Stories in the newspaper yesterday were disheartening. After reading them, I had to conclude that full-blown sexual predators are everywhere, and doing something about them will be difficult.
The first story I found was about Canadian Col. Russell Williams, an elite pilot who was commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, the largest air force base in the country. In 2005 he was photographed with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip. On February 7, 2010, he was charged with murdering a young woman who had been missing for almost a week.
That’s not all. Williams, considered a “shining bright star” in the military, has been charged with the murder of two women, sexual assault of two other women, and 82 break-ins. What did he steal? Women’s panties. An Ottawa newspaper reported that police seized more than 500 pairs from his home.
The charges have shocked the Canadian military. Retired Major Greg McQuaid wrote reports that helped Williams get promoted. McQuaid’s observation, however, is telling:
“I remember he had a very focused stare or look, and I was just reminded of that when this happened and they showed the photos of him and I said, there’s that look. I remember that look. It was like he’s looking through you at the back of your head,” McQuaid said.
To read about this incredible story, click on these links:
Canada top commander charged with murder, assault, on Philly.com.
The secret life of Colonel Russell Williams, on Macleans.ca. This story discusses psychopaths at the end.
Another story in the Sunday paper was about another sexual predator in the Catholic Church—this one from Brazil. A Polish priest, Marcin Michael Strachanowski, is accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old former altar boy, and then threatening to kill the youth if he spoke of it.
According to news reports:
Judge Alexandre Abrahao Dias said that investigators found “erotic material sent to the victim via Internet to seduce him” and that the priest also took other youths to the parish house, “which he converted into a kind of erotic dungeon where he submitted them, often with the use of handcuffs, to orgies.”
To read about this case, see:
Polish priest accused of running pedophile ”˜dungeon,’ in the Montreal Gazette.
Priest charge cites ”˜erotic dungeon,’ on Philly.com.
The Canadian colonel is being prosecuted. The priest has been arrested, and the diocese of Rio de Janeiro didn’t cover up the incident. It immediately suspended the priest and expressed regret over the alleged abuse.
These guys have been caught. Given the nature of their crimes, if proven guilty, they’ll probably go to prison for a long time.
Ten days ago, a sex offender in California, John Gardner III, was sentenced to life in prison for raping and murdering 17-year-old Chelsea King and 14-year-old Amber Dubois.
California lawmakers are now considering a bill, nicknamed Chelsea’s Law, that would mandate life sentences for some child molesters and lifetime parole for others. It’s a great idea—but it will cost a lot of money.
After the first 10 years, keeping the predators in jail would cost tens of millions of dollars, according to a California corrections department analysis. But the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which provides fiscal and policy analysis to the California Legislature, puts the cost much higher—at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Read the article here:
California bill aimed at molesters would cost millions, on Google.com.
Last week, Lovefraud reported that the Supreme Court upheld a law to keep sex offenders in jail after their sentences are served. People who commit crimes like these deserve to spend their lives in jail. But is our society willing to pay for it?
“…is our society willing to pay for it?”
I can easily imagine a time when criminals are simply confined to a particular region with strong measures taken to police the borter of the “prison-community”.
I don’t think the idea is all that far-fetched. There are too many of them. Why shouldn’t dangerous criminals be made productive in their own “community”. Then their “community” can enjoy carefully regulated commercial contact with the outside world.
We need a plan that prevents criminals from sponging off of the rest of society for their entire lifetimes.
Thank you for the article, Donna. This is where my feelings about the death penalty are muddied. NONE of these charged and/or convicted criminals will EVER be safe to release back into society. Therefore, they must be incarcerated for the rest of their natural lives if they aren’t put to death. And, apparently, none of these people have committed a crime horrific enough to warrant the death penalty. In consideration of this, it does cost a great deal of revenue to house, feed, clothe, medicate, and maintain these people behind bars. TOO much money.
I am perfectly willing to have my tax dollars allocated to send these THINGS to an inescapable island in the middle of the ocean to let them duke out supremacy between themselves. Whether they choose to murder one another or engage in cannibalism, I wouldn’t even want to know – just get them OUT of society.
Dear God in Heaven, it takes for some beautiful human being to be BRUTALLY murdered before we pass legislation to address the specific issue and name the new Law after the victim? I do not remember this kind of violence, as a child. Sure, my mom told me not to talk to strangers because they would HURT me, but this kind of thing has become so commonplace that I honetsly believe that Society has become desensitized to the sheer horror of these gruesome crimes.
