Prime Time Crime
(Published in the Chilliwack Times week of Feb. 21, 2011)
Pay me now or pay me later
By John Martin
One of the most ingenious marketing campaigns of all time came from Fram automotive products. Their slogan hit home like few other marketing strategies before or since. A mechanic would be holding a trademark orange oil filter and warn his customer, "You can pay me now or pay me later."
The message was blunt and wholly effective. A reasonable expenditure today could save a ton of repair bills down the line. Getting people to purchase services and products before there's actually a problem has always been a tough call for the ad business. Fram's slogan, often imitated, was brilliant.
Sadly, the message appears to be all but lost on critics of the federal government's proposed crime legislation. Once again the government has tabled tough-on-crime laws that would establish mandatory minimum sentences for specified drug crimes; particularly those involving weapons and organized crime.
The proposal has been around in one form or another since 2008. It's known as Bill S-10 and as usual, critics are howling and screaming in opposition to it.
The only thing different this time is that the soft-on-crime, hug-a-thug crowd is complaining about the cost of building more prisons and keeping some offenders locked up. It seems they figured out that going to bat to keep offenders in the community rather than behind bars wasn't much of a vote-getter. So now they're confining their opposition to the financial consequences.
Surely there's not a person out there so naive as to not concede it will take considerable capital to house more offenders and in some cases, for longer periods of time.
But let's be honest here and consider the current alternative. In thousands of cases, we are simply enabling chronic offenders to continue committing more offences. This involves the significant expenditure of further policing and court costs.
Those who advocate for repeat offenders being left in the community to engage in further criminality never give any thought to the resources required to respond to ongoing, habitual offending.
Sure, it costs money to incarcerate an offender. But let's consider that expense in light of the money pit we dig ourselves by having to deal with these people over the years and even decades.
It is not uncommon at all for offenders with more than 50 convictions and hundreds of arrests to be under some form of community supervision and merrily committing several new crimes each and every day. Do the critics of Bill S-10 actually believe none of this has a price tag?
Thankfully, it appears the general public has figured it out and is solidly behind the government's anti-crime measures--as evidenced by the Tories running away with the lead in one poll after another.
It's really quite simple--we can invest in public safety now and take select offenders out of circulation so they can't commit more crimes. Or, as some would prefer, we can save those prison expansion funds and maintain the never-ending cycle of revolving door justice.
That's about it--we can pay now, or pay later. Just like the guy in the Fram commercial warned us.
John Martin is a Criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley and can be contacted at John.Martin@ucfv.ca