Criminals have all the rights

Toronto Sun ^ | 2007-11-18 | Lorrie Goldstein

[Clive]

Criminals have all the rights

Bad guys even have an ombudsman, while victims are reduced to an afterthought

By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN, TORONTO SUN

Researching a column last week about how our underfunded justice system pushes even hardened criminals back onto the streets as quickly as possible to save money, I came across a revealing government document.

It was on the Correctional Service Canada website. CSC runs federal prisons. It was a perfect example of the frustration Canadians have with the system that supposedly protects us from the bad guys.

During last year's election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper got into trouble for observing, prophetically, that his Conservative government would be hemmed in by a generation of bureaucrats, judges and senators appointed by Liberals. Nowhere is this more evident than on Harper's law-and-order agenda, although he was too partisan in only citing the Liberals. The old Progressive Conservative Party was just as soft on crime.

The CSC document is a 22-page paper, written near the end of the Liberal's 12-year reign (sometime after March 31, 2004) entitled, "Basic Facts About the Correctional Service of Canada."

You only have to read a few pages to realize how, over the decades, our ruling class' obsession with the "rights" of criminals has reduced their victims to afterthoughts.

Not only have we scrapped capital punishment, gutted the meaning of "life" imprisonment and allowed violent criminals to apply for unescorted day passes from prison after serving one-sixth of their sentence and full parole after one-third. Today, the very language of government when it speaks of prisoners' rights is reverential.

Page 4 of the CSC document, for example, solemnly lists all the laws protecting the rights of our 12,400 federal inmates including: "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms -- freedom of conscience, the right to practise their religion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, the right to legal counsel, the right to a fair hearing, the presumption of innocence (in prison?), freedom from arbitrary detention and imprisonment, the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment and punishment, the right against unreasonable or abusive search or seizure, Canadian Human Rights Act, Privacy Act, Access to Information Act, Official Languages Act, Transfer of Offenders Act, United Nations Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Rights of the Child, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners."

And what of the rights of victims, the people these criminals murdered, maimed, raped and otherwise harmed?

They're not mentioned until page 16, where, we're informed, they can obtain "basic, publicly available information about an offender such as: The offence and the court that convicted the offender, when the sentence began and the length of the sentence, and eligibility and review dates of the offender for unescorted temporary absences, day parole and full parole."

Victims can also submit impact statements to parole hearings.

But what if they want to know, say, "the location of the penitentiary where the sentence is being served, the date, if any, on which the offender is to be released (for anything from a day pass to parole) ... the date of any hearing for the purposes of a National Parole Board review, any of the conditions attached to the offender's ... release, the destination of the offender when released ... whether the offender will be in the vicinity of the victim while travelling to that destination, whether the offender is in custody and if not, why, and whether or not the offender has appealed a decision of the National Parole Board and the outcome of that appeal"?

INVASION OF PRIVACY

Well, that "may" be given to victims "if the Commissioner of the Correctional Service ... or the Chairperson of the National Parole Board determines the interest of the victim clearly outweighs any invasion of the offender's privacy that could result from the disclosure."

Inmates also have their own ombudsman.

You know how they say you can boil a frog alive and the frog won't notice, as long as you raise the temperature slowly? If you want to know what crime victims and law-abiding Canadians have become, over time, to our justice system ... we're the frogs.

[Clive]

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[fanfan]

[God pays good]

Wow, powerful article. Frogs indeed.

[Thommas]

The citizenry of any country expects their government to step in at the commission of a crime to perform justice in the name of the citizenry. Note that in this country, the cases are titled, "(name of gov't entity) vs. (perp's name.)" Or "People vs. (perp's name.)"

When the government violates that expectation, the citizenry will turn to street justice as their only alternative.

[goldstategop]

Exactly. The Conservatives are so milquetoast on law and order they're afraid to make the death penalty a campaign issue. Executing murderers would advance peace and good order in Canada. Its the lack of guts good people have in standing up to evil that allows it to flourish.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Albion Wilde]

ping!