Where's the citation of sources you're listing under the 'How the prisons are filled' heading?  

As someone who's spent a little bit of time in the criminal justice system as a number, I think your figures are a little but wacky with respect to custody of summary offenders.  The city jails may be clogged with minor criminals who are awaiting adjudication, but if you'd go to any courthouse in the lower mainland you'd see that the majority of people being remanded in custody, or sentenced to time for summary convictions, is really quite minor.  I personally have benefited from prison overcrowding by getting sentenced to five days time served on a fifteen count prosecution.  I've seen lots of other people benefit in the same way.

As for bitching about building new prisons, you really ought to spend a year in North Fraser Correctional Center, where they've been operating over capacity for a long fucking time.  If new joints aren't built, they'll be stacking people like cordwood in no time.  Believe me, when you're stuck in a shit hole with nobody but criminals and guards who don't give a damn, tensions have a tendency to rise.  Prison violence isn't a bit of fun, whether it's prisoner to prisoner, or prisoner to guard.  I don't believe less crowding would eliminate the violence, but I know for a fact it would ease some of the tension.

You're correct when you state that it's marginalised people who fill the majority of jail rosters, but you try to place the blame for their criminal behaviour on the state.  I'll agree with you that official attitudes and laws regarding drug use could be at best described as Victorian, but you're completely writing off personal accountability.  Part of being a member of our society dictates that we follow the law.  It's not too giant a concept to understand that you shouldn't steal people's shit, or commit violence on others.  Even the most deprived individuals are capable of figuring that out.  When you remove personal responsibility by citing addiction as a causative factor, you serve to further marginalise people by treating them like infants.  The whole thing takes on a sort of postmodern 'noble savage' ring to it, and it's bullshit.  

I've been an addict for my entire adult life.  I've committed crimes, done time, cleaned up, and gotten sick again.  I wouldn't describe myself as a member of an overlooked segment of society by ways of race or gender, but there's no chance I'll be what I figure to be a normal citizen.  I have a grade nine education, a criminal record, am a junkie, and I just don't give a shit.  I know you mean well, and I'm not here to refute every statement you've made.  I'd just like to let you know that all the good intentions you can muster don't necessarily make you entirely correct.  

Privatisation of prisons is bullshit, but putting up a few new joints would sure relieve some pressure on a few good friends I have who are currently incarcerated, and even though I'm not currently criminally active, I can't say it's out of the question that I might go back.  I'd rather go back to a pen that's got single bunk houses and a relaxed atmosphere than to the sardine cans that are currently housing prisoners.

All this activism is really just preaching to the choir anyway.  Other than armed insurrection, the only way to get the Conservatives out of Ottawa is to vote, and I don't mean throwing your vote away to some Green Party bone carver.  I mean a vote that actually stands a chance to outnumber conservative ballots.  It's not too big a leap of the imagination that Green Party thinkers could become members of mainstream parties and get elected that way.  Politics and subterfuge go hand in hand, and if you're in the game, you might as well play as aggressively as the other guys.  In my heart, I believe the majority of Canadians are left leaning.  Refining your message to make it a little more palatable to folks who've never rioted is the only road to take if you're serious.