Smart Justice Network
Jan 2, 2023 – Income inequality…
CBC News – Brock Wilson
Canada’s highest-paid CEOs make 246x the average worker, says new report – Report author calls inflation a contributing factor in the widening pay gap between workers and executives
This new report is rather startling ion its evidence that there is a considerable income gap that is influential in the continuing discrepancy in adequate liveable income for the average person. The report, from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is even more blunt: “In one workday, and less than a half hour into the new year — 27 minutes to be exact — Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs will have already earned the average worker’s annual salary, according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)… It translates to roughly $60,600 by 9:27 a.m. on Jan. 2, if you include Monday as a paid holiday, according to the report.” Outrageous, you say! Worse, the stats are for 2022 as we start 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-richest-ceo-average-salaries-1.7065191 Full report: CCPA – David MacDonald Canada’s new gilded age – CEO pay in Canada in 2022 https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/canada%E2%80%99s-new-gilded-age (A twenty-three page downloadable pdf) Related article: CBC News – Pete Evans (November 2023) This just in: The rich are getting richer – The poorest half of Canadian tax filers saw their incomes drop by $1,400, as gap between rich and poor widens https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/statscan-incomes-report-1.7025113 Read full report on line: https://monitormag.ca/reports/canadas-new-gilded-age/ Tweet from Alex Karakatasanis on news speak: “This is what you might call “fake cause” propaganda. CBS has no evidence that X caused Y but it benefits rich people to link them, so it uses “ahead of” to print a suggestion that if stated clearly would be a lie. This company clears over $1 billion in *profit* yearly.” https://x.com/equalityAlec/status/1740876051138629948?s=20 The offending CBAS News article: “Pizza Hut is set to lay off more than 1,200 delivery drivers in three California counties in the coming year, ahead of a new state law that boosts the fast-food minimum wage.” https://cbsn.ws/41zGeQp
- Y. Times – Katie Engelhart
I’ve Reported on Dementia for Years, and One Image of a Prisoner Keeps Haunting Me
The link is an enlightening perspective on the issue of elderly and ill incarcerated persons who are frequently without awareness of where they are or why they are there. A large number of them are people sentenced for teen-aged crime and known as Life without Parole or LWOP. “Between 1999 and 2016, the number of prisoners over 55 increased by 280 percent, according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts; over the same period, the number of incarcerated younger people grew by just 3 percent. This trend is largely attributed to “tough on crime” reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, which lengthened sentences and ensured that many more people would grow old and frail and then die behind prison walls… Incarcerated life is also thought to accelerate the aging process, such that many longtime prisoners appear more than a decade older than their chronological ages — and are considered “elderly” at 50 or 55. ” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/opinion/dementia-prisons.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
The International Centre for Criminal Law Reform (UBC – Allard)
Considering the Best Interests of the Child in Sentencing and Other Decisions Concerning Parents Facing Criminal Sanctions
The ICLLR offers a 52-page publication entitled Considering the Best Interests of the Child in Sentencing and Other Decisions Concerning Parents Facing Criminal Sanctions – An overview for Practionners (Hayli Millar, Yvon Dandurand, Vivienne Chin, Shawn Bayes, Megan Capp, Richard Fowler, Jessica Jahn, Barbara Pickering, and Allan Castle, Edited by Allan Castle; cf Resources page, especially) The issue is the impact of short term sentences on children, their upbringing and their well-being, all at risk for limited (and vengeful perhaps) return on the criminal law process as now practiced: “Children whose parents come into conflict with the law, and particularly those whose parents are incarcerated, experience tremendous stress and disruption in their lives that can affect their development and social adaptation. There is current momentum in British Columbia favouring reduction in short-term incarceration, particularly of Indigenous offenders, and implementing community-based alternatives that promote public safety and the successful reintegration of offenders.” https://icclr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/An-Overview-for-Practitioners.pdf?x73624
Death Penalty Information Center (US)
Florida Prosecutors Seek First Death Sentence Under New Child Sex Abuse Law
The state of Florida intends to ask for the death penalty for a case of child rape, the first since Governor DeSantis signed the law allowing the death penalty for the crime. The law can now be applied to all sex crimes against children. The bill was part of a second bill lowering the threshold for capital punishment. But the bill may also face serious challenge in the light of Supreme Court’s previous decisions around the death penalty for sex crimes: “The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that a death sentence for the rape of an adult woman that does not result in her death is an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. In 2008, the Supreme Court similarly ruled in Kennedy v. Louisiana that a law making the death penalty an option for the crime of raping a child was unconstitutional.” https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/florida-prosecutors-seek-first-death-sentence-under-new-child-sex-abuse-law Death Penalty Information Center (US): Alabama Schedules A Second Execution for Kenneth Smith, Using Nitrogen Gas for the First Time in U.S. History https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/alabama-schedules-a-second-execution-for-kenneth-smith-using-nitrogen-gas-for-the-first-time-in-u-s-history Tweet from Jeffrey Levin on private prisons (US): “Private prisons make us all less safe. Biden’s executive order ending this use of federal funds can be made permanent by re-electing Biden-Harris & securing a Congressional majority. Let’s make it happen!” https://x.com/jilevin/status/1742016650923102493?s=20
Ted Talks (US) – Kate Fahey
A crash course in making political change…
“You don’t need political power to make real change, says activist Katie Fahey. She tells the story of how she led a successful movement in Michigan to end gerrymandering — the practice of drawing district lines to favor one political party — and how it all started with a simple social media post.” Fahey brings the spotlight on the process used by politicians to re-draw the election districts to favour their own purposes and the potential of a determined community to correct the problem which distorts the whole political process – an independent citizen’s redistricting commission. https://www.ted.com/talks/katie_fahey_a_crash_course_in_making_political_change?user_email_address=404caadef7eb839fc77b1b04f0c251e1 (Fifteen-minute video with transcript included)