Crime & Punishment

Since the tragic shootings in Mayerthorpe, the country has been paying some attention to the sad state of our justice system. It won't last unfortunately, but for the moment at least Canadians appear to be opening their eyes to some of the issues at any rate.The story on the front page of PTC about the criminal history of James Roszko is truly a sad condemnation of our criminal justice system. Unfortunately, that story is not all that unique.A regular reader, CJ, who is a police officer and can't post under his real name as a result, wrote a piece this week about an alternative to the usual methods of crime prevention. It's called Incarceration. It's available on the Contributing Writers page of PTC and I'd suggest you give it a read.While a bit extreme in that you simply cannot and should not jail everyone, the concept of incarceration is simply no longer applicable in this country no matter how many times the young offender comes to the attention of the police. It's been said the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) really stands for You Can't Jail Adolescents. It would be funny were in not so horribly accurate.The real problem in this country is one of accountbility. Years of successive "soft on crime" liberal governments have given the criminal classes, who start their activities as teenagers, absolutely no reason to change their behaviours. Simply put, there are no consequences for criminal behaviour and therefore no reason to correct or change...

I have decided on this Good Friday, to post a Blog for a little back and forth on some of the issues that plague our country, our justice system and our police officers.I will continue to write more formal columns, but I was thinking this format would allow some of you who vent away in emails, to be able to share some of your thoughts with other regular visitors to Prime Time Crime.So, here it is and let's see where it takes us.Regards,Leo Knight