Public Condemnation Only Vocal While It Is Media Event

Tories: Get tough on recidivism

By DAVE BREAKENRIDGE

If this doesn't suggest something's wrong with how things are done, it's hard to imagine what will.

Sure, this time of year, in the dog days of summer, it doesn't take much to rouse the law-and-order type from his deck chair.

But if Prime Minister Stephen Harper really wants to reform the justice system and make Canadians feel safer, he could start with people like Norman Eli Larue.

Larue was arrested in a small town east of Calgary this week, charged, along with a woman, in the murder of a man in the Whitehorse area in 2008.

The kicker?

At the time of this alleged crime Larue, deemed a long-term offender by the courts, was supposed to be serving a 5 1/2-year sentence for sexual assault.

The problem?

He was at large from a Vancouver area halfway house -- for the second time.

That someone who the parole board believes warrants monitoring by police for 10 years was even granted a stint in a halfway house is bad enough, but that he wasn't turfed back behind bars after his first disappearance is more alarming.

That he may have killed a 62-year-old during a second absence suggests he shouldn't have been given that sort of leeway to begin with.

His isn't the only case, to be sure.

THE SAME NEIGHBOURHOOD

In another recent example, a man who did time for breaking into a teen girl's home and raping her was allegedly caught peeping into a woman's home, violating his release conditions.

What's more disturbing, this alleged parole breach happened in the same neighbourhood as the original crimes.

Newspapers across the country are filled with stories of lax sentencing given to people who wind up as repeat offenders of the most heinous crimes.

If there's any real justice, we will see rapists, molesters and child porn purveyors handed the kind of sentences that are warranted for people who have a troubling recidivism rate.

The Tories talk about being tough on crime, but if that's the case, they need to get tougher for scum like this.