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Graham James sentence: One of Many Reasons Why Victims Do Not Report
I assume that most Canadians are familiar with the Graham James case but in case you are not familiar with the case let me bring you up to date. In 1996 Sheldon Kennedy (and another unnamed hockey player) reported to police about their sexual abuse they suffered by their former hockey coach, Graham James. In November of 1996 James was charged with sexual assault and on January 2 1997 James pleaded guilty to 350 sexual assaults against the two young boys. He would 
be sentenced to 3.5 years in a federal institution. In 2001 he was paroled by the National Parole Board of Canada, and the Canadian Hockey Association handed him a life time ban on coaching. In 2010, the media revealed that James was given a pardon by the National Parole Board of Canada for these crimes in 2007 (sparking a national
Let’s fast forward to Jan 6, 2010. Theo Fleury came forward to the police to report that he also suffered years of sexual abuse at the hands of his formed hockey coach. James pleaded guilty to sexually abusing Fleury and his cousin Todd Holt, after which a third victim came forward to say that he to also suffered abuse (those charges however would be stayed). And on March 12, 2012 he was sentenced to 2 years in prison for those crimes. So let’s review shall we? James was found guilty on 350 accounts of sexual abuse on two young men (all of to whom he was in a position of trust and authority). He received 3.5 years in prison, and was then pardoned in 2007. In 2010, he faced new charges of sexual assault and received 2 years in prison. To top this all off the media broke this week that James could be out on day parole as early as September 20, 2012 and could be out on parole on November 18, 2012 under current parole legislation.
The Canadian public is slowly fighting back, demanding tougher sentences, and harsher rules in regards to sex offenders. A friend of mine, Amy Stewart, was a driving force behind the “No pardons for sex offenders” bill that got passed as part of the government’s omnibus crime bill on March 12, 2012. For over a year Amy worked with various politicians to get this bill presented and passed in Canada that would no longer allow sex offenders to get pardons by the National Parole Board of Canada. It all started from a group on Facebook called “Convicted Sex Offenders Should NOT Get Pardoned” and before long Amy was in contact with her MP pushing for a no pardons for sex offenders legislation. While this is a good start in terms of making victims feel like some kind of justice will be served and significantly cuts 
down on the secondary victimization that we face in the court system. Canada still has a long way to go. Amy would most likely agree with me. She was quoted by City TV as saying “So this is definitely a good start. As a parent I feel that my kids are a lot more protected. Now I’m not so concerned that a sex offender’s gonna be a hockey coach or a ringette coach anymore – but I still feel that we have lots more work to get done.”
So what more needs to be done? If we look closely at the new Mandatory Minimum Sentences ( I will refer to these as MMS now) put in place by the omnibus crime bill (ironically on March 12, 2012) the sentence that James faced is in line with that new bill. Now under normal circumstances I am not a proponent of MMS they do not deter crime (as is proven in the research), and they tend to make a judges jobs harder, and can sometimes put a lot more power in police officers hands (as they will get to decide what charge is laid therefore determining the potential sentence of the crime). However in this case I say, boohoo for you. We are not talking about property damage, drugs, or theft. We are talking about sexual assault, of children no less. In other words this is NOT about deterring the crime or even rehabilitation (though both would be nice) this is about justice, this is about ensuring that victims can come forward and know it is not all pointless. This is about sending the message that this is not acceptable behaviour. It is already difficult enough to stomp out victim blaming ideology we do not need our court system reinforcing these beliefs, and when sentences like this are handed down that is exactly the messages being sent.
As a victim of sexual assault when I see a sentence of 2 years I feel sick inside.This is not limited to just one case. In February of 2011 a judge in Winnipeg was quoted as telling a court room that sex was in the air, and noted a victim of sexual assault was wearing a tube top, too much make up , no bra, and high heels. He sentenced that rapist to a two year conditional sentence. The laws have many issues that need to be taken care of. For example, under the new omnibus bill someone who rapes a child gets less time than someone with 6 marijuana plants? Or as Mike McIntyre (a popular crime reporter from Winnipeg) pointed out on Twitter “Food for thought: If Graham James held up a 7-11 with a gun and didn’t hurt anyone, he’d be staring at a MMS of 4 years in prison.” This sends the message that sexual assault is not to be taken seriously. I can tell you that this confirms I made the right decision in not reporting to police, and it confirms that until things change I won’t go to police if I am assaulted. The costs for me as a women are too great. If we take into consideration that we will have to face victim blaming questions: such as where we were, who we were with, and what we were wearing, coupled with the stigma we could face from family, friends, peers, and the general public, then you add in the fact that the offender will face 2 whole years in prison with the possibility of release in 6 months? I don’t think so.
