House arrest better than prison
Cariboo Press -- Kootenay Western Star
March 14, 2008
Opinion -- Chloe Sage

Editor's Note: The following letter was sent to MP Ron Cannan with a copy forwarded to the Kootenay Western Star.

Dear MP Ron Cannan:

In response to your letter. You know, I was annoyed when I received the first flyer from Kelowna-Lakes MP Ron Cannan in the mail. It read "the Liberals want to take away the $1,200 Universal Child Care Subsidy. The Conservatives want to keep it." It asked me to check a box with 'Yes' or 'No' to keeping the Child Care Subsidy. I thought "is this a trick question?" So I promptly drew horns on both the Liberal and the Conservative politicians heads. Wrote "Give us Universal Child Care that actually has meaning. $100 a month doesn't even cover five per cent of child care costs for a working family. Thanks for nothing Stephen." And sent it through the mail slot.

But then came the second flyer. …What the hell are these people thinking. If you cut social services more people have to steal to make it through the day. A large percentage of people who steal are addicted to drugs and trying to keep from getting dope sick.

Now you want to send them to jail where there are no needle exchanges, no treatment and nothing to come out of the joint to. Twenty per cent of people who use drugs began using in prison. Twenty-one per cent of all HIV infections among Vancouver injection drug users have been acquired in prison.

Wow, this sounds really expensive. I thought Conservatives were into fiscal responsibility? Let's look at the costs to our society. For every prisoner, it costs $250 a day to keep them in prison, that's around $90,000 a year. If they become infected with HIV or Hepatitis C in prison, then there's the $3,000 to $6,000 a month in costs for medical expenses. If it costs this much money to end the house-arrest program then why would people want to do it. Hmm, someone has to be profiting from sending these so called "serious criminals" to prison.

Could it be that we are moving towards a profit driven Private Industrial Prison System like the States? …