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Crime

Despite recent bail reform flip-flops, Canada is still more dangerous than we’d prefer

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6 minute read

The Audit

 David Clinton

Our Criminal Justice System Is Changing

58 percent of individuals sentenced to community supervision had at least one prior conviction for a violent offence. 68 percent of those given custodial sentences were similarly repeat offenders. In fact, 59 percent of offenders serving custodial sentences had previously been convicted at least 10 times.

Back in 2019, the federal Liberals passed Bill C-75, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts”. Among other things, the law established a Principle of Restraint that required courts to minimize unnecessary pre-trial detention. This has been characterized as a form of “catch and release” that sacrifices public safety in general, and victims’ rights in particular on the altar of social justice.

I’m no lawyer, but I can’t see how the legislation’s actual language supports that interpretation. In fact, as we can see from the government’s official overview of the law, courts must still give serious consideration to public safety:

The amendments…legislate a “principle of restraint” for police and courts to ensure that release at the earliest opportunity is favoured over detention, that bail conditions are reasonable, relevant to the offence and necessary to ensure public safety, and that sureties are imposed only when less onerous forms of release are inadequate.

So unlike in some U.S. jurisdictions, Canadian courts are still able use their discretion to restrict an accused’s freedom. That’s not to say everyone’s always happy with how Canadian judges choose to use such discretion, but judicial outcomes appear to lie in their hands, rather than with legislation.

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Arguably, C-75 did come with a “soft-on-crime” tone (in particular as the law relates to certain minority communities). But even that was mostly reversed by 2023’s Bill C-48, which introduced reverse onus for repeat offenders and required judges to explicitly consider the safety of the community (whatever that means).

Nevertheless, the system is clearly far from perfect. Besides the occasional high-profile news reports about offenders committing new crimes while awaiting trials for previous offences, the population-level data suggests that our streets are not nearly as safe as they should be.

As far as I can tell, Statistics Canada doesn’t publish numbers on repeat offences committed by offenders free while waiting for trial. But I believe we can get at least part of the way there using two related data points:

  • Conviction rates
  • Repeat offender rates

Between 2019 and 2023, conviction rates across Canada on homicide charges for adults averaged 42 percent, while similar charges against youth offenders resulted in convictions in 65 percent of cases. That means we can safely assume that a significant proportion of accused offenders were, in fact, criminally violent even before reaching trial.

We can use different Statistics Canada data to understand how likely it is that those accused offenders will re-offend while on pre-trial release:

58 percent of individuals sentenced to community supervision (through either conditional sentences or probation) had at least one prior conviction for a violent offence. 68 percent of those given custodial sentences were similarly repeat offenders. In fact, 59 percent of offenders serving custodial sentences had previously been convicted at least 10 times.

Also, in the three years following a term of community supervision, 15.6 percent of offenders were convicted for new violent crimes. For offenders coming out of custodial sentences, that rate was 30.2 percent.

In other words:

  • Many – if not most – people charged with serious crimes turn out to be guilty
  • It’s relatively rare for violent criminals to offend just once.

Together, those two conclusions suggest that public safety would be best served by immediately incarcerating all people charged with violent offences and keeping them “inside” either until they’re declared innocent or their sentences end. That, however, would be impossible. For one thing, we just don’t have space in our prisons to handle the load (or the money to fund it). And it would also often trample on the legitimate civil rights of accused individuals.

This is a serious problem without any obvious pull-the-trigger-and-you’re-done solutions. But here are some possible considerations:

  • Implement improved risk assessment and predictive analytics tools to evaluate the likelihood of re-offending.
  • Improve the reliability of non-custodial measures such as electronic monitoring and house arrest that incorporate real-time tracking and immediate intervention capabilities
  • Improve parole and probation systems to ensure effective monitoring and support for offenders released into the community. (Warning: expensive!)
  • Optimize data analytics to identify trends, allocate resources efficiently, and measure the effectiveness of various interventions.

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Crime

Canada’s safety minister says he has not met with any members of damaged or destroyed churches

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Minister Gary Anandasangaree said his priorities are getting a new border bill passed and tackling illegal immigration.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister admitted that he has yet to meet with anyone from 123 Christian, mostly Catholic, churches that have been either reduced to ashes or seriously vandalized over the past four years.

Speaking recently before a committee to discuss upcoming fall bills, Minister Gary Anandasangaree was grilled by opposition Conservative MPs on a host of issues from public safety and illegal migrants to church arsons.

He said his priorities are getting a new border Bill C-12 passed while tackling illegal immigration but made no specific mention of tackling the rise of Christian hate in Canada.

