Prison Expenses Nearly Double Since 2006

Come now, CBC and Public Works. Everyone has to trim that five per cent from their budget if we're going to afford these Hep-C-ridden prisons.

The cost of the Canadian prison system has nearly doubled in the last five years, with that number expected to rise even further as the Conservative government embarks on its plan to build new prisons. Since the Tories first won their minority government in 2006, the cost of prisons has grown from $1.6 billion a year to just under $3 billion in 2010-2011. A chunk of that spending is the cost of about 6,000 corrections workers hired since 2006, while some $517 million of this year's budget goes toward prison construction, as some 4,500 extra inmates are expected to be locked up by 2014 due to new Tory sentencing laws (despite all signs pointing toward crime going down across the country, but whatever). Oh, and there are also skyrocketing health-care costs, due in part to the fact that as much as 30 per cent of inmates are Hepatitis-C positive, which is just pitiful and obviously a reason for locking up more citizens.