A great article just came off the Canadian Press wire. The upshot is that the Canadian government is ignoring the results of social science studies about crime and punishment. Here are some quoteable quotes:

Federal spending estimates indicate capital expenditures on prisons in Canada will increase by more than 40 per cent in 2010-11 to $329.4 million from $230.8 million this year, although the Conservative government has refused to publicly detail the costs of its criminal justice agenda.
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“The great appeal of mandatory minimum sentences is that they give politicians the appearance of doing something, of being seen to be doing something,” Craig Jones, the executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, said in a recent interview. “You must never underestimate the need for politicians to be seen to be doing something — even if, in some cases, it’s the wrong thing.”
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In a 2008 speech, Harper flatly denounced research-based justice policies, accusing the pedlars of such policies of trying to “pacify Canadians with statistics.”  “Your personal experiences and impressions are wrong, they say; crime is really not a problem. These apologists remind me of the scene from the Wizard of Oz when the wizard says, ‘Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
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More recently, Harper’s former chief of staff Ian Brodie told a McGill University forum last spring that informed criticism of the government’s justice agenda is a political gift: “It helped us tremendously to be attacked by this coalition of university types.”

Let’s take a look at what the “coalition of university types” is saying. Here are some conclusions from the Feb. 2010 issue of Criminological Highlights, published by the University of Toronto and financed in part by the Department of Justice (.pdf online):

The great majority of [competently carried out] studies point to a null or criminogenic [i.e. crime-producing] effect of the prison experience on subsequent offending. This… should, at least, caution against wild claims – at times found in ‘get tough’ rhetoric voiced in recent decades – that prisons have special powers to scare offenders straight.
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Though not all of the criminogenic effects of first time imprisonment were significant, there were no crime reducing effects of imprisonment that were significant, and only 9 of 64 comparisons between those imprisoned and not were in the direction of suggesting a crime reduction effect. It could be argued, therefore, that judges who send offenders to prison for the first time in circumstances in which alternatives to imprisonment are plausible are likely to be contributing to an increased crime rate.
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“Experienced practitioners, policy analysts, and researchers have long agreed that mandatory penalties in all their forms… are a bad idea” (p. 65). That “is why nearly every authoritative nonpartisan law reform organization that has considered the subject… [has] opposed enactment, and favoured repeal of mandatory penalties” (p. 66). Three justifications are offered for mandatory penalties: evenhandedness, transparency, and the prevention of crime. None withstands careful scrutiny.
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Canada’s remand population has been increasing in recent years at the same time that overall reported crime and violent crime have both been decreasing.… criminal justice decision makers are seldom criticized for being ‘tough’ but are subject to criticism if they are seen as responsible for the release of an accused who might, or does, commit an offence.

It is obvious why the government is ignoring these studies: in this struggle between reason and passion, to respect academic thought would preclude playing on the heartstrings of Canadians. It is also unfortunate that in this quest to conquer the polls with “tough on crime,” all of society loses.