The Carceral Society: Canadian Edition

Huh, imagine that:

Canada's ombudsman for prisons is expected to deliver harsh criticism of the country's correctional service when he tables his annual report in Parliament on Monday.

Observers say Canada's prisons are tense places these days because of the government's get-tough-on-crime approach, which has resulted in overcrowding. With more people going into prison and fewer getting out, there's a shortage of jobs for inmates inside and a lack of rehabilitation programs.

"When you start squeezing people, they're going to push back," said Rick Sauve of Lifeline, a group that works with prisoners who are serving life sentences. "It's the pressure cooker that keeps building and building and building. It gets one little leak and, poof, it goes off, and my fear is that may start happening."

Of course, the populist-conservative response to troubles with prisons is usually "we don't have enough of them". I won't be surprised if Stephen Harper responds dismissively to any criticisms in the report, or else vows to build more prisons to deal with the problems, thus following the highly successful penal model of Canada's neighbours to the south.