Saturday, March 17

The past few days have been the worst yet. Since I got here, I've been putting a lot of effort into a few specific things: my health, a daily routine, responding to mail, working on the blog and other projects. Those things have been keeping me pretty grounded and okay. And now, one by one, they have all been dealt some pretty serious blows.

First, I got sick. I probably brought this upon myself by writing in a couple of letters how crappy it would be to get sick in here. "Knock on cardboard," I joked, "Knock on paper bag, that hasn't happened yet." Hah hah. A few days later I come down with the unit 2F cold, waking up in the middle of the night with a headache I could feel behind my eyes, in my ears and into my teeth.

This post is not intended to be a blind celebration of the police. Let’s not pretend as though the police are not largely representative of white male power and authority. But that does not mean I am anti-criminalization or anti-state. As feminists and as women, we need the state on our side.

With last week's Senate approval of Bill C-10, Canada is close to becoming the most regressive Western democracy on criminal justice. That unenviable position has most recently been occupied by the United States. But even though some of the most conservative Republicans are now arguing against over-incarceration, Canada continues to pursue that objective.

Americans have recently recognized that incarcerating 2.3 million people does not reduce the crime rate. Consequently, state after state has rolled back mandatory minimum sentences, draconian penalties, harsh parole eligibility and so on. Canada, on the contrary, is implementing all of these, plus mean-minded pardon and international prisoner transfer provisions.