Aboriginal history must factor in sentences, Supreme Court s
Gunnair @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:01 pm
Curtman Curtman:
Gunnair Gunnair:
Retribution for the victim is perverted? Can I assume you and yours have never been a victim?
As I've shared before, my friend Jeff was working at a grocery store when he was shot by gangsters. I spent several days in ICU waiting to see if he would live or not, he did not. It was 14 years ago and it affected me profoundly. At the time, I could not imagine a punishment that would be sufficient for the gangsters. I have no idea what Ryan Starr or the other 4 are up to now, but I don't think what myself or the family wanted at the time were the best ideas looking back on it.
Fair enough you feel that way now, but I'm not seeing how you can judge everyone else here looking for retribution as having some perversion. I'd say the opposite is more following with reality.
Curtman @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:13 pm
Gunnair Gunnair:
Fair enough you feel that way now, but I'm not seeing how you can judge everyone else here looking for retribution as having some perversion. I'd say the opposite is more following with reality.
No, I won't judge anyone for it. I recognize that my desire to see something horrible happen to those people was wrong. That we would be better off if they got better.
EyeBrock @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:50 pm
Curtman Curtman:
EyeBrock EyeBrock:
I'm sure there are plenty of our immigrant and refugee entrants that have suffered far worse injustices in the countries they fled than our present, well financed native population 'suffer' these days.
Will new Canadians have the injustices they suffered brought into sentencing? Or are they just the wrong colour or culture?
Injustices towards the aboriginal community such as residential schools etc were last current in the 1970's.
Will new Canadians have the injustices they suffered brought into sentencing? Or are they just the wrong colour or culture?
Injustices towards the aboriginal community such as residential schools etc were last current in the 1970's.
It was the actions of the Canadian government, and the Catholic church that is responsible for those injustices. The same might be true of other groups and the Catholics, but it should have no bearing on our legal system. To throw an alcoholic in jail for drinking alcohol isn't doing us any good. That's what happened here. That's what this story is about. He needs to be directed to treatment, and a community that is supportive. Not back to the gangsters in prison, and not simply dump him back with his friends and family that brought him where he is today and tell him not to drink.
EyeBrock EyeBrock:
In this case the offender committed a violent sexual assault. Halving his sentence because of systemic issues is just utter bollocks.
This story is not about halving his sentencing at all. It's about revoking an alcoholics parole because he consumed alcohol, after being dumped back in his lifestyle surrounded by alcoholics.
EyeBrock EyeBrock:
We should just consider how the victim feels for once instead of the offender.
The SCC and all the other well paid social observers should meet and speak with the victims of violent crime before they excuse the inexcusable so quickly.
The SCC and all the other well paid social observers should meet and speak with the victims of violent crime before they excuse the inexcusable so quickly.
We should do something about the problem so there are less victims. Retribution for the victim might make them feel better on some perverted level, but it doesn't do society any good. It does harm, and that is statistically proven. Jail does not rehabilitate people who grow up surrounded by the problem.
Your missing the point here. An alcoholic who raped, was let out early then broke his release conditions.
I'm sure the chick he raped was really happy he got out on licence early. But then you seemed to be more concerned with the poor alky-rapist.
Mis-placed sympathy if I ever saw it.
Hundreds of years of oppression of the Irish by the Brits hasn't made me into an alky or a rapist.
Aboriginal Canadians are not the only peoples ever treated badly and they need to stop making excuses for piss-poor conduct and criminality.
FieryVulpine @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:58 pm
Gunnair Gunnair:
Of course there are other races. Besides that this comes down to treating one race differently than the other.
Or we just replace "race" with "phenotype." It doesn't change the fact this decision is based on bigotry of lowered expectations.
Curtman @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:06 pm
EyeBrock EyeBrock:
Your missing the point here. An alcoholic who raped, was let out early then broke his release conditions.
I'm sure the chick he raped was really happy he got out on licence early. But then you seemed to be more concerned with the poor alky-rapist.
Mis-placed sympathy if I ever saw it.
Hundreds of years of oppression of the Irish by the Brits hasn't made me into an alky or a rapist.
Aboriginal Canadians are not the only peoples ever treated badly and they need to stop making excuses for piss-poor conduct and criminality.
I'm sure the chick he raped was really happy he got out on licence early. But then you seemed to be more concerned with the poor alky-rapist.