As an aside – I know someone who works for a department of corrections. During one shift, this person was responsible for signing inmates in and out of the facility for court, surgeries, etc. “NEXT!” An inmate approaches the window and fills it up with enormous breasts. This inmate was 6’6″ and had huge, pendulous implants because……………………he was having a sex-change operation and would be transferred to a women’s prison once it was completed. THE STATE PAID for this!
Hi Donna,
they ARE damn well everywhere. I sent you the latest update on ryan earl mccann…he’ll end up spending about 6 years total in jail for what he did.
i think that one of our problems is that the ‘prison industrial complex’ is being fueled by draconian criminal laws. We are moving toward more laws and therefore more criminals and need for more or worse LARGER prisons in Canada. My argument is that we need to look at what we make criminal and how we apply the laws we have in light of the most recent understanding of dangerous behaviour and its likely trajectory over a person’s lifetime.
however, the prison systems are not particularly up to date and the most recent understandings and studies are not going to be embraced – it takes years to change the culture of a huge industry.
personally, i think we have (in NA, and especially in the US) jailed entirely too many people in relation to minor drug related offenses, and don’t do a good enough job of dealing with sexual predators of all stripes. we don’t yet recognize them for what they are, and what havoc they wreak in society.
about the death penalty – i am still working this one through for myself. i don’t see it used as a ‘penalty’, but as a protection device for society. if we envision prison sentences to be used in the same way, this will change how the prison system operates, and who is put away and for how long.
in relation to my statement about ‘minor drug offences’ and who we want to spend out precious money on putting away – i hate what drugs can do in people’s lives. i don’t condone the large scale sale or manufacture of drugs, and am more than disturbed by all the violence in operation of the drug business. BUT, where do we want to spend our money? Who is most dangerous in our societies? Who costs us the most in ‘collateral damage?’ Who warps and perverts our societies the most?
it really comes down to what our values are, and what we are willing to stand up for – from how we interact in our communities and families to WHO WE VOTE FOR.
Well, let me put the question the other way round. If we DON’T PAY to incarcerate these individuals then what is the PRICE WE PAY IN SOCIETY?
How many deaths that other wise wouldn’t have happened if they had been incarcerated?
How many children born to them would be born if they were let out that wouldn’t have been born if they were incarcerated? (We know those children will also be at riskk of being in the welfare care system because the Ps aren’t going to care for them)
How many women and victims will have PTSD and trauma from rape and abuse that will either get SSD and state-paid-for mental health care that in these men were not able to do these crimes because of being incarcerat4ed?
How about salaries of cops that would have to investigate these new crimes that would not be committed if these offenders were locked up and couldn’t commit them?
Dr. Anna Salter, who is one of the world recognized authorities on pedophilia says that on average each convictiion is the only one of 300+ actual crimes that the perp has actually committed before he gets caught the FIRST TIME. Blogger T tells us that most of the sex crimes convicts are NOT RECONVICTED, which does to me NOT mean they quit their sexual crimes, but sinply that they have gotten BETTER at hiding it.
If you look at a lot of the stories of the priests who were caught, “counseled” and then moved, didn’t MOST OF THEM RECOMMIT CRIMES and sometimes get moved again and again?
That priest that Brizal arrested recently had been HARBOURED by the Vatican LONG after it was REASONABLY KNOWN HE WAS GUILTY and in my mind would still be being harbored if the Pope hadn’t been implicated in earlier cover ups when he was a Bishop. In order not bring down the whole house of cards covering up things, they “had” to finally get REAL and turn the guy over instead of harboring him longer.
I’m not Catholic and I’m not “anti-catholic” and sure not “anti-religtion” but I am ANTI-LIES AND COVER UPS.
There are blogs on the new if you look for them about the Southe4rn Baptist Convention’s (SBC) cover ups of KNOWN AND REPEAT ministers who raped children and other church members.
All the while, these “holy men” use the “Pontius Pilot” method of washing their hands of the blame in public but doing NOTHING to stop the emotional and sexual crucifiction of innocents in the name of protecting the “establishment” of the church!
The city of Sodom had nothing on our society today I think, and it wasn’t “just” about there being a large population of homosexuals (although there may have been that as well) it was about people being USED for SEXUAL purposes like OBJECTS.
