(That's in Canada for all you UC Santa Cruz Community Studies majors.)
You won't believe this one, folks. The Ottawa Citizen has this warm and fuzzy report on the efforts of Canada's prisons to raise cultural awareness within its, uh, confines.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Regional+jail+program+tries+ease+religious+cultural+tension/6752767/story.html
The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services is looking for someone to provide “multi-cultural community program and liaison services” for about 100 male and female inmates of various ethnic origins at the Innes Road jail.
"Uh wunnerful, ah wunnerful, ah"
The search comes at the same time that the ministry is involved in a human-rights dispute with the jail’s former superintendent, who alleges she was fired two years ago after raising concerns about systemic discrimination against inmates.
Asked whether the program is in response to any of the complaints made to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario by the former superintendent, Asfia Sultan, ministry spokesman Brent Ross replied that, “while we are unable to comment specifically on matters that are before a tribunal, we can say that this program was created to respond to a growing demand and an increasing Muslim population.”
The idea for the program was raised two years ago with Muslim volunteers and the Somali Mothers, a group of women whose sons were detained or had been in trouble with police, according to the ministry.
"Somali?"
As part of the liaison services, there’s a requirement to “assist Muslim inmates, non-Muslim inmates, correctional staff and management in developing awareness and understanding of both cultural and religious diversity within the correctional facility.”
Let's set aside the humor for a moment and look at this seriously. First of all, if you are superintendent of a jail or jails, who do you complain about discrimination to?
Answer: Yourself.
Second....
"About one-third of inmates at the jail identify themselves as Muslim,...."
At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, Canada, like the US has a lot of immigrants, and I believe that for the most part, the country has benefited from their immigrants as have we. But if one-third of a jail's inmates are immigrants, then I will step out on a limb here and venture that you have an immigration problem. It's not that you have immigration per se, rather it's that you are not exercising proper control over who is allowed to enter your country and who is not. So the question begs-why not correct the problem?
At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, Canada, like the US has a lot of immigrants, and I believe that for the most part, the country has benefited from their immigrants as have we. But if one-third of a jail's inmates are immigrants, then I will step out on a limb here and venture that you have an immigration problem. It's not that you have immigration per se, rather it's that you are not exercising proper control over who is allowed to enter your country and who is not. So the question begs-why not correct the problem?
Now we are back to political correctness, aren't we?
"Uhhh.........yeaaaaah."
2 comments:
To make your point stick, you must first examine whether America's jails tended to be disproportionately filled with immigrants in the 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900's, 1910's, 1920s... I would bet that they were, but its your thesis, so I'm not going to research it for you. It is one of the bases you need to cover to sustain your analysis.
Countries don't generally import criminals, but when a country attracts immigrants, they're part of the mix. American industry wanted Irish labor, and some rough characters came along, wanted Italian labor, and some Cosa Nostra came along, etc.
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