Justice system fails

There's little I can say to this -- the system failed and failed badly. When you add to this to the wrongful convictions from Dr Smith it becomes hard not to see the system as needing a total overhaul.

At times there seems to be an almost random element of chance -- luck not justice.

Punishing the innocent and freeing the dangerous -- not what we need.

Perhaps I am being too negative -- the judges and JPs and police and lawyers do try in good faith to do justice but gosh, sometimes it just seems hopeless.

Laissez-faire justice

• The case of Danial Gratton, a serial predator of children charged this week in an abduction of a seven-year-old girl in Edmonton, raises questions about whether Canada's liberal approach to sex offenders is working.

Community protection seems to have been far from a primary concern of the authorities. His prison terms were woefully brief. His parole came with little explanation or evidence of serious thought by the National Parole Board. The authorities told him he was a moderate risk to re-offend, yet was being given "the least restrictive measures to manage your risk in the community."

Short sentences and extended community supervision – that has been how the system treated Mr. Gratton from the start. From 1982 to 1985 he committed multiple sexual assaults (the parole document that reveals this information has redacted the information on his victim or victims) and was sentenced in 1990 to just 90 days in jail, with 30 months probation. In 1991 he was convicted of sexual interference against a seven-year-old girl and received a 30-day intermittent sentence (presumably served on weekends) and six months probation. Finally, from 1996 to 2000 he sexually abused six children aged 2 to 8, one of them (by Mr. Gratton's estimate) 70 times. (The parole decision contains no details on the nature of his assaults.) For that he received just six years in jail and a long-term offender designation under which he is subject to a 10-year supervision order once set free. He was freed on parole after just four years.

Story here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081010.weparole11/EmailBNStory/specialComment/home
James Morton