Justice Rolling on the Toe of Sisyphus


Sipping my coffee over this morning’s newspaper, I couldn’t help but notice the number of articles regarding the Justice System in this country. In the Editorial section there was a chunk of letters from readers baffled by recent court decisions including four youths being released on bail while awaiting trial for beating a man to death on a city bus. There is also outrage that a former Saskatchewan politician, Colin Thatcher, who is serving time for murdering his wife, has received up to 72 hours of liberty away from the minimum security prison where he now resides. Those of you who have been reading my Blog for some time might also remember a rant I had posted regarding the Correctional Service of Canada’s Lifeline programme which pays ‘lifer’s’ a higher salary than Correctional Officer’s like myself, to escort inmates around for appointments, etc. I was shocked at how little press that issue has received. Finally, returning to the Sunday Reader section of today’s paper, there was a full page article on the Guardian Angel’s group to set up chapters in Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.

I have stressed this point before and must do so again: Canada (and I would go as far as sating the majority of Western Nations) do not have a Justice System, but, rather, a Legal System. The effort to insure individual rights has, unfortunately, resulted in unreasonable leeway for offenders, clouding the line between rights and privileges, etc. The focus of our System has shifted so heftily to the concepts of rehabilitation that the entire focus is now on helping Offenders, at the expense of totally neglecting their victims and those tasks with enforcing the laws of the land.

So, now we are left with a problem with no clear solution. It may very well be a slippery slope when it comes to retracting certain rights of individuals as what is reasonable to one may not be reasonable for others and, once the perpetual swinging pendulum begins to gain momentum, it might skid beyond the point we wish to be. Again, the theme of “freedom to” and “freedom from” has crept up in previous missives here on my site. One may ask, are movements such as the Guardian Angels the next step we need to take as a community action, or would that lead to vigilante justice and a whole can of worms that we rather not open? It’s a tough call.

As someone who works as a Correctional Officer in a maximum security prison, I will admit to being biased. Regardless of how tainted I may be, I do not think that most civilians who saw the state of affairs in our prisons would argue that the balance of justice is off the scale in that most federal inmates live better than lower income law abiding citizens, seniors, etc. One must also ask about the rehabilitative ideology fuelling our correctional system in that, in a world with any sense, we should not be looking to rehab murderer’s and child rapists to put them back into the community. In my opinion, these creatures should be warehoused for the remainder of their lives with the bare essentials at the very least, and executed at best.

Violent crime in Canada is definitely on the rise as we see the numbers of gangs increasing (call me an old fart on this but I definitely blame the Arts Community’s validation of the whole Hip Hop scene and allowing it to become fashionable in mainstream culture as being partially responsible – see previous blog entries on this as well…), cities like Toronto having their highest number of gun deaths last year as well as Edmonton reaching a murder high. Canada hasn’t become as bad as places like the US where there are some 1000 gun related deaths every month – an insane total when you reflect that the US has lost 1500 or so soldiers over the past three years in Iraq where they are fighting a WAR! True, America still has a high level of violent crime in spite of several States having the death penalty, but I’m not advocating the death penalty as a direct deterrent to crime, but, rather to put it forward that an individual forfeits their right to live in society if they take that right away from another. I’m not even advocating this in the spirit of an ‘eye for an eye’ – I’m just saying that it’s a red card and your out of the game, full stop.

In conclusion, all I can stress is that this is our society and people really need to get active and participate in the whole democratic process – write your politicians and newspaper, attempt to get momentum going over the WWW, etc. So many people go through life and react when something affects them directly (most often it is then too late). Even through pro-activity, it is often an arduous and unfruitful undertaking. Still, in the spirit of Sisyphus, we must soldier on!