What does it take to be kept in prison in Canada?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/08/2012 (5054 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Public respect is a cornerstone of a functioning justice system. If citizens widely lose faith in enforcement of the law, civil society erodes.

But that respect for the law is damaged by allowing a Hamilton hit man — a serial killer-for-hire who machine-gunned a Stelco janitor for not paying a debt — out of prison just 13 years into three life sentences.

The Parole Board of Canada has granted day parole to Kenneth Murdock. He lives at a halfway house and is working as a truck driver; he has legally changed his last name to Bishop and is believed to be in British Columbia. His new employer, according to reports, was unaware of his criminal past.

This is a man who in 1985 shot Salvatore Alaimo, a father of five, as he worked in the garage of his Florence Street home; who shot mob boss Johnny Papalia in the back of the head in a Railway Street parking lot in 1997, who shot Papalia underboss Carmen Barillaro in his Niagara Falls home two months later. He beat and shot other victims in a lifelong career of robbery and extortion and as a mob enforcer.

What does it take to be kept in prison in Canada?

Yes, the three life sentences were concurrent. And, yes, Murdock was eligible for parole after 13 years. But eligible does not mean automatic and Murdock is a poster boy, along with other Canadian serial killers, for parole denial — for long-term (if not lifelong) incarceration.

As recently as December 2010 — not even two years ago — Murdock was still using illegal drugs, including cocaine. That cost him a previous day parole from the B.C. penitentiary where he was serving his sentences; a psychologist said then he should not be re-released.

But a year later, the parole board determined his drug use was just a “lapse” and he was a “moderate risk” to commit a violent crime again. He got six months of day parole, which was recently extended for another six months.

Releasing a killer into an unwitting community because he’s a “moderate” risk to reoffend is hardly comforting. The average citizen might hope that, at the very least, the parole board appointees would hold out for low-risk applications.

But forget, if you wish, considerations of public safety. An overarching issue here is the message this sends to the public, both law-abiding and not. The parole board is saying that you can kill three people and, particularly if you testify against mob bosses as Murdock did, you can go to prison in your mid-30s and still be out in time for your 50th birthday.

That’s not the sort of message we want to send to the young thugs and gangbangers who spray bullets around like so much confetti. Do the crime, do a little time. And then you can get on with your life (under a new name, if you like).

And what message does that send to the rest of us who obey the law (mostly) and expect those who don’t to be reasonably punished?

Releasing a killer like Murdock 13 years into three life sentences is a joke, if not an insult to public expectations of justice. It brings disrepute and disrespect to Canada’s judicial system, of which the Parole Board of Canada is a part.