King, Harper and Prisons

Reading through on op-ed piece in the NYT, I came across this quote from Martin Luther King:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Given that our own government has just chosen to increase prison budgets by a whopping 27% when other far more pressing social needs are left with crumbs, could the same be said for Canada?