Justice spending rising sharply as crime rates fall, budget watchdog warns

Overall justice spending increased by 23 per cent since 2002, according to the report, while crime rates fell by the same proportion. The analysis suggests that the most significant year-over-year increases in many areas of spending occurred after the Conservative government came into power in 2006.

The report sheds new light on the cost of the Harper government's tough-on-crime agenda, which has included dozens of bills on criminal justice in recent years and introduced a suite of new mandatory minimum sentences.

Real per capita criminal justice spending was relatively constant between 2002 and 2006, according to the analysis, hovering slightly below $400 per year. After 2006, per capita spending increased steadily and is now close to $480 per year.

While the report does not link specific laws to the spending increases, it confirms what many criminologists have long suspected: that policing and corrections spending is up significantly and that the provinces and territories are bearing the brunt of the costs.

The PBO limited its examination to four jurisdictions, Ontario, Qu�bec, British Columbia and Alberta, and found the largest spending increases came at the provincial policing level.

Between 2002 and 2012, provincial policing costs, provincial court costs and federal spending on corrections all increased by more than 40 per cent. Federal spending on policing increased by 53 per cent over the same time period.

Overall spending on the criminal justice system for all levels of government was just over $20-billion in 2011-2012.

The federal government has acknowledged that policing costs have increased dramatically in recent years. In January, the Department of Public Safety �hosted a conference on the economics of policing, where local police chiefs, criminologists and unions discussed options for keeping costs down at a time of growing fiscal restraint.

The federal government set aside $400 million in last month's federal budget to encourage provinces and territories to recruit more police officers, but that money may not be spent solely on new hires.

"Proculation" said
that's about 1.25% increase per year. not that bad when you consider most of the expenses are salaries.

The federal government has acknowledged that policing costs have increased dramatically in recent years. In January, the Department of Public Safety hosted a conference on the economics of policing, where local police chiefs, criminologists and unions discussed options for keeping costs down at a time of growing fiscal restraint.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews warned leaders of the country's police forces Wednesday that they need to "get ahead of the curve" in controlling the ballooning cost of maintaining safe streets and communities.

Toews hosted a mid-January meeting in Ottawa to focus on how to bring down policing costs, and emphasized the need for �efficiencies� in police services and community service models.
The meeting heard how in the last 10 years, police spending in Canada rose from $6 billion to $12 billion.