'Cultural lens' use urged when sentencing black offenders
Consider impact of systemic racism before sentencing black offenders, Canadian judges urged
ONTARIO LAWYERS Say judges should consider systemic racism
Douglas Quan | April 25, 2017 12:09 AM ET
Canadian judges are being urged to take systemic racism into account before sentencing black criminals, similar to the special consideration often given to aboriginals who break the law.
Defence lawyers behind the push say asking judges to consider how historic discrimination and marginalization may have influenced their clients’ behaviour is not meant to be a “get-out-of-jail-free” card; it simply gives judges a fuller picture of their clients before their fates are decided.
Sure it doesn't! Systemic historic discrimination and marginalization means "Always Blame Whitey!"
Representatives for Legal Aid Ontario say they plan to start nudging Ontario judges to use so-called “cultural assessments” in the near future and will set aside some money for test cases.
So why should anyone's crime-culture trump our LAWS?! ("I was raised a criminal! Case dismissed")!
“In Ontario, for decades, courts have recognized that black people … face systemic racism, but there hasn’t been a well-developed mechanism to deal with that,” said Wayne van der Meide, regional manager of case management and litigation. "Courts have recognized" based on ZERO evidence!
Legal Aid Ontario is a tax-paid branch of the Ontario government: uses your taxes to support racism!
“A cultural assessment report is the best mechanism to support judges to really understand the circumstances of the offender and how systemic racism has contributed to that person coming before the court.” Ah, so these poor feeble-minded White judges need your "support" to coddle the "victims!"
And I always wonder how cops could supposedly tell anyone's race by looking at the back of the car.
In one 2014 provincial court case, the Crown sought an adult sentence for a 16-year-old black youth who was found guilty of attempted murder. After reviewing a cultural assessment prepared by the defence, the judge declined the request, noting that the assessment provided a “multi-dimensional framework for understanding (the offender), his background and his behaviours.”
So if you're black, your choice to commit your specific crimes was always generally Whitey's fault!
Advocates say cultural assessments could help address the over-representation of black people in federal prisons. Currently, they make up three per cent of the general population but nine per cent of federal inmates.
Maybe that's because a) a genetic predisposition to impulsive laziness, promiscuity and crime, and b) liberals always coddling them as perpetual "victims" so they have less incentive to stop committing them? "Naaaah! That couldn't be it - because then we libs would admit we're racists!"
But Canada’s federal prison ombudsman, Ivan Zinger, says he’s not convinced cultural assessments will change that. Similar assessments, known as Gladue reports, have been used in aboriginal cases for years, he said. Yet indigenous people still account for 26 per cent of the prison population, even though they make up less than five per cent of the general population.
That's either because they're coddled by liberals, and so know they wont' be punished, and so have no incentive to stop, or because despite really being only displaced backwoods hillbilly Asians, they're inbred. Asians aren't known to commit many crimes, but the liberal's class of "indigenous" ones are!
“Adopting the same Gladue approach for Canadians of African descent may also not yield the desired outcome,” he said. “Investments in improving socioeconomic, cultural and political rights of vulnerable segments of the Canadian population may be a better approach.”
Wait - their "cultural" problem isn't a lack of "rights," it's a lack of taking personal responsibility!
The family of one Nova Scotia murder victim has expressed concerns that cultural assessments diminish individual responsibility. Wow! Ya think? And it only took a family member's murder!
Last year, a Halifax jury found Kale Leonard Gabriel, 28, guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Ryan White during a drug-turf dispute. The conviction brought an automatic life sentence, but a judge still had to decide Gabriel’s parole eligibility.
At the time, White’s mother told local media an offender’s racial background shouldn’t matter.
“I think that a crime is a crime, and colour shouldn’t matter whatsoever,” Theresa White said. “It’s very difficult to try to forward your life when you’re being called back to that same sadness over and over.”
The assessment, written by clinical social worker Lana MacLean, noted gun violence had become normalized within a subsection of the African Nova Scotian community and death was “regarded as an expected outcome in settling disputes.”
