Emergency Alert for Dangerous Persons

[Slava]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

sorry but this is an absolutely typical record of a DTES street level junkie, he wasnt even considered a violent offender within the system because this behaviour is so typical of most that end up in the criminal justice system, as I have said this record doesnt come close to the history of 5 or more kids I have cared for in their teens

The thing that separates a 'violent offender' from a regular one is not just stabbing his friends with a fork but stabbing them 50 or a hundred times, blinding one of them and sending the other one to hospital for three months in a coma, again threatening his wife or some store clerk but not beating them to within an inch of their lives is an indication he isnt a particularly out of control violent offender, if you are on a parole board that would be seen as a sign of some self control.

His criminal history is absolutely ordinary, no different to most of the ones a federal parole board would deal with day in and day out and that is the problem here, do you look up thousands of offenders for life at a cost of billions a year?

Yes, you definitely do. To me that's the issue here. We have a problem with violent offenders in society and escalating violent crimes. I fully recognize that there are issues with how "the system" has failed people and there are a lot of root causes for this. But the rest of society has to have their safety protected. It's not right that the "average" person who just wants to use the Ctrain to go to work (or whatever mundane scenario) has to be concerned about violent crime and random acts of violence. If that means that a bunch of people have to be contained, so be it.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Slava

Yes, you definitely do. To me that's the issue here. We have a problem with violent offenders in society and escalating violent crimes. I fully recognize that there are issues with how "the system" has failed people and there are a lot of root causes for this. But the rest of society has to have their safety protected. It's not right that the "average" person who just wants to use the Ctrain to go to work (or whatever mundane scenario) has to be concerned about violent crime and random acts of violence. If that means that a bunch of people have to be contained, so be it.

And that's fair enough but you are talking tens of thousands of inmates, hundreds of new jails, likely far more spent on the federal prison system than we spend on defence

[Slava]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

And that's fair enough but you are talking tens of thousands of inmates, hundreds of new jails, likely far more spent on the federal prison system than we spend on defence

What's the alternative? I'm in favour of rehabilitation and proactive solutions, but in the meantime you have a legitimate danger to other members of society.

[OptimalTates]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

How is it absurd? You completely ignored the philosophical slant of the question.

It doesn’t make any sense to me why the specific conditions of what Acey thinks “life in prison” should be (no chance at parole, no rehabilitation efforts, etc) and ensuring someone dies in prison the same way they went in is morally any more comfortable than the death penalty.

Try to be less of a pedant and think a bit more broadly about the question. Or don’t, I don’t entirely care. It’s off topic anyway.

Like I said, if you can't get around how someone thinks killing people crosses the line, that's on you and your absurd stance and not them.

Slava is here saying we should lock up thousands of violent criminals for life, shouldn't you be responding to him that we should just be setting up a slaughterhouse for them instead?

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by Slava

Yes, you definitely do. To me that's the issue here. We have a problem with violent offenders in society and escalating violent crimes.

It is disconcerting that violent crimes have increased from the 2014/2015 lows. We're still below any violent crime rate prior to around 2007, but the levels have increased continually in the past five years. As I understand it, most of the blame goes to the opioid epidemic and related issues. I'm sure Covid didn't help.

Even if it's not directly related to opioids, so many of our public safety resources are being consumed by that crisis, that cracks are bound to form elsewhere.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

IMO this isn't about punishment. At all actually. From the coverage so far it sounds like he had a ####ty life - no decent family, racism, drug/alcohol issues, etc. I'm not saying you need to punish this person, but you do need to protect the rest of society from him being out in public committing violent crimes.

Agreed that the priority should be protecting the public, not punishment or retribution. With that in mind, we know violent crime is overwhelmingly carried out by men in their 20s and 30s, and drops off steeply after 40. So it shouldn’t be necessary to lock up violent 30 year olds for 25 years to make the public safe. We should also recognize that declines in violence we attribute to rehabilitation may instead simply be a consequence of aging.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Slava

What's the alternative? I'm in favour of rehabilitation and proactive solutions, but in the meantime you have a legitimate danger to other members of society.

About 500 Canadians a year are murdered, around 1.5 per 100,000, it is a rate that has been slightly dropping but basically stable for decades, obviously every one of those victims represents a tragedy but Canada is in truth a very safe place to live, most everyone on CP will never be affected by violent crime

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Agreed that the priority should be protecting the public, not punishment or retribution. With that in mind, we know violent crime is overwhelmingly carried out by men in their 20s and 30s, and drops off steeply after 40. So it shouldn’t be necessary to lock up violent 30 year olds for 25 years to make the public safe. We should also recognize that declines in violence we attribute to rehabilitation may instead simply be a consequence of aging.

That seems like a potentially evidence based approach that could add value to public safety without being ridiculous.

I should add that I'm fine with more of that necessarily longer sentence being served in a "healing lodge" or similar facility. Myles Sanderson spent time in a healing lodge as part of his sentence (where he apparently did not heal) but he was also not in public committing violent crimes during that time. That seems like a compromise that could be a benefit to me.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Agreed that the priority should be protecting the public, not punishment or retribution. With that in mind, we know violent crime is overwhelmingly carried out by men in their 20s and 30s, and drops off steeply after 40. So it shouldn’t be necessary to lock up violent 30 year olds for 25 years to make the public safe. We should also recognize that declines in violence we attribute to rehabilitation may instead simply be a consequence of aging.

while to some level I would agree I suspect that one of the effects of long term incarceration would make older offenders more prone to violence, when criminals hit their thirties they generally use the connections and skills they have on the outside to find some other lifestyle, if you lock them up from 18 to 35 they hit the streets with absolutely no skills or community connections, utterly institutionalised in hopeless violent jails full of guys with no reason to modify their behaviour as they aint getting out no matter what they do, it is pretty much a perfect breeding ground for violent 35 and 40 year olds

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by OptimalTates

Like I said, if you can't get around how someone thinks killing people crosses the line, that's on you and your absurd stance and not them.