WHO, please enlighten me, USES other people for SEXUAL OBJECTS for their own gratification and have no concern for what it does to the OBJECT so used? Could the answer be PSYCHOPATHS? No conscience? No remorse? No guilt? No concern?
Doesn’t make any difference it it is a “homosexual” Psychopath, or a “bi-sexual” psychoplath, or a “hetrosexual” psychopath, it is the fact that they feel entitled and are WILLING to use others (even children) for their PERVERTED sexual pleasure that spreads injury and disease and e4motional trauma that is the “gift that keeps on giving” and lasts a life time!
If you robbed a bank and I covered sit up or knowingly hid you in my house so the cops couldn’t find you, I would be an ACCOMPLACE after the fact and I would go to JAIL for doing it.
SO, why do these people who FAIL TO CALL THE COPS when they know that someone has possibly or probably committed RAPE OF A CHILD not go to prison as accompliaces?
Are there ANY crimes in our socxiety today that are so bad that they would take you out of the community FOREVER?
Rape of a child but not killikng them? No.
Rape of many children but not killing them? No.
Rape of an adult with violence but not killing them? No.
Robbing and beating up a store clerk severely but not killing them? No
A drive by shooting that puts a 5 year old in a coma for life, but she’s “alive?” No that’s not bad enough.
Caslifornia has the MOST STRICT 3 strikes you are out law, and it is being attacked now because it has been used to put MINOR non-violent people (several hundred of them) in prison for LIFE, while at the same time, the above criminals are going BACK OUT INTO SOCIETY. Where does it end?
Where do the criminal’s rights stop (sex change operations LOL????) and the public’s sright to walk the streets safely?
I’m not pro-drugs at all, it makes crack babies and waring factions that out gun the cops and drugs are still FREELY AVAILABLE, so why not legalize them and put the violent criminals in pr44ison for life with the money saved trying VAINLY to slow down the drug trade. It didn’t work with whiskey and it AIN’T GONNA work with any other kind of drugs. IT JUST KEEPS THE PROFIT UP AND THE PRICE UP.
More people die of car wrecks with drunk drivers than die from drugs each year alcohol causes all kinds of problems and only 10% of the people who “drink” buy 90% of the volume of alcohol. It would be the same way I think if you legalized drugs, but arrested those who drive drunk or high, use drugs and while preg. Use themoney WASTED now on stopping drugs for TREATMENT of users and those that continually drive drunk or abuse their kids because of drugts, put THEM behind bars forever.
Actualloy, maybe I’lm just a nutty old woman, but what we are doing NOW sure AIN’T WORKING to make our country either better or safer or cut down on drug use or crack babies born.
I only have one suggestion: Gulags
Have prisoners Work. What a novel idea. Have them work for their food, have them work for their shelter, have them work for books and for clothes, have them work for society. Jail system in US is a joke. My friend’s Dad actually took “Sabbatical” there, every time he got DWI. He actually called it that. He worked out, read and ate well. Prisons are to take away freedom, not to give a free meal.
I am no psychopath, but I was raised with “an eye for an eye” attitude and I do believe this to be an effective method of dealing with direct offenders. Those who offended most of us did it in the most cruel fashion – by cheating, lying, conning, manipulating and destroying. Why should society keep providing for such animals? These should be placed in solitary confinement and they must work. Ha! I can see my Ex in solitary AND working. That’d be a just payback.
oxy – NICE rant! (only here on lf could two such words be put together in a sentence)….
and I firmly believe that the reason we don’t focus on the damn car deaths, and do focus on this stupid war on drugs is that it is a form of flinging red herrings about. pretending, on a political level, to do something about the bogey man, and not doing something about the guy that lives next door to the judge with the DWI. think it is VERY much a hidden/not so hidden war that is about race and class and not about freaking drugs at all.
we’ve go the same damn thing starting to happen here with our conservative whack job of a prime minister…mr big on crime, who really wants us all to look a the rabbit coming out of the hat so that we avoid hearing the lies coming out of his mouth.
California got it right. Three strikes, you’re out.
The third time, its no accident you were in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing.
If mine had been there when this happened, he’d be OUT.
Where he is he will be released. Who gets him next and next?
Something I am sure would have been prevented if he was caught in CA!
In fact, I half wonder if he doesn’t have issues there still. He absolutely refused to go there….
