Topic: Quebec Tory Senator: Give murderers rope for their cells

[milnews.ca]

Interesting idea - methinks someone from PMO may want to discuss this behind closed doors with the Senator (in a Sgt-Maj sort of "counseling" way?)....

A Conservative senator in Ottawa has an unconventional proposal for cutting down prison costs: Give murder convicts a rope in their prison cell, and let them decide whether to hang themselves.

"Basically, every killer should (have) the right to his own rope in his cell. They can decide whether to live," Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu told reporters Wednesday.

A victims' rights advocate and now a senator, Boisvenu also says the death penalty should be considered in certain cases when there's no hope of rehabilitation.

He says limited use of capital punishment could save money.

He cited the case of the Shafias — the Montrealers who were convicted this week of killing four female family members. Boisvenu estimates that it will cost Canadian taxpayers $10 million to keep them locked up.

He also cited the example of serial-killer Clifford Olson, who was incarcerated for decades before he died.

"In a case as horrible as (Clifford) Olson's, is there really a discussion to be had on this? For people who have no possibility of rehabilitation, people who have killed dozens of women? I don't have much pity for that," he said.

Boisvenu makes it clear, however, that he disagrees with regular use of the death penalty. Canada eliminated capital punishment in 1976.

His comments come following several high-profile prison suicides in Quebec, in which hanging was the suspected cause.

Boisvenu made the remarks today at a Parliament Hill news conference ....

The Canadian Press, 1 Feb 12

CBC French's version of the story, and YouTube video of the statement (or the 9 seconds of sizzle, anyway)

[jollyjacktar]

Interesting idea - methinks someone from PMO may want to discuss this behind closed doors with the Senator (in a Sgt-Maj sort of "counseling" way?)....The Canadian Press, 1 Feb 12

CBC French's version of the story, and YouTube video of the statement (or the 9 seconds of sizzle, anyway)

Can't say I disagree with most of his thoughts.

[Technoviking]

The only factual error I could find in that story is that Canada did *not* eliminate the death penalty in 1976.  It was in the scale of punishments in the National Defence Act until 1999, if I'm not mistaken. 

[jeffb]

It's not very PC obviously but I think he does have a point. However, the argument shouldn't be a financial one. It doesn't matter how much we have to spend to keep serial killers behind bars, either the death penalty is morally right - and Canada has decided that it is not- or it isn't. There is never a time when ethics and morality should be balanced against cost to society. Now, I don't have a problem with offenders being forced to work while in a correction facility to pay back the cost of their incarceration but that's a whole other thread.

[ballz]

I don't disagree with him about much, but we can't even get assisted-suicide legislation for people that terminally ill. If heinous murderers get the "right to die" before the terminally ill, I might just lose my last couple marbles.

[Crantor]

Hmn.  What about all those people who went to jail for murdering their children because of an incompetent coroner's testimony.  Those people lost everything.  One woman had her kids put up for adoption another's family still won't talk to him, even after having been proven innocent...

Your life is gone, you're accused of murdering the most precious thing in your life (let alone grieving over the loss of a child), you face years if not your whole life in a prison...that rope would be very tempting with all those ingredients.

Irresponsible statement in my view regardless of how valid it may seem.

[dogger1936]

Two words:

Gluag Nunavut.

[Crantor]

Two words:

Gluag Nunavut.

I see one word there.  At least only one that I recognise...

[ArmyVern]

Can't say that I disagree with many of his thoughts either.

However, I'd love to see the DP brought back for cases of rapist murderers of children where clear DNA evidence of guilt exists; I'd even offer up my free services as "hatch-lever puller" and am quite certain that I'd sleep well at night. Alas ...

[jollyjacktar]

Can't say that I disagree with many of his thoughts either.

However, I'd love to see the DP brought back for cases of rapist murderers of children where clear DNA evidence of guilt exists; I'd even offer up my free services as "hatch-lever puller" and am quite certain that I'd sleep well at night. Alas ...

Hell has indeed frozen over, I'm agreeing with Vern.   

[mariomike]

"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."

John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science, on deterrence

[Crantor]

While I disagree with the way he said it he does have a point about certain criminals like Picton, Olsen et al.  i don't even see it as a deterence vs rehabilitation issue.  It is more like getting rid of vermin or a disease.

I can also sympathise with the senator his own daughter was raped and killed.

