PUBLICATION:        The Winnipeg Sun

DATE:                         2004.11.05

EDITION:                    Final

SECTION:                  News

PAGE:                         5

BYLINE:                     TOM BRODBECK 

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JUSTICE NOT BEING DONE CONVICTS BELONG IN JAIL

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In case you missed it, there were more convicts "serving time" at home in Canada than there were behind bars in 2002-03, according to Statistics Canada. It's the second year in a row that we've seen this phenomenon, The Sun reported last week.

It's part of the evolution of the Canadian justice system. We don't want convicts -- even serious, violent offenders -- doing time behind bars because it hurts their chances of rehabilitation and it costs too much. So we tell them to go home and do their time in their living rooms.

On an average day in 2002-03, there were 10,600 adults serving time behind bars, well below the 12,900 serving conditional sentences. In Manitoba, there were 620 adult convicts serving time in jail on an average day and a whopping 899 doing hard time at home.

RARELY CHECKED

Conditional sentences, first introduced by the federal Liberals in 1996, have grown immensely in popularity over the years. Judges are handing them out like bus schedules at the Rockwood Institution. Some judges even have the gall to argue that doing time at home is really "incarceration."

But according to an internal Manitoba Justice memo that's crossed my desk, the growing number of convicts on conditional sentences -- and others released from the courts on so-called strict conditions, including bail -- are rarely checked.  "I believe that we could be looking into a major problem affecting the safety of our citizens throughout Manitoba," the memo, penned in January, reads.

It's one thing for judges and magistrates to impose curfews and other restrictions, such as abstaining from alcohol. But if nobody is checking these people, the conditions aren't worth the paper they're written on.

"These are convicted criminals being released on strict bail conditions, strict house arrest (and) strict parole conditions," the memo says. "No one is checking these people and the ones responsible for their release are not ensuring they are being checked."

It's pretty ominous. Of course the government would never admit this. The official line from Manitoba Justice is always that convicts are being checked and there's a program in place to deal with it. But when you talk to cops and people within the justice system, including the author of this memo, they tell you a much different story. You've got 900 or so convicts doing time at home on an average day in Manitoba who, prior to 1996, would likely have been in jail.

IT'S A JOKE

Now they're out on the street and few, if any, of them are being supervised. It's a joke.  Judges love to sermonize when handing out conditional sentences how these convicts will be under strict conditions and that the public should not fear for its safety.

What they don't talk about is who's going to ensure they follow their curfews and other conditions. They don't talk about it because they don't have the foggiest idea. "The media are becoming more and more aware of these releases and will be asking questions should someone be seriously injured or killed due to one of these strict releases," the memo says. I guess they'll wait until someone is killed before they do anything about.