Asked by Conservative MP Dane Lloyd about whether he met with any of the 123 and counting church congregations, he replied that he has not, but he claimed he has met with “many members of different church and faith groups.”

“You said you met with synagogues and mosques, which I do appreciate,” noted Lloyd, adding, “Those communities need your support, Minister, but Christian communities also need your support.”

“Why have you not met with any of those communities?” he asked.

Anandasangaree said he was “concerned (about) every incidence of hate at any place, including churches,” but stopped short of promising anything.

He was also asked about allegations that a government employee who works on a local military base near Montreal was the one responsible for throwing smoke bombs into a church service this summer.

Anandasangaree said he is “concerned” about these allegations but did not add any other context.

Canadian Conservative pro-life and pro-family MP Leslyn Lewis called out the hypocrisy of a new Liberal “hate” speech bill recently for being silent regarding rising “Christian hate,” because it does not even mention church arson.

Hate-motivated attacks against Christians are on the rise in Canada. In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some Canadian residential schools. The reality is, after four years, there have been no mass graves discovered at residential schools.

However, as the claims went unfounded, since the spring of 2021, over 120 churches, most of them Catholic, many of them on indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada.

The Canadian media has been rather silent on the church burnings.

The government-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) went as far as blaming the fact that it has not covered the arson attacks much on “staffing shortage.

Indeed, the absence of reports about church burnings was uncovered by former CRTC chair Peter Menzies, who could not find any information on the recent arson attack against All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox in Bellis, Alberta.

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Crime

Florida teens credited for averting school shooting plot in Washington state

Published on

From The Center Square

By 

Two teenage boys in Florida are being called heroes for their response to a five-second TikTok video last month that may well have averted disaster all the way across the country.

The video, which has since been taken down, reportedly showed plans for a mass school shooting at Kamiakin High School in Kennewick, Wash.

“The contents of the TikTok were a map of a high school, and it had classrooms that were identified and labeled as targets,” said Kennewick School Board member Brittany Gledhill in a Thursday interview with The Center Square. “It had other classrooms that were labeled as potential targets. It had labeled exits, and it had the security department of the school listed as a potential threat.”

The map in the video did not indicate the location or name of the school.

“But this young man who lives in Florida decided to show it to a brother, and then together they decided that they needed to tell the authorities,” Gledhill said.

She explained that local authorities in Florida contacted the FBI, and within hours, the investigation was underway to determine the TikTok poster’s location.

That was September 19, a Friday.

“We got involved on Sunday, so that we were able to sweep the campus and provide a secure and safe environment for our students and staff, and that was in conjunction with KPD, or Kennewick police department,” said Kennewick School District Superintendent Lance Hansen.

At that point, the suspect, a 14-year-old Kamiakin High School freshman, was already in custody.

According to the Tri-City Herald, the FBI was able to match the layout and room numbers shown in the TikTok video to Kamiakin High School, and at that point, the FBI contacted the internet provider about the IP address linked to the account.

Officials were able to narrow down the location to a few dozen potential residences in Kennewick, and according to the Herald, law enforcement further narrowed the list based on the times the TikTok account was active.

The address was further narrowed to the boy’s home, where he reportedly lived with his grandparents, and more than two dozen firearms were located.

Hansen told The Center Square that officials believe the young man was most likely to carry out his plan had the boys in Florida not done the right thing.

“It was smart and courageous at the same time, and I think that they can be an example or model for others who may see something and think it’s not a big deal. Just the thought that they would recognize this isn’t right and have the courage to speak up … that’s really where I believe the story is,” Hansen said.

Gledhill said the school board, administration and staff members from Kamiakin High School are putting together a gift basket and thank-you notes for the boys in Florida who reported the TikTok post to authorities.

“We averted a terrible tragedy because of these two young men,” she said. “This is my home high school, and I have two of my own children [who] go to that school.”

Hansen said the school community is still reeling from what could have happened, but is also trying to find a lesson in it.

“In times where information can flow so quickly and there’s some level of anonymity that is created in ways that we communicate, like with social media, it sometimes creates some boldness in youth, which I think is a false positive,” he said. “I mean, there are benefits to the way that we communicate, and there [are] some unintended consequences of that. Having said that, as I reminded our parents, every person who’s on a campus is responsible for the safety of the campus. That’s students, staff, whoever is there. So that model … needs to be applied for everything.”

Given that the accused is 14, he is being charged as a juvenile. Assuming he pleads guilty or is convicted, he could only be confined until he turns 21.

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