Underincarceration and Early Release = Mass Murder
The Left and some astonishingly stupid “conservatives” long ago signed on to what they opaquely call “criminal justice reform.” The name is opaque for a reason, to wit, that the truthful name would be “shorter sentences and early release for violent criminals.” Since the public is not about to buy any such program if called what it is, a fuzzy and marvelously dishonest name had to be cooked up.
An example of what “criminal justice reform” brings us was seen just last week in Canada. As widely reported, including on CNN, a man named Myles Sanderson and his brother killed 10 people in a mass stabbing that lasted for hours. An additional 18 people were injured in a series of gruesome attacks. The victims’ ages ranged from 23 to 78.
Thirty-one paragraphs down into the story, CNN tells us this:
[Canadian Mounted Police official Rhonda] Blackmore….said that Sanderson had warrants out for his arrest before the stabbings.
“Myles’ record dates back quite a number of years and it includes both property and persons crimes,” Blackmore said, without elaborating on the alleged crimes.
“His actions have shown that he is violent and so we’re continuing to emphasize for people to remain vigilant,” Blackmore added.
Oh, OK, well that’s good. We should remain “vigilant.” Still, somehow, I think that I can be as vigilant as vigilant gets, and if a guy 40 years younger and half a foot taller comes after me with a knife, I’m going to have a problem.
Here’s the kicker: Sanderson was granted early release by the Canadian Parole Board just seven months ago, in February.
Statutory release is a presumptive release by law that allows an offender to serve part of their sentence in the community under direct supervision, according to the board. By Canadian law, the Correctional Service of Canada must release most offenders with supervision after they have served two-thirds of their sentence, if they have not already been granted parole, except for those serving a life sentence.
Good to know he was under “direct supervision.” I wonder what indirect supervision looks like.
The board said in the ruling that it didn’t believe Sanderson would present a risk to the public if released. The decision did note his long criminal history and that he was assessed by a psychologist for a “moderate risk of violence.”
I swear I’m not making this up.
“Your criminal history is very concerning, including the use of violence and weapons related to your index offences, and your history of domestic violence which victimized family, including your children, and non-family,” the ruling states.
But they released him anyway.
Now here’s Kicker 2.0:
In a statement, the Parole Board said it “extends its thoughts to the victims, their families and all those who have been impacted as a result of these senseless and horrific acts of violence.”…Citing the Privacy Act, the board said it could not discuss specifics of an offender’s case.
Anyone out there think the Privacy Act is the real reason the Parole Board is clamming up?
This is far from an isolated episode. The record is bulging with criminals who, in a more humane and saner system, could and would have been required to serve their full sentences, but who on account of “criminal justice reform” were let loose because they were stupidly and/or dishonestly deemed to be “only” a “moderate risk.” Of course the suddenly silent releasing authorities knew at the time they acted that only other people would be taking said “moderate risk.”
Advocates of criminal justice reform often tell us they are “following the science” and are being faithful to “evidence-based” solutions for “mass incarceration.” Not a single word of that is true. The great majority of released criminals get back in business, as widely known recidivism figures show. And we don’t have mass incarceration, either. About one-half of one percent of America’s population is incarcerated. One-half of one percent isn’t “mass” anything.
So it’s not science, it’s not evidence, and it’s not mass incarceration. It’s the Left’s sick mindset that criminals are victims and the rest of us are their oppressors. But still, when the chickens come home to roost in a way even CNN feels compelled to report (albeit in the hinterlands of its story), the parole board sends its best wishes to “all those who have been impacted as a result of these senseless and horrific acts” — the acts being ten preventable murders the board, through its chipper if grisly ideology, made possible.
The “astonishingly stupid ‘conservatives’” referenced in the first sentence leave me bewildered. I know a few of them, and they’re not really stupid; they would insist they are merely faithful libertarians. But the problem is that their distrust of government is so intense as to be unhinged. They inexpicably seem to forget—or perhaps they never came to fully appreciate—that the freedoms they so cherish require greater protection than any one individual can provide for himself. Society thus depends on government to protect national security against foreign threats and to ensure domestic tranquility against the threats to life, limb, and property posed by the criminal element that lives among us. Government power—thus limited and properly deployed—does not undermine libertarian values, but promotes them. Let’s hope Rand Paul, Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee and other jail-break libertarians will come to their senses and never again act like they don't understand this.
While agreeing with most points raised here regarding violent offenders and even the 'not quite violent' offenders from the more violent subcultures, one line stands out as wrong to the point of silliness. One half of one percent, one in 200, would certainly be mass casualties in an attack at a mall or stadium. That said, I am entirely in favor of mass incarceration of violent criminals, and lean towards the same for the offenders likely to be violent due to their subculture. That's not racism, that's reality.