On Sep 14, 7:07*pm, Dave Smith > wrote:
> John Kane wrote:
>
> > Try spending money on programs to rehabilitate prisonners, rather than
> > warehousing them. *Include real vocational training.
>
> You live in Ontario John, so you know there is a decent education
> system. it is i\one of the best in the world. *But there is not much
> point in educating too many people to post secondary levels if there are
> not jobs available for them. You end up with people who won't accept low
> end jobs because they aren't good enough for them.

I'd disagree. At it's best it is very good but there is something
wrong with it when the dropout rate is as high as it is. I also find
that we are educating people not because many jobs need the education
but because employers are demanding credientials even if they are not
needed. However that's another topic.

I was referring more to the USA and its immenses numbers of prisoners
but the education level in Canadian (including Ontario ) prisions is
abismally low.

I'm doing this from memory (a Queen's public lecture a year ago) but
I think in the Federal prison population has about 20% high school
graduates but for the new cohort of prisoners (post Mike Harris'
welfare cuts[1]) the high school graduate rate is about 10% or less.
A huge number of prisioners are almost completely illiterate and
currently the Federal system spends almost nothing on serious
educational efforts. Also IIRC getting into a drug treatment program
in the Federal system is extremely difficult if it is at all
possible.

Steven Truscot came out of Kinston Pen (or where ever it was
Warkworth?) with solid trademan's training as a millwright. Now
prisoners are finding themselves in a kind of limbo, even those who
have been able to get into some training programs. some who are 1,2
even 3 years into an apprenticeship have been left hanging with the
programs cancelled and no papers.

One of the things that helps a prisioner go straight after getting out
is an ability to support himself/herself legitimately. When we
warehouse people with few or no marketable skills and don't train them
and don't do anytning to get them off drugas we're just asking for
hgh recidivism rates.

> >> Too bad there isn't an unpopulated island somewhere where they could all be
> >> shipped.
>
> > Australia is not accepting new immigrants. Oh and the Brits still have
> > crime and welfare problems
>
> FWIW, Britain only started sending prisoners to Australia after the
> American Revolution because up to that point, they had been sending them
> to the American colonies.

I was trying to be polite to our American contingent.

[1] Primier of Ontario whose famous "Common Sense Revoluton" did
immense damage to the province. And the worst of it was that some of
the "simiplistic" ideas were reasonable. The implementation was a cock-
up worthy of rating up there with the Katrina plans.