[dogger1936]

His daughter was raped and killed for perspective...

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1124663--give-murderers-rope-inside-their-prison-cells-tory-senator-says

[milnews.ca]

Following up....

Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu has backtracked from controversial comments he made Wednesday about having ropes in the jail cells of convicted killers that prompted an accusation that the Quebec senator broke the law.

His office issued a statement Wednesday afternoon that said a comment he made earlier in the day to reporters was "inappropriate" and that he regrets not clarifying his views on repeat criminals.

(....)

In the statement from his office, Boisvenu said he was making public views that had been expressed to him by victims of crime about their wishes for serial killers.

He said he wanted to withdraw what he said and that he's sorry if he offended people who have been affected by suicide. Boisvenu, who is also a victim of crime because of the murder of his daughter in 2002, said he believes in rehabilitation.

The statement said he would not be doing any interviews, but Boisvenu did speak to reporters again late Wednesday while he was at the Senate's legal affairs committee.

Despite saying in his statement that he was expressing a view that was expressed to him, he told reporters that his comments earlier were a personal opinion.

He said it was an emotional reaction and that he was not trying to re-open a debate but only giving an opinion and that the media reaction surprised him ....

CBC.ca, 1 Feb 12

[GAP]

Change is nice.....he proposed a viable change.....give it a try...........

[canada94]

Weird how terminally ill people don't have a "right to die" but criminals would through this, I am sure the "Euthanasia" movement would be absolutely shocked if this were to actually become law... the Conservatives would be doing a blatant hypocrisy.

Although I am actually open to the idea, the thought that someone with Cancer who would rather end their own life maybe sometime before the "going gets bad" can't legally but a skum-bag murderer can after killing someone "erks" me.

Also the thought of even one "wrongly accused" person actually killing themselves through the system would send shock-waves through Canada..

[Brad Sallows]

The death penalty is, if nothing else, specific deterrence, and that is a sufficient reason to apply it to serial murderers.  There is no moral objection which can be mustered given current circumstances: if it is OK to send our armed forces abroad and risk killing innocents not subject to our laws, it is OK to deliberately kill guilty people subject to our laws. The sufficient counterargument is the lack of certainty of guilt - we have no technology for undoing execution.

[exabedtech]

To agree with the death penalty is to have complete and total believe in the utter infallibility of our justice system.  I'm not prepared to go that far, but give them a rope and let them decide???  They already have bed sheets and can easily figure it all out if they're of that mind.  What i'd like to see abolished is the 'protective custody' for clowns like Russell Williams.  Why go out of our way to prevent it???  It the person is mentally ill, we have other facilities.  But for the Russell Williams of this world, please do us all a favour and let him die if he's willing to do us all that favour.

[ArmyVern]

To agree with the death penalty is to have complete and total believe in the utter infallibility of our justice system. 

B.S.

Scroll down and read my post. I'm all for bringing back the DP. We have a thing called DNA since the DP was last used (I won't say, "since it was outlawed" ... as DNA did indeed exist and was widely utilized in courts when the last holdout DP actually disappeared from the legal drawer of penalties [the Canadian Forces]).

I often have issues with our Justice system (it's too f'n lax being the big one, criminals having more rights than victims following in close second place), but I have no issues with DNA. 

[exabedtech]

B.S.

Scroll down and read my post. I'm all for bringing back the DP. We have a thing called DNA since the DP was last used (I won't say, "since it was outlawed" ... as DNA did indeed exist and was widely utilized in courts when the last holdout DP actually disappeared from the legal drawer of penalties [the Canadian Forces]).

I often have issues with our Justice system (it's too f'n lax being the big one, criminals having more rights than victims following in close second place), but I have no issues with DNA. 

Yes, DNA is awesome.  I'd agree.  I just don't know that our justice system is absolutely 100% reliable in every case as it would need to be before we justify killing someone.  How was the DNA obtained? Where was it obtained?  Was it transferred inadvertently?  Was it mixed up in a lab? Was someone set up by a cop convinced of a persons guilt but unable to prove it?  I could post dozens of links like :

http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Error-prone-death-penalty-system-ensnares-innocent-1582882.php

In the end, we all want vengeance and we all abhor the idea of paying a bunch of bastards like the Shafia's (who really should be deported), but civilized societies rarely choose to place enough authority in the state to kill its own citizens.  Thank god for that.   

