Criminal Justice 9

Okay, what's wrong with this picture? We have to give inmates the right to vote or else they'll sue us. We have to provide inmates with all the amenities and cleanliness of a Holiday Inn or else they'll sue us. We already, and rightfully so, provide them with free medical and dental services, but we also have to supply them with an education or else they'll sue us. Warm beds, hot meals, special diets for those who don't eat regular food due to religious beliefs, TV's, radios, movies are all on the list of things a prisoner is 'entitled' to. Gee, I thought they were in prison to pay a debt to society. I thought once they committed a crime, they gave up all the luxuries of free society. I know some people who don't have half of what we give this scum of the earth, but prisoners are a special breed. Just ask any Liberal who thinks that rehabilitation actually works in most cases.

As we are wont to do, we ignore the indignities visited upon the victim(s), ignore their rights and make the process of compensation so convoluted that most of them simply give up trying to get any retribution. Instead, we focus on the poor prisoner and his/her rights and freedoms.

Clifford Olsen, a despicable piece of human trash, has finally been banned from bringing his frivolous suits to court. With nothing but time on his hands, he railed against having a plastic shield in front of the bars that keep him confined. He complained about the food. He complained about allotted exercise time. He complained about the clothing he was forced to wear. Paul Bernardo is kept separate from the general population for his own good. He isn't putting up much of a fuss as he knows what the cons will do to him if he is allowed into their midst. Something the weak-kneed Liberals are too afraid to do. He might just die the same way the three teenagers his wife, Karla Homolka procured for his sick pleasure died. Karla is a story by itself. Convicted of 2 counts of manslaughter in exchange for her testimony against Paul, she served her twelve years and is today free as a bird. Restrictions placed upon her upon her release were challenged under the Freedom of Rights Act and removed by some knuckle headed judge who bought into the theory that she no longer presents a danger to the public and the restrictions were 'onerous and inhumane'. She had to notify police if she changed residence, wanted to move out of the province and tell them where she was working. Poor Karla. Those restrictions certainly seem onerous to me. In the meantime, while she was in prison, she had birthday parties, complete with cake and candles, complete with photographers to commemorate the occasion, and gained a degree in psychology thanks to our tax dollars. I can't afford to send my kids to college or university, but she gets it put in front of her on a silver platter. And of course, she wouldn't use this new gained knowledge to put one over on the parole board, would she?

But with all that aside, we now have to supply prisoners with computers. It's just a really bad idea to give convicts access to computers and the Internet inside their cells, as recommended by the federal ombudsman for prisoners. What could possibly go wrong? Let's see, access to pornography, access to kids' chat rooms, access to biker gangs and other criminal organizations, access to criminals in other cells or other prisons or out on our streets, access to their victims, access to potential victims. That sounds like a great idea. Yet, the Correctional Service of Canada is conducting a "threat risk assessment" to see if there is a safe way to restore computer and Internet access to convicts in their cells, following a request from federal prisoner ombudsman Howard Sapers. Even if you block certain web sites and deny access to e-mail, chat rooms, etc., there's no way to guarantee prisoners won't find ways around them. That's why we call them "cons." But now Sapers says prisoners need better access to computers in order to write letters to families and work on legal appeals. Write letters? Hey, we've got that covered. It's called the mail. As for working on their appeals, let them research away - using computers in prison libraries or other strictly supervised settings.

Since most schools don't have enough computers for their students, why don't we spend hard- earned tax dollars on them before worrying about the constitutional right of prisoners to have access to a !@%??$!! computer inside or outside of their cells?

If this sounds like I'm fed up with the constant mollycoddling of prisoners, it's because I am.