Punishment or Platitude?

Clifford Olson. Paul Bernardo. Robert Pickton. Col. Russell Williams. Now we can add another pair of creeps to our own backyard in Kruse Wellwood and Cameron Moffat. These scumbags raped and murdered Kimberly Proctor in Victoria a year ago. I won't go into the details here, but this was brutal. Later, in a recorded conversation when both were being transported to court, one bragged about having a "big ass grin on my face" (src). How many more of these creeps will Canadians suffer to live? All are undisputed incorrigible serial or sexual thrill killers. All guilty of horrendous crimes.

But in Canada, we don't take the kitchen garbage out to the curb, we keep it in the house hoping it will become edible again. We Canadians add one more ex post facto crime to the list as bad as theirs: we permit these filthy men to continue to live!

Unbelievably, one of these men actually introduced his victims into the commercial food supply making scores of people into unwitting cannibals! And has this man paid for his crimes? No! He lives and will one day be eligible for parole. I'm sure by then he will be reformed and will be a good neighbor who brings you cookies at Christmas.

Another, the once highly respected and trusted Colonel, repeatedly raped his victim as she pled for her life, then he callously strangled her to death anyway, but he lives and will one day be eligible for parole. Yet another abducted, raped, and murdered teen girls repeatedly, and he received money for his deeds and collects his pension in jail. Another who engaged in horrific sex slayings with his girlfriend who is already out of jail.

I say there is no truly civilized society which permits any such horrific acts to go unpunished, but in Canada we go one step further. Rather than reward these subterranean devils with what they deserve, it appears we don't even have the sand to lock them up and throw away the key. We are so weak kneed that we make these men eligible for parole before the blood has dried on their hands. To allow parole for any such as these demons is to condone their actions. That is not just unacceptable, it is pitiful. Under every circumstance, the punishment must fit the crime, and under rare and extreme circumstances, the punishment must be equally rare and extreme. The death penalty must be resurrected. Justice must be served, not robbed by mercy. And for those who murder, they must expect to receive the same at the hands of the just society in which they live.