Crime and Justice

Providing readers with the latest crime and justice news from around Canada but with particular interest to Winnipeg, and my Liberal minded opinions about decisions and issues pertaining to crime, justice, and sentencing. I advocate for prison and criminal justice reform, more prisoners' rights, rehabilitation and community based corrections. I believe society needs to address the root causes of crime and underlying factors as opposed to simply "getting tough" and over-relying on imprisonment.

Monday, March 1, 2010

A community sanction urged for man guilty of fraud

House arrest urged for fraudster

- A former H & R Block manager guilty of fraud is urging a judge to sentence him to house arrest, fearing his life will be in danger if he is sent to jail.

- The 26-year-old man is currently in the witness protection program in connection with an unrelated matter and living at an undisclosed location out of province.

- His lawyer said there are significant safety issues.

- Two city police officers accompanied the man in court. Court heard he was relocated for his own protection. Court was provided no details on what case brought the man into witness protection.

- “There are a number of serious concerns ... of a serious enough nature he would be at risk in this jurisdiction,” the man’s witness protection officer told court.

- Winnipeg police arrested the man in April 2006 after he fraudulently processed inflated tax returns worth $15,000. The money was withdrawn from bank machines using company issued debit cards.

- The man pleaded guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000.

- The man served a prison sentence for a string of break and enters prior to being hired by H & R Block. Court heard he was initially hired as a receptionist and then promoted to manager when the previous manager was fired.

- Prosecutor Lisa Cupples said the Crown would have had a difficult time proving the man had “exclusive opportunity” to commit the fraud had the matter gone to trial.

- She said it's an extremely circumstantial case that would take a lot of time to prove.

- An investigation could not determine who withdrew the money or who spent it

- The man has stayed out of trouble since moving away from “negative influences.” Defence said the man is working and going to school part-time “with hopes of getting a degree in a certain field in the future.”

- If ordered to serve his sentence in jail the man would likely have to serve it all in solitary confinement, Defence said.

- The Judge reserved her decision.

I agree with the Defence in that this man should not be sentenced to prison, as he has already served time, would be in danger because he is in the witness protection program and has been staying out of trouble, working and going to school. I feel he should be sentenced to probation with conditions.

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Quotes

- "Treat others as you would want to be treated."
- "Two wrong don't make a right."
- "An eye for an eye... makes the world go blind."
- "People who support the government's tough on crime policies and who say 'lock them up and throw the key away' are narrow-minded idiots."
- "Do to others as you would like to be done to you."
- "Do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you."
- "We are each burdened with prejudice; against the poor or the rich, the smart or the slow, the gaunt or the obese. It is natural to develop prejudices. It is noble to rise above them."
- "Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances."
- "Is this in the best interests of society?"
- "Racial superiority is a mere pigment of the imagination."
- "In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. In order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently."
- "Poverty is the mother of crime."
- "Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime, as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty."
- "Capital punishment turns the state into a murderer."
- "Rather let the crime of the guilty go unpunished than condemn the innocent."
- "Having your fate rest in the hands of a jury is the same as entrusting yourself to surgery with a mentally retarded doctor."
- "Every crime is born of necessity. If you want less crime, you must change the conditions. Poverty makes crime. Want, rags, crusts, misfortune - all these awake the wild beast in man, and finally he takes, and takes contrary to law, and becomes a criminal. And what do you do with him? You punish him. Why not punish a man for having consumption? The time will come when you will see that that is just as logical. What do you do with the criminal? You send him to the penitentiary. Is he made better? Worse. The first thing you do is to try to trample out his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. You mark him. You put him in stripes. At night you put him in darkness. His feeling for revenge grows. You make a wild beast of him, and he comes out of that place branded in body and soul, and then you won't let him reform if he wants to."
- "It is better that ten guilty escape, than one innocent suffer."
- "One wrong does not justify another."
- "A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."
- "When you go into court, you are putting your fate in the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty."
- "Ending racial discrimination in jury selection can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely."
- The most glaring weakness is that no matter how efficient and fair the death penalty may seem in theory, in actual practice, it is primarily inflicted upon the weak, the poor, the ignorant and minorities.
- Capital punishment is the most premeditated of all murders.
- Society prepares the crime, the criminals commit it.
- In some ways, I think of incarceration as a lazy response to poverty. It's a way of not dealing with poverty, it's a benign neglect.
- If locking up those who violate the law contributed to safer societies, then the US should be the safest country in the world. In fact, the US affords a glaring example of the limited impact that criminal justice responses may have on crime.
- Politicians are telling people that the way to prevent crime is put ppl in prisons for longer periods in more brutalized conditions. If that were true, America would be the safest place in the world.

- Criminal Justice and Sociology Student
- Liberal Party of Canada
- Advocate for prison and criminal justice reform
- Against criminal justice system discrimination
- Believe "tough on crime" policies are ineffective and are not based on research.
- We need to get smart on the causes of crime and address underlying factors contributing to crime.
- Society needs to shift from retributive justice and punishment to restorative and rehabilitative justice
- Supporter of community based sanctions, treatment, counseling, prison alternatives, restorative justice, and crime prevention programs.
- Justice does not mean punishment as punishment is unequal. Justice should be served with society's best interests in mind and victims and offenders should have their needs met and play a role in the process of healing and restoration.
- We need to rely less on prison as a sentence and more on the alternative and least restrictive options to help reduce overcrowding and unnecessary incarceration.
- We need to improve prison conditions and make less deprivations and only imprison the most dangerous offenders, not minor, first time, drug, property and non violent offenders or those with mental illnesses and substance abuse issues.
- Our prison system needs to place greater emphasis on rehabilitation and reform.

Crime and Justice

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Monday, March 1, 2010

A community sanction urged for man guilty of fraud

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Quotes