‘Pity these oppressed random attackers’: Inside the thoughts of Canada’s bail system – National Post

After months of near-unanimous public outcry over a bail system often described as catch-and-release, the Trudeau government finally tabled Bill C-48, their proposal to curb the number of repeat violent offenders being chronically released from custody. Although, theres good evidence that it probably wont do anything of the sort.

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Another day, another bail hearing for a random attack suspect. These do seem to be getting more common: It wasnt too long ago than when a Canadian felt like shooting or stabbing someone, they at least took the time to make eye contact first.

Anyways, it was the usual story: Dozens of prior convictions. Domestic abuse charges. A couple manslaughter cases. And his only testimony at the hearing was just the word stab, which he repeated in a kind of mantra.

There are unempathetic people out there who would look at this individual and see evil. But what I saw was a victimized individual; an innocent bystander caught within the wheels of systemic social oppression and unable to get out. Society has clearly failed when we have boys growing up into men whose favourite thing to do is attack random teenagers at bus stops. As I gave him bail, it only strengthened my resolve that we must all do better.

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Im well aware there are certain reactionaries out there who think that fighting crime is a matter of putting bad people in jail. But this is the opinion of a child; the same facile reasoning which holds that addiction can be solved by not doing drugs.

The evidence is clear: Jails are engines of criminality. Like policing generally, they are a dangerous, discriminatory legacy of a colonialist past that serve only to oppress marginalized groups and create disorder where there was none before.

So anyways, thats why I have to keep extending unconditional liberty to remorseless, chronically violent sociopaths who keep treating random civilians as pincushions for no reason.

Another random attacker, this time with an even 48 prior convictions, and he seems to like trying to attack police officers with broken bottles whenever hes caught violating his parole conditions. But we cannot ignore the hand of systemic racism and stigma in driving all this alleged criminality. Bail.

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Everybody knows that the best measure of an efficient incarceration system is whether the ethnic composition is a precise representation of wider society: If 1.9 per cent of Canadians have Arab heritage, you damn well better have a prison population that is exactly 1.9 per cent Arab-Canadian.

Jeez; another random attack bail hearing. People, its pretty easy: If you avoid eye contact, keep your head on a swivel, dont intervene and avoid downtown areas and public transit at most times, you probably wont get randomly assaulted.

The prosecutor is yammering on about public safety and innocent bystander clinging to life in hospital, but Im frankly tired of it all. If it was up to those crypto-fascists, theyd hand out 20 years of solitary confinement for stealing a pack of gum.

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The Canadian judicial system is working, goddammit. I know that a handful of far-right provocateurs have gotten you all ginned up over some imaginary crime wave, but this is how an equity-minded, rehab-oriented, decolonialized, post-national criminal justice system is supposed to work.

If youre going to panic every time we have some minor hiccup of nationwide stranger attacks, then we might as well just go back to the days when we hanged cattle rustlers and put adulterers in stockades.

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'Pity these oppressed random attackers': Inside the thoughts of Canada's bail system - National Post