In short we all need to pull together and let the government, and people like James know that we will not stand for such violent acts against people. Proper MMS’s need to be put into place for sex offenses and as a society we really must be willing to acknowledge that yes they are about punishment, and retribution. Can we please stop using rehabilitation as an excuse to let these offenders off easily (and I am a proponent of rehabilitation, but we must strike a balance). One young women from Airdrie managed to get a law passed, why can’t we as a society finally stand up and have proper legislation put into place so victims feel like they too have a voice that will be heard without them having to be re-victimized over and over? We need to send the message to victims that it is not their fault, and the message to offenders that if you do this you will face significant time in prison. Again, do I believe it will deter sexual assault. No. Do I believe that victim interests can be served with harsh MMS for sex offenders? Yes. The judge was quoted as saying that the Canadian criminal justice system is not one of vengeance, and while I would tend to agree with her I would also point out that there must be consequences for your actions, and that victims must feel as though their trauma was taken into account when sentencing someone. This is deeper then just one case and indicates that a restructuring of our justice system is badly needed.
For me Graham James’ own brother sums things up nicely telling the Sun“throughout this latest process, I can’t help but think of the Bernie Madoff case Madoff is in jail for 150 years for stealing people’s money. Graham stole much more than that from his victims-their childhoods, their lives, their dreams- and got just a few years.” This sums up the justice system nicely. Steal people’s money? You are thrown to the wolfs. Rape a child? Rape a women? Meh, that’s alright here in Canada people aren’t as important as money anyway. The reaction from the public has been much the same, so I will leave you with some thoughts from Canadians:
“The Graham James sentence was bad. What’s worse, though, is that nobody was all that surprised about it”
“Graham James up for parole in September #seriously ?”
“Canadians are crying about Graham James sentence- tough on crime cpc gives longer sentences for pot? Go Figure”
“The sentence today is nothing short of a national travesty because we know that childhood sexual abuse has reached epidemic proportions in our country” – Theo Fluery and Todd Holt
“The sentences don’t come close to the damage that it leaves in its wake” – Sheldon Kennedy
Canadian Crime Bill C-10
So I keep sitting down to write this blog post, and every single time I just delete it, and sigh to myself as I realize that it would make 
no difference anyway. The bottom line is that the conservatives are going to do what the conservatives want to do, and they really don’t care what kind of consequences their actions could have, or what the Canadian people think of what they are doing.
But then I saw this article on the CBC website a few days ago (and have seen that since 3 other provinces have spoken out) and I thought maybe, just maybe there is a point to speaking out. So for those of you who have been living under a rock let me give you a run down of this new omnibus crime bill tabled by the Harper government (also know as the Safer Streets and Communities Act). There are roughly 9 key changes this bill would bring:
- The Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act
- The Increasing Penalties for Organized Drug Crime Act
- Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders Act
- The Ending House Arrest for Property and Other Serious Crimes by Serious and Violent Offenders Act
- The Increasing Offender Accountability Act
- The Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act
- The International Transfer of Canadian Offenders Back to Canada Act
- The Supporting Victims of Terrorism Act
- Protecting Vulnerable Foreign Nationals against Trafficking, Abuse and Exploitation Act
To know that this bill is scary all we need to do is look to our neighbours to the south of us. States are coming close to bankruptcy, California has introduced a policy to release a tone of their non 
violent offenders. People are currently sitting in jail in Califorina, who has the toughest 3 strikes legislation to date, whose third strike was stealing a doughnut. Others, are sitting in prison for life with no history of violent crime. But they broke the law three times, and can no longer be trusted in society. Not surprisingly so, most of these people are non-white, or of lower socio economic status, but that’s a whole other post.
