Minimum sentences do not work, just look south for that. All it does is over crowd jails. I can also see more judges letting people "walk" too.Ottawa will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new prisons to house the extra people convicted under the Tory government's proposed gun laws, the justice minister says.
On Tuesday, Vic Toews told the Commons justice committee, which has been considering the bill, that he expects about 270 extra convicts each year once the laws have been in place for five years.
Toews estimated it would cost $246 million to build prison spaces to accommodate the extra criminals and $40 million extra to maintain the new areas.
The Conservative's tougher gun laws provide mandatory minimum sentences for a range of crimes involving firearms. They run from using a gun in gang-related violence to carrying a loaded weapon in a car to breaking and entering for the purpose of stealing guns. The sentences get higher for repeat offenders.
Critics of the anti-crime bill say statistics suggest mandatory minimum sentences do little to deter crime.
Bloc Québécois committee member Réal Ménard challenged Toews to deliver Canadian studies showing the measures would produce a drop in crime.
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