Does giving someone a longer sentence increase their chances of rehabilitation? 

That's the question local lawyer Talon Regent is trying to answer for local residents. Recently, Regent took to social media to share an article about the topic of justice vs. punishment and it quickly exploded with comments from people in Moose Jaw and around the province. 

According to Regent recidivism or the act of reoffending doesn't become less likely the longer someone is behind bars.

"In fact, as we see from Norway, Canada, Sweden, and the United States... the United States punishes more harshly than most countries and they have a recidivism rate of 76% in the first five years and of those 55% are in the first two years."

He believes that we're lucky to live in Canada, saying he feels we have one of the best justice systems in the world. He noted that we have positive statistics when it comes to recidivism and rates of incarceration.

Denouncing and deterrence are two options laid out in the criminal code as ways to get someone to stop committing crimes continuously, but Regent also added one that is getting more popular with time.

"Rehabilitation has started to grow as a more and more common focus for our justice system because of all of the science that's being produced. All of the studies that are coming out from universities, from academics, from Ministries of Justice from around the world, they're showing that by rehabilitating offenders, by getting to the heart of why they're offending, we can help prevent it in the future."

One comment made suggested that if a judge gave a harsh sentence to a youth, that would stop them from committing crimes as an adult. Regent said that isn't true. 

"We can't just punish kids as harshly as we punish adults because they don't have that intellectual development yet. We need to associate the amount of punishment with the person's moral culpability, but the moral culpability is tied with a person's ability to understand how they're hurting people around them, and their ability to understand the consequences."

He noted that the same rules would apply for anyone with cognitive delays, mental health issues, and various other factors. 

The Government of Saskatchewan's Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Corrections and Policing branch also weighed in, saying determining what they submit to a judge during sentencing is a lengthy and thought out process. 

"Sentencing is an individualized process. When making sentencing submission to the court, prosecutors take into account many different factors including the circumstances of the offence, prior criminal history, the impact on the victim and the personal circumstances of the accused so they can recommend a sentence to the court that both holds an offender accountable for their actions and provides opportunities for successful rehabilitation. It is a fundamental principle of our justice system that a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence committed and the degree of responsibility of the individual accused being sentenced. Ultimately, it is up to the court to determine the appropriate sentence after weighing all of those factors, sentencing precedents from Superior Courts and the principles and purposes of sentencing as set out in the Criminal Code."