Former NHL player Rob Ramage (inset) is likely to be paroled today, eight months after he began serving a four-year prison sentence. The one-time captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs went to prison in July last year after he lost an appeal of his conviction for driving drunk and crashing his car, killing his passenger and friend, former Chicago Blackhawks star defenceman Keith Magnuson.
The federal government wants to abolish the faint hope clause, a measure in the Criminal Code that allows imprisoned killers to ask to have their parole ineligibility reduced. The Tory government announced the get-tough measure today. It’s a fix for a perceived problem that affects a small percentage of murderers, as the government’s own graphic (above) reveals: It shows that less than two in every 10 jailed killers who is eligible to ask for an earlier parole date has had a decision rendered since the first faint hope hearing in 1987. The table above is excerpted from the Corrections and Conditional Release Statistical Overview, Annual Report 2008, published by the federal government. After the jump, a look at the important detail in the faint hope process that’s missing from many media reports.
The deadline is at hand. You have just one day to tell the National Parole Board what you think of the idea to jack up the price of pardon applications by 300%. The board says it can’t afford to keep processing applications at $50 a apiece, given projections that it will be handling 40,000 applications per year in the next few years. So the price is tripling to $150 per application. The pardon hike is part of a package of changes to federal fees, so the proposal has gone virtually unnoticed. You have until 4 p.m. tomorrow (April 20) to let the federal government know what you think of the pardon fee hike. Go here to speak up.
Rapist Rene Bourdon (inset) was considered so dangerous when he was sentenced in North Bay in 2003 for attacks on three women that a judge imposed one of the most restrictive legal leashes available to rein in a sex offender’s deviancy – short of a life sentence in prison. But as Bourdon’s case has progressed, it’s clear there’s a significant loophole in the law that he’s exploiting.
Is it any wonder average folks have a hard time understanding the criminal justice system when they read that a convict’s last two years in custody were spent on parole.
Police knew Gratton was living in northeast Edmonton, but he didn’t meet the criteria for them to notify the public, Chief Mike Boyd said.
Normally, notification of a high-risk offender is sent out if the offender is untreated and ineligible for early release or parole. Gratton’s last two years in custody were spent on parole, while he attended the Phoenix Program for serious sexual offenders at Alberta Hospital.
Huh? He spent two years in custody, on parole? Isn’t parole when you’re out of custody? How can he be out of custody, yet in custody, on parole?
Video of the Shafia family, who have since been convicted of murdering four family members, as they arrived in court in October 2010, when their case was at the pre-trial motion stage. (click image above to play video)
Managers at medium-security Joyceville penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario, bowed to a long list of inmate demands, including giving back control of spaces in the volatile prison where a race riot last year left one inmate near death (click image above to read the internal memo obtained by Cancrime). Management aceded to the demands of the inmates after they staged a one-week strike in which convicts refused to report to their prison jobs.
»Click here to read full post about last year's riot at Joyceville
»Click here to read about Josh Erdodi, the inmate who was savagely beaten during the riot
