To the editor,
Apparently the RCMP have identified a group of recitative offenders. If there are 15 or 20 people responsible for most of the low level break and enter, theft, shoplifting, assaults, and such; and as they are already identified as recitative criminals…why on earth do the courts keep releasing them into the community?
Is the criminal justice system blind, crazy, stuck, or just plain stupid? As an outsider who pays taxes for policing in a community, I want this to stop.
These 20 odd are costing huge money. Money that could be better spent. If we break down the 20 into categories, some will be mentally ill, and need proper loving help in an institutional setting where they can’t get out and about until they are helped enough to behave. It can be a home and support place for them too.
Some offenders will be addicts who do crimes to pay for dope. They need to go to a rehab centre and get lots of help to have good lives, we have to put resources into breaking addictions. The rehab centre will need to be locked so they can’t get out until they have overcome their addictions.
After two goes at helping an addict who then lapses back to crime and drugs, they could go to a nice facility in the high arctic where they will never have any more drugs again, and if they run away there are some nice polar bears to sort them out.
Some will be fairly decent kids who just had no breaks, a lousy upbringing and are hanging in the wrong circles, usually a day or two behind bars and some good role models and some opportunity will set them straight.
So as members of a community we live in now, we must report crimes and let this element know there’s no place for them here. We need to be the place that’s tough on crime and make that well known. I suggest a billboard as you enter town. Judges need to sentence wisely….and firmly. Canada could use a three-strikes-your-out program.
Mike Wright,
Port Alberni