issued a report recommending:
- minimum wage for inmates
- index of the wage to inflation
- provision of income tax deductions, unemployment insurance, and other standard employee deductions such as Canada Pension Plan contributions.
Sapers argued that inmates are underpaid for work they perform inside the walls. That’s probably true, even when their three squares a day and their residence in Canada's most secure, gated communities is factored in.
With the extra money, perhaps inmates could pick up some of the cost of their exclusive accommodations.
Then, too, governments will be able to claw back some of these wages, in many cases as much as 25-30% per year. Law abiding Canadians are among the highest taxed citizens in the world. Why shouldn't lawbreakers enjoy the same right to be pillaged?
Sapers has a case, well, sort of. However, then he let his academic criminology background and his experience as Executive Director of the Alberta John Howard Society kick in.
He opined that a reasonable wage would significantly undermine the economic pinions of prison subculture. Prisoners would no longer be at the mercy of ruthless prison loan sharks. They would no longer have to borrow to purchase items such as cigarettes, candy, toiletries, coffee, and all of those other things that make doing time a tad more bearable.
In reality, increased disposable income will strengthen the so-called subculture. First off, it's not the sundries, comestibles, and puffables that drive up loan shark debt; it's drugs and gambling.
In some federal prisons, the daily gambling handle is so high, bets are routinely laid off to street bookmakers. That more money will stimulate more gambling before it stimulates higher candy bar sales should be seen as a certainty. Also a certainty, gamblers lose more often than they win.
Drug revenue and debt inside the walls makes gambling look like chump change. Access will increase, usage will increase, and debt will increase.
One gets the feeling that inmate committees presented Sapers a basketful of the sweetest cherries they could pick -- sad tales of cold-blooded loan sharks, tragic stories of vulnerable young inmates fallen on hard times for lack of a few dollars more. Sapers naively thought the inmates had gifted him the entire cherry tree which, apparently, he's decided to try to nurture rather than cut down.
On the plus side, with Canada Pension Plan contributions, long-term prisoners may be able to go from prison to paroles with pensions. Eligible to collect employment insurance when they are released, younger ex-inmates will have a stable income while they scope out criminal opportunities -- not all of them will, of course, but enough.
By: Art Montague
