Politicians should not run prisons

In a kind of preemptive attack, federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino publicly expressed his dismay at the transfer of Paul Bernardo from a maximum security penitentiary to a “medium” security penitentiary.

Preemptive attack because, unsurprisingly, the leader of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, was going to denounce the Liberals for this decision which has nothing to do with the government. It is indeed Correctional Service Canada that makes this kind of decision by analyzing the prisoners’ files.

Justin Trudeau need only tell penitentiary managers himself that killers of this sort should never leave the “maximum”, Mr. Poilievre said: it’s a “no-brainer”, a no-brainer.

On Tuesday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford even demanded the resignation of Correctional Service Commissioner Anne Kelly for the transfer from the maximum-security institution in Kingston to a medium-security institution in Quebec. occurrence La Macaza.

Under this intense pressure, the commissioner, who is supposed to act independently of political or other influences, announced a review of this decision.

I would not be surprised if this “independent” decision is corrected after reconsideration.

Nobody will complain about it, because obviously, nobody wants to be associated with the slightest appearance of reduced sentence for one of the worst criminals in Canadian annals.

However, if there is a commissioner of the Correctional Service, it is precisely so that the files are not managed according to the notoriety of the criminals, according to the degree of antipathy or sympathy that they cause, or according to the political motivations . But according to principles established by law.

Paul Bernardo raped and murdered 15- and 14-year-old teenage girls Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, as well as 15-year-old Tammy Homolka, the sister of his then-wife, the infamous Karla. He also raped 14 women.

Imprisoned since 1993, he was sentenced in 1995 to life imprisonment for two of these murders – without the possibility of parole for 25 years, that is to say before 2018. He was also declared a dangerous offender, which results in an “indeterminate” sentence – in practice, for the vast majority of cases, it is life imprisonment.

There is therefore no real risk of one day seeing this now 58-year-old man leave the penitentiary. Nor is there a single sane person pleading for his release.

But the seriousness of the crimes committed is not the only criterion for deciding where and how an offender will be detained. His dangerousness to staff and other inmates, his behavior within the walls, his risk of escape, the evaluation of his case by specialists: all this is part of the evaluation and “classification” of a prisoner.

A person detained at the “maximum” will not be entitled to an unsupervised release. But a person detained in a medium-security penitentiary is not going to be released. This presupposes a decision rendered publicly by commissioners. Even after 30 years, the horrific crimes of Paul Bernardo are still fresh in the memory, and it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that he will ever come out on a single day. And if that happened, it would be known.

Does that mean that he should stay at the “maximum”, if his behavior does not justify it? The correctional system is not a tool for revenge, but for managing offenders and rehabilitating those who can.

Being able to reward or punish a prisoner’s behavior is a tool of discipline within the walls and should not be seen as a kind of complacency in the face of crime.

This case may be one of the most grim in Canada’s last 30 years, but (alas) the catalog of violent criminals does not end with Paul Bernardo. Serial killers, mass killers, child killers, terrorists, there are also some in federal institutions.

There are also people who have committed serious, even very serious, crimes who obtain parole and who, for the vast majority, do not reoffend. I am not talking about Paul Bernardo, I repeat: he will not come out.

I’m talking about dozens of others, forgotten by the public and politicians, who managed to prove themselves to the commissioners. That could be. It exists. It must exist.

I wouldn’t want Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre, or any other politician to start playing commissioner to make himself popular. Either to denounce alleged “leniency” towards an inmate, or to denounce too much severity in the Correctional Service’s handling of the sentence – as seen in Donald Trump’s speeches about those who invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

MPs are not prison guards.