Thursday June 30, 2005
From a column by Christie Blatchford in today's Globe and Mail:
Quick question: What do Wayne Edward Mumford and Karla Homolka have in common? (And no, he's not a new boyfriend.)
Rather, as Ms. Homolka will be bound by the conditions of her Section 810 recognizance when she is released from prison some time in the next week, so did Mr. Mumford have similar limits put upon his freedom when he was released from the Saskatchewan Penitentiary last fall and arrived in the Toronto area.
The 29-year-old was arrested Friday and charged with a sheaf of offences -- choking, forcible confinement, robbery, breach of his recognizance -- in connection with a series of vicious sex assaults upon women in Toronto's Parkdale area this month.
Indeed, Mr. Mumford's arrest provides a useful illustration of the efficacy of the Criminal Code section -- or not -- as a control for inmates who are deemed high-risk and in need of monitoring.
Later in the article about Mumford's re-offending the fact that there had been 4 sexual assaults on women in the Parkdale area within 12 days is mentioned.
Time for a tech solution: RFID. Implementing such a system (continent wide) might be costly but the longer term ROI would be lives saved and police time minimized in tracking and convicting reoffenders.
I can hear the ACLU and similar groups objections: what if a tracked offender doesn't reoffend - doesn't the tracking constitute a breach of their liberties? Not as much as putting them in prison did. And what if - what IF - the knowledge they were being tracked was enough to prevent a repeat offense? Or catch them before anyone was harmed - since in Canada it appears all kinds of other restrictions are imposed even though they are not monitorable in real-time and are useful only IF their contravention is proved. Bit of a big if apparently.
To paraphrase myself: we've got the technology - we should use it. Right Mike? (Shaver)
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