The federal government says that this bill will cost Canadian tax payers 78.6 Million dollars over the next 5 years. This is of course just their federal costs and doesn’t include the costs to the provinces or the 2 billion it will cost to build and operate new federal prisons to handle the increase in the population. It is also only an estimate and depends on how many people end up in jail due to the new laws. In other words its a shot in the dark, and criminologists argue a low estimate.
In Canada we do not have the 3 strikes law as in the USA but this type of crime bill that the conservative government is introducing is going to drastically increase our prison population, with the same results. Just by eliminating the 2 for 1 credit we will increase the population by 4000 inmate you add mandatory minimum sentencing into this mixture and you have a much larger prison population that needs to be housed 
and taken care of. Several provinces have come out against this bill and have demanded that the government help pay for it, or rethink the bill (Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland, and Labrador) while others have expressed concern about money (BC and MB).
BC is particularly worried about this as they already face overcrowding in their jails and have had to let people go free due to a backlog in the courts. This could be a reality across Canada. Currently the justice system is already crunched. There aren’t any crown prosecutors being hired, and support staff has also been cut, and budget freezes is what most departments are facing. Currently our justice system handles 90% of cases either by dropping charges, or through plea negotiations. Only about 10% of cases actually go to trial. Well with people facing mandatory minimum sentences do you think that they will take a plea negotiation? Probably not. You are going to see an increase in people invoking their right to trial and yet the justice system doesn’t have the infrastructure right now to handle it. What will happen when the demand goes even higher?
When it comes right down to it these laws are bad for policing, and ultimately bad for our criminal justice system. You might now be sitting there wondering how it could possibly be bad for policing. It’s bad for a number of reasons. The main is man power. Police will be expected to enforce such new laws but budgets will not be increased to actually cope with such needs (similar to why you won’t see cops jumping out at you to catch you texting at a Red light) they won’t have the tools they need to actually do their jobs, and we’ll be spreading them even thinner then they already are.
Another thing that is rather odd in this bill is the proposed changed for youth crime. For starters they propose that youth 14 years or older should have stiffer penalties for their crimes. But the laws that already exist around this issue are enough as they already allow for crown prosecutors to apply to move these violent youth to adult court, and then if the judge finds it appropriate they move them to adult court and can face up to life in prison for their crimes. The other thing that the Harper government wants to do is allow for the publication of youth names for violent offenses. But, the current laws already allow for this. Any youth who is convicted of an adult sentence can have their name published, an youth 14-17 who is convicted of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, aggravated sexual assault, is a repeat violent offender, or if the youth is at large and a judge feels they are a danger to themselves or others. So if these laws are already in place what is the big deal? The big deal is that it makes the government look incompetent. These laws already exist why are they making new ones? We have sufficient laws already in place to deal with these crimes the government is so worried about.
We are seeing all these problems in the USA right now. Backlogs, people being released, court systems being tied up, states on the verge of bankruptsy. California has started to release prisoners because they can not house them all, and people who are being sentenced to prison are having their sentences cut. For example, Lindsey Lohen was sentenced to serve 60 days but only served 5 hours and was released due to space. This doesn’t deter her, nor does it allow for rehabilitation programs to work for her. The message that was sent to Lindsey last weekend was, we know you didn’t do your community service and that was wrong, but we can’t actually put you in jail either because we have no room. So therefore in your case there are just no consequences do whatever you want. There is also already talk today about Dr. Murray (who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the Michael Jackson murder trial). He may not serve as much time as he will be sentenced to. Why? Again, because there is no room in California jails. All these issues California has because of three strikes laws, and mandatory minimum sentences is just foreshadowing the types of problems Canada could face.
I am not saying the entire bill is bad. There are some good points. For example the increased sentences for child molesters. But it seems like the government is using that part of the bill to cover up their political agenda (the war on drugs). It just doesn’t make sense to me. If this bill is supposed to be about making the streets safer, and helping victims get justice why is it that someone who is caught with pot plants face a harsher penalty then the child rapist. I just don’t understand.
The fact is that crime is at it’s lowest level since 1966. Crime in
Canada is not on the rise. This bill is not going to make our streets safer, it isn’t that great for victims, and it’s going to cost 
us all a lot of money. Or as the Huffington Post put it “The last time Canada’s crime rates were as low as Statistics Canada says they are now, The Sting and American Graffiti played at the movies; Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon ruled the airwaves, and M*A*S*H was tops on TV”
