It oughta be a crime

The federal Cons apparently aren't the only Canadian politicians more interested in looking tough on time than actually preserving and strengthening measures which help to reduce it, as B.C.'s Lib government is planning to scrap its provincial parole board:

The British Columbia government plans to get rid of the provincial parole board and turn over all parole responsibility to the national board, the province's solicitor general says.

The move will mean offenders serving less than two years in provincial jails will have to wait longer to apply for parole, removing an important safety net, said the chairperson of the B.C. Parole Board.

When the federal board takes over next April, those serving jail sentences of six months or less won't even be able to apply for parole.

Currently offenders in B.C. can ask for parole in as early as 90 days and the board monitors their behaviour until their sentence is complete.

"I believe it's a good parachute," said Tracey Thompson, chairperson of the B.C. Parole Board.

"To me if someone walks out of jail at the end of their sentence they still have all the issues they walked in with. They still need some support to parachute them back into the community."

Solicitor General John Les announced the boards would be merging after legislation is passed in next spring's sitting.

He said the added parole wait for some offenders would be the only difference caused by the change.

"There might be a few individuals who, as a result of that, serve a slightly longer portion of their sentence. Personally I don't think that's a bad thing," Les said Friday.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't provide any comparative perspective on the relative costs involved. But it seems far too likely that the added cost of keeping inmates in provincial jails longer will easily outweigh the apparent $700,000 saving from the elimination of the parole board (not to mention that some of the parole board functions are merely being uploaded rather than cut out altogether). And that's without mentioning the cost of increased crime resulting from inmates receiving less support in reintegrating.

In sum, the B.C. government is setting out to pay more for worse results out of its criminal justice system, solely for the satisfaction its Solicitor General apparently gets from the prospect of increasing the time spent in his province's jails. No wonder the Harper government doesn't seem to have a problem cooperating from a federal standpoint.