Parliamentary Budget Officer Predicts Stiff Price Tag Because of Tougher Sentencing Laws

Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page today released a report that estimates the additional costs of the federal government's Truth in Sentencing Act.

The Act amended the Criminal Code to limit the credit prisoners receive for any time spent in pre-sentencing custody ("credit for time served").

According to Page, the Act will mean that:

• Inmates will spend more time in custody
• Many convicts will have to be transferred to federal prisons
• Many people who might have been directly released into community supervision will instead be sent to correctional facilities

And that will require building new federal and provincial prisons, and adding new services.

Page estimates that the annual costs of correctional services would more than double by 2015-16, from $4.4 billion to $9.5 billion. As well, he concludes that responsibility for funding the majority of those costs would shift from the federal government to the provinces.

Background:

• Legislative Summary - Bill C-25: Truth in Sentencing Act (Library of Parliament, revised 25 January 2010)
• Budget officer sounds fiscal alarm on Tory sentencing law (The Globe and Mail, June 22, 2010)
• Tory crime bill to cost extra $618M per year, report finds (Toronto Star, June 22, 2010)
• Watchdog says feds will spend $1.8B on prisons (CTV News, June 22, 2010)
• Sentencing act to cost billions: report (CBC News, June 22, 2010)