Bent On Vengeance

[shanstress70]

Originally posted by lindy9556@Feb 19 2005, 04:12 AM

IMO the man should be physically castrated, unless the chemicals release a tremendous amount of pain and suffering every month.

shanstress....here's a couple of sites to get you started

http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/...2/spalfram.html

http://www.csun.edu/~psy453/crimes_y.htm

Thanks Lindy. Doesn't sound too harsh to me, especially someone who could do something like abuse a child.

I know you aren't opposed to it by your last post, Lindy. But the sites were against it.

[Lindy]

Originally posted by shanstress70+Feb 19 2005, 05:39 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (shanstress70 @ Feb 19 2005, 05:39 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--lindy9556@Feb 19 2005, 04:12 AM

IMO  the man should be physically castrated, unless the chemicals release a tremendous amount of pain and suffering every month.

shanstress....here's a couple of sites to get you started

http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/...2/spalfram.html

http://www.csun.edu/~psy453/crimes_y.htm

Thanks Lindy. Doesn't sound too harsh to me, especially someone who could do something like abuse a child.

I know you aren't opposed to it by your last post, Lindy. But the sites were against it.

yw :)

and those were just a couple of the ones I found.... and you are right....it DOESN'T sound harsh enough for a dirt bag who could abuse a child (or any other person for that matter)....I get steamed when a child abuser gets away with so much....and we have to pay for the slime to keep breathing. I was looking more for the legal aspect of it I guess, however I didnt' find any pain or suffering involved in the monthly injection.......so what good is it really?

[Winnie G]

My son was 15, all my son carried their fathers bantam weight till their 20’s 120lbs at 6 foot.

He was beaten and forced to drink alcohol till he could no longer fight back then forced to call him Daddy for three days.

To this day he will not call his father dad, he calls him by his first name in less he is introducing him to someone.

This animal is incarcerated in the Kingston penitentiary; it looks like a stone hell and is the oldest and worst in Canada. He is in the right place being guarded by staff that are mostly retired military from the base he grabbed my son from.

Believe you me he is in the right hell hole.

[Winnie G]

(ignore the smile faces?? Oh well)

Section 1

Dangerous Offenders

1:A Legislative References

Criminal Code of Canada Sections: 752, 752.1, 753.(1), 754.(1), 757, 758, 759, 760, 761

1:B Purpose

To provide a mechanism that allows dangerous convicted offenders to be removed from society for an indeterminate period. Should the offender continue to pose an undue risk to society they will remain in federal custody for life. This legislation also allows for periodic review of that offender’s status and for their gradual and supervised return to society should they meet parole criteria in the future. However, even if released to the community with supervision and conditions on their behaviour, these offenders are supervised for the rest of their lives.

1:C Background

Canada has a long history of legislation allowing indeterminate detention for ‘persistent dangerous criminals’. The earliest Canadian "habitual criminals" legislation, 1947, was based upon the British Prevention of Crime Act, 1908. This legislation has been amended and up-dated on several occasions. In 1977, the Criminal Code of Canada was again amended; the term "Habitual Offender" and "Dangerous Sexual Offender" were removed and replaced by a section simply called "Dangerous Offenders". In 1977, the concept of the "Serious Personal Injury" offence was introduced with the intent of bringing into focus the perceived "dangerousness" of the offender. Between 1977 and 1997, upon finding an offender to be a Dangerous Offender, a judge could sentence the offender to either a determinate or an indeterminate sentence. In 1997, the law was amended again and determinate sentences were removed as a sentencing option. Today, a Dangerous Offender finding automatically produces an indeterminate sentence.

The Dangerous Offender (DO) provision within the Criminal Code of Canada is important in that it allows the court to evaluate patterns of offending over time. There are four possible criteria for a finding of Dangerous Offender, see section 1J. While most Dangerous Offender candidates have extensive criminal histories, it is possible for an offender to be found a Dangerous Offender based on a single offence, section 753.(1) C.C.C. This could happen where there has been a demonstrated failure to control sexual impulses, where there is a likelihood of causing injury, pain or other evil to other persons in the future, or because of the brutal nature of the offence. The DO provision has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, most notably in R. v. Lyons, 1987.

1:D R. v. Lyons [1987] 2 S.C.R. 309

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the Dangerous Offender provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada (PartXXI, ss. 687-695) do not contravene the rights guaranteed by sections 7, 9, 11, or 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (The Charter) states that every person has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. The court found that the Dangerous Offender provisions do not deny fundamental justice and that the respective importance of prevention, deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation will vary in a rational system of sentencing. The DO provisions allow the court to accommodate its sentence to the present condition of the offender who is not inhibited by normal standards of behavioural restraint.

Section 9 of the Charter states that everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. The appellant argued that prosecutorial discretion as to whether to proceed with a DO application against any given offender caused a lack of uniformity in the treatment of dangerous persons and hence, the process was arbitrary. The court found that the absence of such discretion would, in many cases, make rigid application of the DO provisions arbitrary.