Mis-placed sympathy if I ever saw it.
Hundreds of years of oppression of the Irish by the Brits hasn't made me into an alky or a rapist.
Aboriginal Canadians are not the only peoples ever treated badly and they need to stop making excuses for piss-poor conduct and criminality.
I don't think I am missing the point, and it's not sympathy that I have for these offenders. This ruling was this:
$1:
The ruling marked the first time the court has ruled on how the Gladue principles, guidelines set by Parliament on aboriginal sentencing, are to be applied in cases involving long-term, violent offenders.
The Gladue principles came from this case:
$1:
On September 16, 1995 Jamie Tanis Gladue was drinking and celebrating her 19th birthday with some friends. She suspected that the victim, her boyfriend, was having an affair with the offender's older sister, Tara. Gladue made specific threats that "he was going to get it." Following a confrontation with the victim, he uttered many insults at the offender, at which point the offender stabbed the victim in the chest. She was subsequently charged with second degree murder and ultimately convicted of manslaughter. At her sentencing hearing the judge took into account many aggravating factors including the fact that the offender was not afraid of the victim. The court also took into account several mitigating factors such as her youth, her status as a mother and the absence of any serious criminal history. She was sentenced to three years imprisonment. At her trial and at the Court of Appeal for British Columbia the court upheld the sentence, finding that s. 718.2(e) did not apply to off-reserve Aboriginals.
The problem is addiction, and substance abuse. It is a result of poverty and a culture that has been repressed. The courts need to deal with this in a way that doesn't exacerbate the problem which is all that prison does in a lot of cases. They need to treat this problem uniquely not because of "race" issues, but because jail doesn't help.
andyt @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:12 pm
Curtman Curtman:
The problem is addiction, and substance abuse. It is a result of poverty and a culture that has been repressed. The courts need to deal with this in a way that doesn't exacerbate the problem which is all that prison does in a lot of cases. They need to treat this problem uniquely not because of "race" issues, but because jail doesn't help.
I'll sing my one note song again, but why is jail assumed to help in a similar situation with a non-Native?
I think this is all just white guilt.
Curtman @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:22 pm
andyt andyt:
Curtman Curtman:
The problem is addiction, and substance abuse. It is a result of poverty and a culture that has been repressed. The courts need to deal with this in a way that doesn't exacerbate the problem which is all that prison does in a lot of cases. They need to treat this problem uniquely not because of "race" issues, but because jail doesn't help.
I'll sing my one note song again, but why is jail assumed to help in a similar situation with a non-Native?
I think this is all just white guilt.
I don't think it is. Have you ever spent any time in native communities? It's a cultural issue, not a racial issue. It's a recognition that our system isn't solving this problem, and that's all it is. If we can't afford to pump money into treatment programs, then we shouldn't be pumping it into jails because it worsens the problem. It would be interesting if someone tried to apply the Gladue principles to a "white" offender. Perhaps if they grew up in the same circumstances.
Gunnair @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 4:30 pm
Curtman Curtman:
andyt andyt:
Curtman Curtman:
The problem is addiction, and substance abuse. It is a result of poverty and a culture that has been repressed. The courts need to deal with this in a way that doesn't exacerbate the problem which is all that prison does in a lot of cases. They need to treat this problem uniquely not because of "race" issues, but because jail doesn't help.
I'll sing my one note song again, but why is jail assumed to help in a similar situation with a non-Native?
I think this is all just white guilt.
I don't think it is. Have you ever spent any time in native communities? It's a cultural issue, not a racial issue. It's a recognition that our system isn't solving this problem, and that's all it is. If we can't afford to pump money into treatment programs, then we shouldn't be pumping it into jails because it worsens the problem. It would be interesting if someone tried to apply the Gladue principles to a "white" offender. Perhaps if they grew up in the same circumstances.
Would it be fair then to say that the natives that are treated this way because of cultural needs stay in their own community because their cultural needs are at odds with our cultural needs? That way everyone is happy. They get a special kind of justice to deal with their cultural issues and we have an assurance that they will never again cause our culture issues such as assault and rape due to their addictions.
I would think that make it a two way street.
PluggyRug @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 5:52 pm
My ancestors were oppressed by the Romans for hundreds of years, Where do I get my pinky 'get out of gaol' card.
