Masochistic Perceptions, Trials and Truths

These are my cyberfied cerebral synapses ricocheting off reality as I perceive it: thoughts, opinions, passions, rants, art and poetry...

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Debates on Justice and Legality, and the Decline of the Newspaper Industry

I've been troubled at the decline of newspapers - an industry that appears to truly be in the twilght of it's existence. I have often had letters and vents published in the Edmonton Journal, and it gives me the sense that this is actually a place that people visit (unlike my Blog), and this is where a community can come together as a community and discuss community issues with some credibility in regards to the medium facilitating this.

Anyway, here's my latest Letter to the Editor, published today in the Edmonton Journal (page A13). As I love to quote from Gandhi: "Be the change that you want to see in the world"!


To the Editor:

The two for 1 remand credit that judges are offering the convicted makes little sense. Judges claim that the credit is given to compensate for the lack of programming made available while awaiting trial. Would it not then make better sense to ensure that the convicted do indeed get this programming during their sentence, thus warranting that they serve their entire sentence to ensure that this happens?

As a former Correctional Officer at the
Edmonton Max, I would go a step further to say that release should be based primarily on successful completion of programming, rather than a fixed sentence. Inmates are not forced to take programmes while incarcerated, therefore, an inmate will do their time, be released on their statutory release date (2/3 of their sentence) and re-enter society untreated. I've never understood the news bulletins broadcast when a "dangerous offender" is released from prison. Is there not negligence on the part of the legal system (as it is a far cry from a "justice" system) in allowing this to occur?

As for the overcrowding... I dare say that the psychological imprisonment of victims is a tad more cramped than any jail cell - just ask Dougald Miller. I know each meal I served Leo Teskey in the Max, each time I escorted him to the exercise yard or delivered his chips and pop on canteen day, that he still has considerable more freedom and space than Mr. Miller ever will, trapped in a bedridden body.


"What we are trying to do may be just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."
- Mother Teresa

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