Section 11 (f) of the Charter states that anyone charged with an offence has the right to a jury trial where the maximum punishment for the offence is imprisonment for five years or more. The court found that the process of designating someone a Dangerous Offender is not the equivalent of "charging" someone with an offence and is simply a part of the sentencing process. Hence, a judge alone makes the finding concerning the Dangerous Offender application.

Section 12 of the Charter states that everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel or unusual treatment or punishment. The court found that an indeterminate sentence under the DO provisions does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment. However, the parole process assumes great significance in assessing the constitutionality of an indeterminate sentence. The availability of parole ensures that incarceration is imposed only for as long as the circumstances of that individual case require.

1:E Who are Dangerous Offenders?

The Solicitor General Canada conducted a study of Dangerous Offenders in 1995-1996. While the Dangerous Offender legislation is directed at all forms of violence, this survey found that over 90% of Dangerous Offenders are sex offenders and that the prevalence of anti-social personality disorders among this group is high. Dangerous Offenders are almost always male who have, on average, normal IQ’s and have finished 8.5 years of schooling. Sixty-three percent of these men had some high school. Just under half (48%) were single, 95% were Caucasian, and 63% were unemployed. Ninety-two percent had been convicted of a sexual offence and 86% had a female victim. Fifty-nine percent of these offenders had a victim under the age of 16 and brutality was evident in 70% of cases. On average these men were first arrested at age 16, 75% had a juvenile record, and 88% had had a previous period of incarceration. Seventy-three percent had previously failed on a period of community probation or parole. At this time there are no female Dangerous Offenders in the Justice system. Two females have been found to be Dangerous Offenders - one of these women died and the other finding was overturned on appeal.

The study found there was, on the whole, sufficient information available to Crown Attorneys to allow them to come to a reasonable judgement about who should be prosecuted as a Dangerous Offender. Today there are approximately 280 Dangerous Offenders in Canada. Fewer than 10% of these have been released under parole supervision even though many of these offenders have spent more than 20 years in prison. The number of offenders incarcerated as Dangerous Offenders has been generally increasing since 1978 and the use of this designation varies across jurisdictions, see Section 5, Appendix A for a graphical representation of this data.

1:F Criminal Code requirements

If a Crown Attorney believes that an individual may be an appropriate candidate for proceedings under the Dangerous Offender provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada, the accused must be convicted following trial or guilty plea of a "Serious Personal Injury Offence" (SPIO). A list of Serious Personal Injury Offences can be found in Section 5, Appendix B. In addition, Crowns and the police should be aware that recent case law has indicated that a certain level of harm must have occurred in the commission of the crime for the court to consider a Dangerous Offender applicati "Serious Personal Injury Offence" is defined in the Canadian Criminal Code as (Sec. 752):

752. (a) an indictable offence, other than high treason, treason, first degree murder or second degree murder, involving

(i) the use or attempted use of violence against another person, or

(ii) conduct endangering or likely to endanger the life or safety of another person or inflicting or likely to inflict severe psychological damage on another person,

and for which the offender may be sentenced to imprisonment for ten years or more, or

(B) an offence or attempt to commit an offence mentioned in section 271 (sexual assault), 272 (sexual assault with a weapon, threats to a third party or causing bodily harm) or 273 (aggravated sexual assault).

Once an offender has been convicted of a Serious Personal Injury Offence, an application may be made by the Crown under Section 752.1 (1) of the Code to have the offender sent for a behavioural assessment. The court may order an assessment if the court is of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the offender might be found to be a Dangerous Offender under Section 753, or a Long-Term Offender under Section 753.1. The court may order, in writing, that the offender be remanded to the custody of the person that the court directs to perform the assessment for a period not exceeding 60 days.

The assessment is to be carried out "by experts" and is to be used as evidence in an application under Section 753 or 753.1. Pre-1997 legislation required two psychiatrists, one to testify for the defense and one for the prosecution. This was amended in 1997 to allow other criminal justice and mental health experts to testify and to allow for the use of only one ‘neutral’ expert. Both the Crown and the Defense can call any other experts they feel are relevant. As a general rule, the defense will almost always get an independent assessment but may not bring this assessment before the judge, and can not be forced to do so. The assessor has 15 days after the end of the assessment period to file a report of the assessment with the court and to make copies of the report available to the prosecutor and to the defense. This assessment will generally take place with the offender in a remand facility or resident at a mental health facility.

1:H Time for making application

An application to have someone adjudicated as a Dangerous Offender is made following a conviction for a Serious Personal Injury Offence (SPIO) and prior to sentencing for that crime. Typically, however, the offender has an extensive criminal history and shortly after arrest the offender is notified that if convicted, the Crown will seek a DO designation.

There is, however, one exception to this rule, the so-called "window of opportunity":

Section 753.(2) An application under subsection (1) must be made before sentence is imposed on the offender unless

(a) before the imposition of sentence, the prosecution gives notice to the offender of a possible intention to make an application under section 752.1 and an application under subsection (1) not later than six months after that imposition;

and

(B) at the time of the application under subsection (1) that is not later than six months after the imposition of sentence, it is shown that relevant evidence that was not reasonably available to the prosecution at the time of the imposition of sentence became available in the interim.

