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BLACK-SHEEP COMMENTARIES by JUDICIAL TOUGHNESS IS MOSTLY MAKE-BELIEVE March 21, 2007 - North Shore News - Vancouver, BC AT the most difficult moment of truth for all judges – imposition of punishment – make-believe toughness inevitably produces inadequate sentences. Maybe that’s why “balcony-rapist” Paul Callow is free today and living among us in the Lower Mainland. Speculate with me. Let us imagine being in an Ontario courtroom in the 1980s, seated in a standing-room-only public gallery, all eyes fixed on an ordinary-looking young man in the prisoners dock. He looks like a shoplifter. Is he really a dangerous serial rapist? We hear whispered comment: “I hope he’ll get a life sentence,” one says, drawing immediate disagreement from another. “No way, just look at him and his lawyer; I’ll bet you that they’ve made a deal for concurrent time.” A gentle knock on the door leading to the judge’s sanctum brings a buzz of anticipation, quieted by the court officer shouting “Order in court. All rise.” A scarlet-robed judge, bristling with purpose, pops into view and strides up three steps onto the bench, settles into an oversized stuffed chair, and swivels around to face the rapist. We lean forward to catch every word in this awesome process: imprisonment of a serial criminal standing convicted on five charges of rape. The judge details each sadistic act and states that it is his solemn duty to punish the convict for such horrific, despicable behaviour; and that a lengthy jail sentence is necessary to deter other like-minded cowards. Surely his tough talk will end with the rapist getting a life sentence. Then, lowering his voice, the judge speaks of the need to rehabilitate the accused and quietly metes out five 20-year sentences, all concurrent. As the judge rises to leave the courtroom you divide five into 20 and whisper audibly: “Hey, just a minute, does that mean that for each rape he gets only four years?” The judge stops, looks over his shoulder in our direction and whispers something to the court officer who moves toward us. We gesture, palms up, shrug, and scuttle out of the courtroom. Strip away the veneer of judicial make-believe toughness and you will find well-meaning social engineers and redeemers who are bound and determined to make worthy citizens out of recalcitrant criminals. Such extra-judicial efforts may produce superficial differences in sociopaths and psychopaths, however, like retread tires, the inner-workings of the criminal’s mind remain essentially unchanged and unpredictable. Sentencing proceedings are increasingly artificial and calculated for effect. They are somewhat theatrical, with much puffing on about punishment. Yet, too often, they end surrealistically with a modest dollop of plea-bargained imprisonment that contents the convict and punishes his victim. Reality is defined as what exists or is real; that which underlies appearances. “I sentence you to prison for 20 years” is rarely a fulfilling imposition of just desserts facing a criminal. So long as judges neglect to state the underlying concomitant and variable of parole and the fact that a parole board is the final arbiter of the actual term of imprisonment, a stipulated punishment is misleading and erodes the trust of ordinary citizens. Each time a judge imposes a jail sentence it should include a reminder to the public that most offenders are considered for full parole after serving only one-third of their sentence and all but a few of the remainder are automatically granted statutory release on parole after doing two-thirds. Each time a violent offender is released on parole there is a significant risk to the public; and that same risk is engrained in the few who serve an entire sentence. On release from jail on Feb. 23, after serving a full sentence of 20 years, rapist Paul Callow was greeted with a storm of protest and ever since has been watched, beset and pilloried. It was the inevitable and predictable consequence of a sentence that was woefully short of punishment fitting the horrific series of rapes he perpetrated on unsuspecting women. Think about it: Callow raped five women and, because the judge made the sentences concurrent, it can be argued that he has been punished for only one offence. Why didn’t the judge impose 20 years imprisonment for each rape, four to be served concurrently, with the fifth tagged on as consecutive, making it a 40-year sentence? According to a Globe and Mail report of Feb. 26, National Parole Board documents show that Callow, age 52, is at risk for recidivism. The report also revealed some of the conditions of his parole: not to possess weapons, drugs or alcohol and materials such as rope, tape, electrical wire, gloves or pliers, which are items that could comprise a rape kit. It seems to me that an inadequate sentence has set Callow loose at a time and in circumstances that put women at risk and raise the ugly spectre of wild justice. Yet many citizens believe that Callow – and all convicted criminals – should be welcomed back into society without any impediment. They say that once a sentence has been served it constitutes payment in full of a criminal’s “debt to society,” and they believe it is a tenet of our justice system. In his book “Our Culture, What’s Left of It,” English author Theodore Dalrymple speaks precisely to this debt-to-society concept. “When prisoners are released from prison, they often say that they have paid their debt to society. This is absurd, of course: crime is not a matter of double-entry bookkeeping. You cannot pay a debt by having caused even greater expense, nor can you pay in advance for a bank robbery by offering to serve a prison sentence before you commit it. Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, the slate is wiped clean once a prisoner is released from prison, but the debt is not paid off.” Rapists, murderers, home invaders, thieves, thugs, and yes, even white-collar criminals and sadistically violent young offenders remain, to their last breath, burdened by what they did to their victims. Their evil cannot be wiped off the public record. Wallace G Craig - wallace-gilby-craig@realjustice.ca – NS News – Mar 21, 07 |
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