ShepherdsDog @ Sat Mar 24, 2012 6:57 pm
having lived and worked in a fly in community, I've seen that retribution and vengance are just as much a part of their culture as it is of any other culture whether it's Chinese, Israeli, WASP, Somali or any other culture. To say otherwise is pure unadulterated bullshit from the ignorant
BionicBunny @ Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:22 am
Curtman Curtman:
As I've shared before, my friend Jeff was working at a grocery store when he was shot by gangsters. I spent several days in ICU waiting to see if he would live or not, he did not. It was 14 years ago and it affected me profoundly. At the time, I could not imagine a punishment that would be sufficient for the gangsters. I have no idea what Ryan Starr or the other 4 are up to now, but I don't think what myself or the family wanted at the time were the best ideas looking back on it.
Starr's still in prison I think. He was convicted for the murder of an inmate in 2005. He was charged with 2nd degree but pleaded to manslaughter and got 8 years.
He was to be released in 2010 but with the new conviction he might be in prison currently.
Gile's family were very vocal to the local media and said Starr should never be released.
ShepherdsDog @ Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:22 am
Sounds like his family's reaction is the normal one you'd expect.
Yogi @ Sun Mar 25, 2012 8:20 am
Curtman Curtman:
$1:
The ruling marked the first time the court has ruled on how the Gladue principles, guidelines set by Parliament on aboriginal sentencing, are to be applied in cases involving long-term, violent offenders.
Those Criminal Code provisions are not a "race-based discount on sentencing," LeBel wrote.
They are a "remedial provision designed to ameliorate the serious problem of overrepresentation of Aboriginal People in Canadian prisons and to encourage sentencing judges to have recourse to a restorative approach to sentencing."
...
Manasie Ipeelee was caught cycling drunk in Kingston in August 2008 and pleaded guilty to breach of his order. His three-year sentence was upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal until it was overturned Friday by the Supreme Court.
...
In the other case, the justices rejected a Crown appeal which wanted a stiffer sentence for an offender who was caught using cocaine and morphine at a halfway house in Vancouver.
Those Criminal Code provisions are not a "race-based discount on sentencing," LeBel wrote.
They are a "remedial provision designed to ameliorate the serious problem of overrepresentation of Aboriginal People in Canadian prisons and to encourage sentencing judges to have recourse to a restorative approach to sentencing."
...
Manasie Ipeelee was caught cycling drunk in Kingston in August 2008 and pleaded guilty to breach of his order. His three-year sentence was upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal until it was overturned Friday by the Supreme Court.
...
In the other case, the justices rejected a Crown appeal which wanted a stiffer sentence for an offender who was caught using cocaine and morphine at a halfway house in Vancouver.
Don't lock people up for substance abuse. It doesn't help anyone. It only makes things worse.[/quote]
A very unfortunate experience has skewed your perceptions. Regardless of one's ethnicity/culture, criminal activity requires punishment. Without punishment, the criminal behavior is unlikely to cease. The very fact that a person would blame their actions on an addiction is in itself a clear indication that treatment for offender is in order.
Your misconception that 'treatment is unavailable in prisons' is just that, a popular misconception. Treatment IS available in prisons, just as it is on the streets. The problem is, both in prison, and on the street, the person requiring the treatment has to want it, and actively work it, when in actuality, most want society to wave a magic wand, to make their life 'all better', rather than do the 'heavy lifting, and hard work' themselves!
martin14 @ Sun Mar 25, 2012 8:32 am
Yogi Yogi:
A very unfortunate experience has skewed your perceptions. Regardless of one's ethnicity/culture, criminal activity requires punishment. Without punishment, the criminal behavior is unlikely to cease. The very fact that a person would blame their actions on an addiction is in itself a clear indication that treatment for offender is in order.
Your misconception that 'treatment is unavailable in prisons' is just that, a popular misconception. Treatment IS available in prisons, just as it is on the streets. The problem is, both in prison, and on the street, the person requiring the treatment has to want it, and actively work it, when in actuality, most want society to wave a magic wand, to make their life 'all better', rather than do the 'heavy lifting, and hard work' themselves!
Well said
Curtman @ Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:41 am
ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:
having lived and worked in a fly in community, I've seen that retribution and vengance are just as much a part of their culture as it is of any other culture whether it's Chinese, Israeli, WASP, Somali or any other culture. To say otherwise is pure unadulterated bullshit from the ignorant
It's ignorant bullshit to say we should set a higher standard for ourselves than we do for others?