Monday, January 12, 2009

Decoding Harper Speak: Youth Crime Edition

This may well become an ongoing series, as there's certainly plenty of material. Today's edition of Stephen Harper Speak, Your Guide to Decoding Canada's Once New Government, we focus on youth crime.

In Harper Speak, Unmitigated Failure actually means Clear Success. For example, when Harper says Canada's revamped young offender laws have been an unmitigated failure, what he's actually saying is that they've been doing a fantastic job.

Canada's revamped young offender laws - described by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as an ``unmitigated failure'' -have in fact been a clear success in keeping adolescents out of court and custody without increasing youth crime, concludes a new academic analysis.

The three authors warn against the Harper government pursuing a promise to toughen the Youth Criminal Justice Act, arguing it won't enhance public safety, but it will cost provincial governments significantly more money to punish young people by incarcerating them.

``Despite the rhetorical support of the new Conservative minority government for `toughening' the act, the government and Parliament may still realize that sending more youth into custody would increase the cost of the youth justice services without increasing public safety,'' said the analysis.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that realization, analysis authors. Because for all their numbers and reasoning and facts, they've failed to analyze the undeniable truthiness of Harper's views on youth crime. He don't need no facts that show the Liberal legislation is a success, because he knows in his gut that its an unmitigated failure.

Or make what he's feeling in his gut is just Laureen's taco casserole surprise.

One or the other.

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2 comments:

Gayle said...

Do you have something against using fear mongering to win votes?

Pearce said...

well when you've got tough-on-crime advocates the media spreading misinformation on crime statistics, it's no wonder thinkers like this pop up, eating the Conservative fear soup for breakfast.