we don't care about facts, crime edition

If only the Harper Government^TM weren't determined to waste our tax dollars on prison-building and useless mandatory sentencing, while telling us we can't afford to maintain decent spending levels for universal health insurance. If only they cared about facts.

New poll results show the public is abandoning a stubborn belief that crime is on the rise, bringing public opinion into alignment with a 20-year trend of declining crime rates.

The long-standing disconnect between public fears and reality has confounded criminologists and fuelled federal get-tough policies.

However, the Environics Focus Canada poll - obtained by The Globe and Mail and scheduled for release Thursday - shakes conventional wisdom even more by finding growing support for the use of crime prevention rather than punishment.

"This doesn't mean that people want to lay off criminals," said Keith Neuman, executive director of the Environics Institute. "But what people would like to see is more crime prevention. They feel that this is the right thing to do."

Has this persistent disconnect really "confounded" criminologists? Perhaps criminologists also know that if the mainstream media didn't run blaring headlines every time a crime is committed against a white, middle-class Canadian, people wouldn't be so afraid.

And what is really fuelling the federal crime policies? Citizens' fear, or prison profits?