The head of Ontario Provincial Police today announced the discovery of human remains about 95 kilometres north of Woodstock, ON, which they believe are "almost certainly" those of missing 8-year old Victoria Stafford. "We have some very strong leads that cause us to believe that we have in fact located the human remains of Victoria Stafford," said OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino.
This recent discovery has caused an outpouring of anger and calls for capital punishment on CBC comment boards and blogs alike, which raises a difficult and heated question: should the death penalty be legalized in Canada?
While the 'eye for an eye' ideology does seem especially poignant in cases as tragic as that of Victoria Stafford, the actual process of instituting the death penalty is impractical and unrealistic for a nation such as Canada. The cost of conceiving, organizing, regulating, and applying capital punishment would be immense, not to mention irresponsible given the current economic climate. Look, for example, the challenges Obama is facing in instituting a new health care system. Now, add in the mix of emotion and radical ideology involved in the abortion debate. Combine the two, and now try to imagine any Canadian politician willing to invoke that kind of Charter overhaul.
It simply does not make sense to create such a system given the rare chance that it would actually be used. How many times is the death penalty handed down in US court cases? How many times is capital punishment actually carried out? Prisoners sit on death row for decades before actually being executed. Meanwhile, criminals who are convicted of murder and do not receive the death penalty head off to prison, where I wager to say they get what's coming to them in a much quicker and cost-effective way.
Why bother paying to institute the death penalty when the other inmates will deal out justice to the monsters who are convicted of preying on children? It is said that there is no honour among thieves, but that doesn't seem to be the case among prisoners. Screw keeping the child killers in isolation to 'protect them;' let them be subject to the mercy of other inmates.
So very sad, that people do such horrific things to the innocent. Yet, until we develop methods to control brain chemistry and neural structure, sociopathic and psychopathic behavior will persist, whether there is a death penalty or not. And it's nothing new; years ago, Robert Heinlein observed that contrary to the view of the good ol' days, that "rural America has always been a dangerous place". Canada is not very different.
ReplyDeleteWhat to do? Like the old CSNY song goes, teach your children well: I recommend full-contact karate, myself.
Ed www.edstock.com