1:I The Assessment Process

Prior to the offender arriving for assessment, the expert charged with assessing the offender should have received an information package from the Crown. The information package should contain Crown briefs, a complete criminal history, and other background information. For a list of suggested contents for this information package see Section1:O, Role of the Crown Attorney in the sub-section Information to be forwarded to the Expert Assessor later in this section. It should be noted that the offender is not legally obligated to participate in the assessment process. In some cases defense lawyers advise their clients not to cooperate with the assessment.

A good assessment will review the offender’s mental health and psychological functioning. The clinician will also complete cognitive and memory testing to check for signs of physical damage to the brain and general psychological diagnostics to check for the presence of mental illness. If the offender being assessed is a sex offender, additional tests will be used in an attempt to determine sexual preferences and deviant sexuality.

The best assessments make use of a multi-disciplinary team approach. These teams should include nursing or correctional officers who often have excellent opportunities to observe the offender during detention. Residential staff often have the opportunity to observe interpersonal interactions in the residential setting, some of which may place the offender under considerable situational strain. Social workers, recreationists, psychologists, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, and other staff should all report on their interactions with the offender.

In order to place the offender in context for the court it is important to do a general assessment first, then to look specifically at the forensic issues. Actuarial, empirically based assessments should always be employed in dangerousness assessments as clinical judgement alone has proved insufficient in assessing risk of reoffence.

The most widely used risk assessments are:

· The Violence Risk Appraisal Guide [VRAG] (Quinsey et al., 1998; Rice & Harris, 1997; Harris et al., 1993) Assesses risk for general violence

· The Rapid Risk Assessment of Sex Offender Recidivism [RRASOR] (Hanson, 1997) Assesses risk of sex offence recidivism

· The Level of Supervision Inventory - Revised [LSI-R] (Andrews & Bonta, 1995) Assesses needs of the offender and risk of general criminal recidivism

· The GSIR (Bonta et al., 1996) Assesses general criminal recidivism

· The STATIC-99 (Hanson & Thornton, 1999) Assesses risk of sex offence recidivism

· The Sex Offender Need Assessment Rating (SONAR) (Hanson & Harris, 2000) Assesses sex offender treatment and intervention targets

· The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised [PCL-R] (Hare et al., 1990; Hare, 1991) Assesses criminal psychopathy

(Note: The RRASOR, SONAR, and the STATIC-99 can be downloaded from the website shown in the Forward of this handbook. Complete references for these risk assessments can be found in Section 5, Appendix C.)

In addition, the report should specifically review reasonable criteria for "dangerousness". The report should make reference to known factors such as:

· the extent to which the offender thinks in a criminal manner

· the extent to which the offender, in his or her environment, is surrounded by individuals involved in criminal activity

· the offender’s temperamental disposition as it relates to anti-social tendencies and criminal propensities

· the offender’s level of social supports within the community

· problems the offender experiences such as substance abuse or having a deviant sexual preference

· the offender’s general ability to access community resources

· the offender’s criminal history, focusing on the presence or absence of Serious Personal Injury Offences

· the offender’s treatment and counseling history

· the offender’s level of social competence

· the offender’s problem resolution skills

· whether the offender has a sufficient level of life-skills to function in the community

· the mechanisms the offender uses to cope with stress and the perceived utility of these mechanisms

An example of an outline of a standard "dangerousness" assessment is provided in Section 5, Appendix D.

1:J Criteria

Once the court has been provided with the dangerousness assessment the court may find the offender to be a Dangerous Offender if any of the following criteria are met:

753. (1) (a) that the offence for which the offender has been convicted is a serious personal injury offence described in paragraph (a) of the definition of that expression in section 752 and the offender constitutes a threat to the life, safety or physical or mental well-being of other persons on the basis of evidence establishing

(i) a pattern of repetitive behaviour by the offender, of which the offence for which he or she has been convicted forms a part, showing a failure to restrain his or her behaviour and a likelihood of causing death or injury to other persons, or inflicting severe psychological damage on other persons, through failure in the future to restrain his or her behaviour,

(ii) a pattern of persistent aggressive behaviour by the offender, of which the offence for which he or she has been convicted forms a part, showing a substantial degree of indifference on the part of the offender respecting the reasonably foreseeable consequences to other persons of his or her behaviour, or

(iii) any behaviour by the offender, associated with the offence for which he or she has been convicted, that is of such a brutal nature as to compel the conclusion that the offender's behaviour in the future is unlikely to be inhibited by normal standards of behavioural restraint; or

(B) that the offence for which the offender has been convicted is a serious personal injury offence described in paragraph (B) of the definition of that expression in section 752 and the offender, by his or her conduct in any sexual matter including that involved in the commission of the offence for which he or she has been convicted, has shown a failure to control his or her sexual impulses and a likelihood of causing injury, pain or other evil to other persons through failure in the future to control his or her sexual impulses.

[pushka]

My heart goes out to you and your family, Winnie...nobody should have to undergo the sort of abuse and humiliation that your son endured...