No let-up in Saskatchewan’s high incarceration rate – Regina Leader-Post
Saskatchewan continues to jail people at one of the highest rates in Canada – and people of aboriginal ancestry are bearing the brunt. Statistics Canada numbers released Wednesday indicate Saskatchewan’s incarceration rate in provincial correction centres was 195 for every 100,000 adults in 2013-14.
Manitoba’s rate was higher, at 242.5. Meanwhile, the national average was 86.53.
These statistics echo those cited in a report on rising incarceration rates written last autumn by Jason Demers, who teaches classes in criminology at the University of Regina.
He blamed the federal Conservative government for its “get-tough” policy of longer sentences and giving judges less discretion in sentencing, plus the ongoing North American war on drugs and the sad socioeconomic lot of Aboriginal peoples for filling provincial and federal correctional facilities to the point of overcrowding, with double-bunking and the wholesale conversion of gyms and classrooms into accommodation for inmates.
Read More: http://www.leaderpost.com/Saskatchewan+high+incarceration+rate/10996212/story.html
