Life without parole, coming soon to a Canada near you

Pondering wrote:

Unlike you, I am unwilling to have my daughter living next to a Pickton or a Bernardo because they get their rocks off by torturing and killing women.

I find this offensive and a personal attack. You are trying to personalize this to say that one person's opinion makes him an uncaring or bad parent.

The Mods may tolerate these personal attacks becuase they are coming from you but this style of posting is out of hand.

The bias on this board will destroy it. Nobody gets away with this but you. And you called me a bigot in another thread.

Anyone who gets upset with this style of posting and the mods will crack down on them rather than you. This is a joke and the whole board has become a joke becuase of it.

bekayne wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Before Peter Mackay said last week they were considering life without parole, not one progressive person anywhere ever raised that prospect. 

Because we already have it. Before last week, who here was calling for the repeal of the Dangerous Offender designation?

Look, I understand Dangerous Offender provisions. They allow for the possibility of parole - after 7 years, then every 2 years thereafter. Peter Mackay is talking about life [b]with no possibility of parole[/b]. That [b]does not exist[/b] in Canada today. Are we in agreement on that much??

Is there something unclear about this:

Quote:

"We are looking at ways in which we can toughen the parole provisions, but also we’re looking at ways in which the very worst, those who are most violent, those who have committed offences, murder, in concert with other violent offences against the public and the individual, that they’re never released."

This is the removal of all remaining hope -- (faint hope).

I don't see how this is a practical appraoch to incarcerated people. I look on people without hope as more dangerous in any event.

The Conservatives like to replace lawyers and judges with absolutes no matter how inhuman and inhumane that may be. It does not make the public safer.

That this is done while removing any preparation for other incarcerated people to enter society is especially perverse. The removal of any rehabilitation efforts has made society more dangerous not safer.

In the context of this discussion they are boogeymen, Pondering. Because William Pickton isn't going to move in next door to me. As has been repeated quite a few times he is almost certainly never going to get out, even with a parole system that recognizes his right to hearings.

And even Charles Manson got another one of those not too long ago.He was turned down for the 12th time.

At best it is an irrational, reactionary response that has no relation at all to what we are talking about. At worst, it is an attempt to imply that my support for a fair parole system means I think he should be let loose to perhaps kill again.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Gee alan, what about the nice drug dealers who killed two guys here in Saskatoon in the past week?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/police-investigate-death-of-loga...

Again, waving around serial killers and paedophiles as monsters both obscures the very difficult nature of these kind of decisions, and clouds people's minds by trying to present it as something that is black and white.

 

Minor drug dealers are innocuous.

Big time dealers are more dangerous.

But keep in mind,there is no such thing as 'drug related' crime. It's all about money and where I live,80% of murders are money related.

The players are all involved in that game.

'Drug related' crime is a myth..Much like the Pusher is a myth.

Unionist wrote:

bekayne wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Before Peter Mackay said last week they were considering life without parole, not one progressive person anywhere ever raised that prospect. 

Because we already have it. Before last week, who here was calling for the repeal of the Dangerous Offender designation?

Look, I understand Dangerous Offender provisions. They allow for the possibility of parole - after 7 years, then every 2 years thereafter. Peter Mackay is talking about life [b]with no possibility of parole[/b]. That [b]does not exist[/b] in Canada today. Are we in agreement on that much??

Is there something unclear about this:

Quote:

"We are looking at ways in which we can toughen the parole provisions, but also we’re looking at ways in which the very worst, those who are most violent, those who have committed offences, murder, in concert with other violent offences against the public and the individual, that they’re never released."

Well, McKay is talking nonsense and indulging in cheap politics-in the case that prompted the attention, parole was denied every time. And the original crime would not have led to a life sentence. The question is what to do when someone has served their full sentence and is still considered to be a grave danger to society.

@ bekayne, at the risk of going around in circles again, that's what we have dangerous offender status for.

And cco, VERY good point.

cco wrote:

Perhaps it's worth remembering that the boogeyman who prompted this conversation was, in fact, [i]not[/i] convicted of murder, nor of being a really bad dude (not yet in the criminal code), but of assault and unlawful confinement. So if life-no-parole is only being discussed for murder, it wouldn't have done a thing about him. We'd have to expand it considerably, American-style, to have retroactively locked Caissie up forever.

Yes true. I don't know the details of his original crime so I don't know if there was reason to believe that he would kill someone. Even if there were, this could suggest greater supervision being needed rather than further incarceration.

I do like the more advanced systems like Sweden's that focus on reintegration rather than punishment. Even for those who I believe can never be trusted again the issue for me is public safety not punishment so I would want their living conditions to be as comfortable as reasonably possible.