[buck13]

I am more than ok with this idea. I think that the Canadian prison system has moved away from the three pronged approach prison was originally intended to have. Prison is meant to a) be a bad place to be for the individual, b) keep individuals out of general society and, c) be a place where people can undergo some form of rehabilitation. I think that Canadian prisons are seriously dropping the ball with regards to prison being a terrible place which people desperately want to avoid. Maybe this would help. It's brutal but it might act as a scared straight kind of tactic.

[captloadie]

I think that prison should be a punishment first, with rehabilitation being offered to those individuals who it is likely to do good. I don't agree with the Senator, because this isn't capital punishment, it is letting a criminal get away with his crimes without paying his debt to society. We don't give criminals the option of where and when they go to jail (normally), nor should we give them control on when or how or if they die. My personal opinion is that prison, for the most heinous of criminals, should be like Dante's inferno.

As for the DP, I'm on the fence. I don't believe it is much of a deterant for the worst of offenders: the serial killers, the psychopaths, the drug induced crazies. Therefore, its real purpose is either a means of punishment, or to stop recidivism. For the first, as stated above, I think death is too good for them. For the second, I'd have to be convinced that there have been significantly more victims killed by repeat offenders than there have been innocent people wrongly accused.   

[ArmyVern]

Yes, DNA is awesome.  I'd agree.  I just don't know that our justice system is absolutely 100% reliable in every case as it would need to be before we justify killing someone.  How was the DNA obtained? Where was it obtained?  Was it transferred inadvertently?  Was it mixed up in a lab? Was someone set up by a cop convinced of a persons guilt but unable to prove it?  I could post dozens of links like :

http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Error-prone-death-penalty-system-ensnares-innocent-1582882.php

In the end, we all want vengeance and we all abhor the idea of paying a bunch of bastards like the Shafia's (who really should be deported), but civilized societies rarely choose to place enough authority in the state to kill its own citizens.  Thank god for that.

In my original post, I also say who/circumstances I'd be OK with bringing the DP back for. You should read it.

Wow. You certainly make it seem like police officers "setting up" people is the normal and is to be expected. That's so far gone that I won't even bother to address it suffice to say, if that were normal, why are there thousands of "cold & unsolved" cases to our Southern border when those 'corrupt' /'set-up the boys we don't like in our little backwoods-town as a habit' police could have just done so? Because it isn't normal. It's extremely, extremely rare. BTW, your questions are usually asked of every jury by the defense having the prosecution show the chain of custody etc.

Yes, you probably could post dozens of links anti-DP up there. And for every one of those links, I could link you to a pro-DP site or to a serial killer or child sexual predator profile site where innocents/kids ended up dead because "civilized society" didn't deal with "possibly-innocent (my ***)" murderer the first time around.

I do NOT relish vengeance. I relish justice for real victims (not criminals) and deterrence for the worst of the worst who pray upon our helpless and there is a big difference between the two. I am far from "uncivilized". I am actually quite the average Canadian and the are many more out there who think just like me!! Thank god.

Oh yes, civilized people can and do advocate killing our own "citizens", our opposite viewpoint from yours does NOT make us uncivilized. While we are on that word "citizen", I'd like to state that I am also of the opinion that these now-society-coddled criminals once again lose their right to vote while behind bars.

[lethalLemon]

Yes, DNA is awesome.  I'd agree.  I just don't know that our justice system is absolutely 100% reliable in every case as it would need to be before we justify killing someone.  How was the DNA obtained? Where was it obtained?  Was it transferred inadvertently?  Was it mixed up in a lab? Was someone set up by a cop convinced of a persons guilt but unable to prove it?  I could post dozens of links like :

http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Error-prone-death-penalty-system-ensnares-innocent-1582882.php

In the end, we all want vengeance and we all abhor the idea of paying a bunch of bastards like the Shafia's (who really should be deported), but civilized societies rarely choose to place enough authority in the state to kill its own citizens.  Thank god for that.

Except if they were to be deported, they've be welcomed back as heroes and would live magnanimous life with servants and whatnot - because "honour killings" are a culturally excepted practice in their homeland. They deserve to rot in our prison, not to go back home.

[jollyjacktar]

They deserve to rot in our prison, not to go back home.

Nope. Dirtnap.