Dear Getting it,
After 20+ years “association with” prison systems in Texas and Florida, it does seem that a prison sentence is “sabbatical” and my P-son calls solitary confinement a “meditation vacation”—and he has had plenty of experinence in solitary confinement, at least 19 times for up to 3 months at a time, as well as severl months-at-a-time “super max” time, 23 hours a day in a 2 man cell.
Working in prison is a joke most of the time, though there are “hoe squads” on the prison farms in texas and Arkansas where they go out like slaves and chop the ground and/or crops with hoes while the “boss man” rides along on a horse with a shot gun watching them working and keeping them in line while the sun beats down on their backs like a heat gun. South Texas and south Arkansas are murder in the summer I can vouch for that!
Louisiana also has a pretty brutal prison system and Mississippi is no cake walk, not sure about the others that don’t have “prison farms”—but I know that my son has conned the system most of the 20 years he has been there, theough a couple of years back when he got caught with a cell phone in his cell (a felony but they didn’t prosecute him for it as they couldn’t find the sim chip) he pithed them off and they made him chop the hoe squad for a while (I saw him with some healing 2nd degree sun burns on his bald head) but he got out of the worst of it because he knows how to work the SYSTEM in there, 20+ years of practice and he’s an expert at it.
For years he had a job as a barber or on the paint squad but some how he managed to never actually do the work. Then for other years he spent ALL his time 16 hours a day in the craft shop making cowboy boots he sold for hundreds of dollars a pair—he got really good at it. But, the reason he could be in the craft shop was his mommie (me!) sent him enough money to buy into the shop, then after that he stayed in there until he got caught with contraband and sent to solitary and his stuff shipped out and his craft shop priviledges I think permanaently denied. He used to have a job teaching computer classes til he got caught with DVD porno contraband and permanently denied any where near an office or a computer. He also go caught using an office phone line illegally once when he worked in the kitchen as a clerk, and sent to solitary for that one.
Nothing seems to deter him for long though. But I no longer visit or correspoond with him any more so have no idea what he is into now. but I can BET you a buck to a coke that it is illegal, immoral and involves conning someone for something.
Seems like the inmates do have more rights than the citizens. The only thing that makes me scared about it all is that 99% of all the people in prison today WILL EVENTUALLY GET BACK OUT on the street. “It ain’t made them no better! That’s fer sure!”
Deara Silver,
I agree with the 3-strikes—that said—there is a back lash in CA right now because some DAs are putting some guy away for 3-strikes on 3 minor-NON-violent crimes, rather than just the REAL bad guys with violent crap. The way it is SUPPOSED to work is 1 crime= X perioid of tiem for THAT level of crime, 2nd crime=2X the “price” of that crime, and 3rd MAJOR crime=life WITHOUT parole. Some DAs were putting a guy away for 3 shop lift crimes, which IS crazy. But look at that creep that took the photos of Dr. Leedom, RAPE and out in only a few years.
When I was growing up VIOLENT RAPE WAS A MAJOR CRIME, but today it doesn’t seem to be doodly crap! And, yea, I know there are “levels” of rape but they keep coming up with all this crap that JUST “rape” or JUST child rape shouldn’t put you in the slammer for life! They also say that “well if we make it a hanging offense, it will make the guy more likely to kill her/him”—-if that’s a good enough reason let’s just make armed robbery NO CRIME at all cause it might make them want to shoot the store clerk if there is a penalty to it.
My way of thinking is that ANY violence with ANY weapon from an Uzi to a paper clip to bare fists should be PUNISHABLE by some serious consequences. ANY “stranger rape with violence” (is there any other kind of stranger rape?) should be automatic life without parole—in other words, you break into someone’s house, grab them off the street, etc. is automatic life without parole. If you pick someone up you know and rape them, then you MIGHT get a chance at parole after 15 years.
Kid rape or “consensual sex” of adult with a kid, say under 12 to 14, NO CHANCE AT PAROLE EVER, over age 14, then after 15 yrs in prison chance for parole.
You thinkk “Judge Judy” tells them like it is, how would you like to come up before the “Judge Oxy?” LOL
Thanks One step, glad you liked my rant! I’ve been on a roll today! Politics and crooked politicos have me ticked off today, to say nothing of a zillion gallons of OIL spewing into our ocean and “Rome Burns” and the ecology of the entire ocean goes down the tubes while the “fiddling” goes on.