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Jail's record has been less than super to date

Letter to the Editor
www.simcoe.com
Mar. 11, 2003

After hearing very few comments from people who are in favour of the cost-cutting measures at the 'super jail,' and that inmates deserve to starve for their crimes, and should be grateful for the opportunity to do so, I felt compelled to write.

Inmates who are serving sentences for their crimes are sent to jail as a punishment. They are not in jail to be mistreated.

You cannot expect people to come out of a correctional institution where they have been treated as profit-producing units, to be rehabilitated. If you lock people up and treat them inhumanely, then logically and statistically, they will be released into society in worse shape ... than when they were first incarcerated.

If you lock people up and treat them inhumanely, then they will be released into society in worse shape than when they were first incarcerated.

The Utah-based Management and Training Corporation Canada charges the Ontario government $75 per day per inmate. When you figure in what MTC has to pay for heat, hydro, laundry and the salaries of office, medical and correctional staff, that does not leave much funding to pay for food, vocational training, anger management, substance and addiction counselling, and all the other programs that are necessary to assist an inmate in their rehabilitation.

MTC is a for-profit corporation and its mandate is to make money. If that means saving money by cost cutting on food or counselling, then that is what it will do. MTC also saves an incredibly large sum of money by not paying business taxes.

The current government of Ontario gave MTC a sweetheart deal to operate this facility, and both the government and MTC are doing everything in their power to make this "experiment" in "cost-savings" appear successful.

After all, an election will have to be called eventually.

Violet Cameron Keith, Midland