Slava is here saying we should lock up thousands of violent criminals for life, shouldn't you be responding to him that we should just be setting up a slaughterhouse for them instead?

Nah, you’re being obtuse on purpose. Either engage honestly or bark up another tree. Playing into whatever dumb back and forth you’re trying to drum up is not interesting to me.

It’s a philosophical question that asks at what point and under what conditions life in prison becomes worse or at least less moral than the death penalty. I’m fine with the conditions under which life in prison exists now and believe it’s far better than death, and am against the death penalty on a fundamental level.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

while to some level I would agree I suspect that one of the effects of long term incarceration would make older offenders more prone to violence, when criminals hit their thirties they generally use the connections and skills they have on the outside to find some other lifestyle, if you lock them up from 18 to 35 they hit the streets with absolutely no skills or community connections, utterly institutionalised in hopeless violent jails full of guys with no reason to modify their behaviour as they aint getting out no matter what they do, it is pretty much a perfect breeding ground for violent 35 and 40 year olds

In the meantime we're letting violent offenders out, where they re-offend within the rest of society though. Surely there's a middle way between straight up incarceration and just letting nature take its course.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Slava

In the meantime we're letting violent offenders out, where they re-offend within the rest of society though. Surely there's a middle way between straight up incarceration and just letting nature take its course.

That's where we are now, this is the middle way

[Slava]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

That's where we are now, this is the middle way

I think there's obviously room for improvement. Having people released entirely or sent to low-security confinement where they clearly ought to have been held is ridiculous.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Slava

I think there's obviously room for improvement. Having people released entirely or sent to low-security confinement where they clearly ought to have been held is ridiculous.

He did three years for a series of drunken assaults and threats, he then went to a treatment center (which he could have walked away from but didnt) before he was sent back home, if he'd gone to jail for 5 or 10 or 15 years he would be no safer on release

Short of locking every drunken idiot for life at 18 on the off chance that one in a million might do what this #### did I dont know what you are suggesting?

[Slava]

Wasn't he deemed a medium-high risk to re-offend? That seems like a pretty obvious place to start.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

He did three years for a series of drunken assaults and threats, he then went to a treatment center (which he could have walked away from but didnt) before he was sent back home, if he'd gone to jail for 5 or 10 or 15 years he would be no safer on release

Short of locking every drunken idiot for life at 18 on the off chance that one in a million might do what this #### did I dont know what you are suggesting?

He wasn't 18 when he went in, and he had 59 convictions.

Also, I'm curious whether you have any statistical backup for the assertion that he would have been no safer on release with a longer sentence? I'd be very curious to whether any research has been done on that topic (eg a natural experiment across 2 different states with different sentencing guidelines or something like that).

It seems intuitive to me that if you kept him until 70 he would have been much less likely to commit new violent crime/go on a murderous rampage. Also if you kept him until 60, 50, and probably even 40. I dont know where the line is there, but I'd be interested in actual data.

The system objectively failed in a big way here - "meh, nothing could be done" doesn't seem like the right response to me.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Slava

Wasn't he deemed a medium-high risk to re-offend? That seems like a pretty obvious place to start.

and do what, life in jail? he was deemed a medium/high risk to get into a drunken fight with his drinking buddies or put a rock through his girlfriends car windscreen

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

He wasn't 18 when he went in, and he had 59 convictions.

Also, I'm curious whether you have any statistical backup for the assertion that he would have been no safer on release with a longer sentence? I'd be very curious to whether any research has been done on that topic (eg a natural experiment across 2 different states with different sentencing guidelines or something like that).

It seems intuitive to me that if you kept him until 70 he would have been much less likely to commit new violent crime/go on a murderous rampage. Also if you kept him until 60, 50, and probably even 40. I dont know where the line is there, but I'd be interested in actual data.

The system objectively failed in a big way here - "meh, nothing could be done" doesn't seem like the right response to me.

The obvious comparison is the US, they lock people up for far longer than we do and also have higher rates of reoffending, longer sentences while keeping society safer while the offender is locked up do not reduce but tend to increase the risk of reoffending on release

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

and do what, life in jail? he was deemed a medium/high risk to get into a drunken fight with his drinking buddies or put a rock through his girlfriends car windscreen

Or pistol whipping someone before sending them in to commit armed robbery.
Or kicking cops in the head who are trying to arrest him.

He's had a federal warrant out for months, after being treated with kid gloves while having a record a mile long. Clearly violent, clearly likely to reoffend as his record shows, now there's what, 11 people dead and we are clinging to this idea that the system is running tickety boo while downplaying this POS?

Sweet suffering Christ.

[Drake]

@RCMPSK:
Update for Dangerous Person Alert for James Smith Cree Nation: Investigators have received reports of a possible sighting of suspect Myles Sanderson on James Smith Cree Nation. RCMP responding. If in area: seek shelter/shelter in place. DO NOT approach. 911 to report info