SO FUCKING WHAT?! "Oh, since the criminals think crime is normal, we shouldn't punish them!"?
Within this subgroup, one problem compounded upon another: chronic exposure to gun violence; systemic racism; limited job and social opportunities; difficult childhoods; and a lack of culturally relevant mental-health services.
"Culturally relevant mental-health services!"? So mental health is different for different 'cultures'?!
The lives of some black youth are defined by a “constant alertness and guardedness” and the way they cope with despair is to turn to drugs or gangs. In this context, Gabriel might “hold the position of both victim and perpetrator,” MacLean suggested.
Exactly what I thought she was leading up to: "There are no real crimes or criminals because we're all really ever only victims anyway! Whee!" Why is a "social worker" allowed to influence a JUDGE?!
In his sentencing decision last month, Supreme Court Justice Jamie Campbell said he appreciated MacLean’s assessment, noting that an individual judge’s “common sense and understanding of human nature may offer little insight into the actions of a young African Nova Scotian male.”
Right. Because privileged white judges can never understand people raised as criminal gangsters. I'd have to call "Tough Shit!" on this one, and note that Parliament, not judges, make equal laws for all!
Adopting the same Gladue approach for Canadians of African descent may also not yield the desired outcomeIt is “historical fact and present reality” that African Nova Scotians were and continue to be discriminated against, the judge said.
Prove it! With, you know, evidence! Not "We catch them committing more crimes, so we're racists!"
But while racial background may help understand the broader circumstances that acted upon an offender, it does not necessarily establish a lower standard of moral culpability. But you sure want it to!
The judge also pointed out that MacLean had spoken to Gabriel for four hours, so her observations of the experience of young African Nova Scotia men “may not apply to him individually.”
To counter crime-gang "cultures" we must disband them, not always free the poor criminal "victims!"
Your backwards approach would only enshrine the criminals' gang-might-made "rights" into our law!
The judge declared Gabriel ineligible for parole for 13 years, going against the defence team’s wish for the minimum 10 years.
Nova Scotia Legal Aid lawyer Brandon Rolle said even though it wasn’t the outcome they wanted, the judge gave meaningful consideration to Gabriel’s African Nova Scotian background.
“I take the view that every African-Canadian offender should have the ability to present evidence pertaining to their cultural background to assist the trier of fact at sentencing,” Rolle said.
"Assist" the judge in "understanding" that there are no real crimes nor criminals because victimology!
“Applying a cultural lens adds tremendous value because it allows the judge or jury to have a better appreciation for the lived experience of an African-Canadian individual that they might otherwise not consider.”
"Lived experience" = anecdotal subjectivity: "He's not a criminal because he doesn't feel like one!"
Rick Woodburn, president of the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel, declined to comment on the growing call for assessments, saying members had not been surveyed on the issue.
Who gives a flying fuck what a members' survey would say? You don't get to vote for unequal rights!
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I've said it before and now I find I have to say it again:
Liberals are racists: they always assume that ONLY White Western people (including, of course, the Jews in Israel,) are INTELLIGENT enough to be guilty of being truly evil, while all their pet "People Of Colour" (including the "swarthy palestinians") being mentally inferior and all, just can't help being enslaved by their instincts and emotions into acting as violent animals when frustrated, the poor oppressed little dears, so the liberals will always indulge their crimes, much as one ignores the new puppy as it pees on the rugs.
So here's their interminably ongoing "narrative" (story):
"SO JUST STOP PICKING ON ALL THE THE POOR HELPLESS MENTALLY INFERIOR SWARTHY ANIMAL VICTIMS, YOU EVIL MENTALLY SUPERIOR WHITE BULLIES! YOU KNOW THEY’RE AT THE MERCY OF THEIR ANIMAL INSTINCTS SUCH THAT THEY JUST CAN’T HELP BEING VIOLENT WHEN CONFUSED, SO STOP BAITING AND CONFUSING THEM, YOU HATERS!"
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