It’s easy to jump up and down and yell and scream, post to Facebook, and bash our legal system for another lenient sentence handed to a violent offender.
That was the initial reaction on the Kelowna Capital News Facebook page on Monday when we posted a story from the criminal courts about a machete attacker being sentenced to time served.
If you missed it, the story is here and it revolves around an offender who attacked several people with a machete. He was sentenced to time-served and will be released.
Reaction was swift from those reading the story with posts about how our system is a joke and how we don’t value victims of crime. Certainly a case can be made for that in many instances over the years.
In this case our thoughts are with all of the victims. What they went through was terrible and there is no getting around it.
One comment came from the victim’s Aunt and it makes you feel for what victim’s of crime have to deal with. You can understand the way they feel.
“What a joke. I wish people could hear what this has done to the victim (my niece) and her daughter and my family. He has left a wake of destruction and now thinks he will saunter back in and take his daughter? Not a chance, even with the subtance abuse/relationship course. This is why he needed to serve some real time, get access to proper programming to address unresolved issues. Way to go justice system, you are the boat in which the wake will continue,” reads the Aunt’s post on Facebook.
When you hear that it’s hard to defend our justice system. But there is so much more under the surface than what can be taken in, by surfing headlines on web sites and jumping in with a quick reaction.
In his ruling in this case, the judge used what is known as the Gladue principle, a principle that recognizes the unique circumstances that aboriginals are facing. In this case, the perpetrator was a grandchild of a residential school survivor. And it should come as no surprise that the family that grew from that residential survivor had major issues.
Our governments have a hand in this case. This is the result of the residential school program. Governments tried to eradicate an entire race of people. They failed. They put them on reserves and they cultivated a culture of abuse, alcoholism, violence.
For the courts to take that into account in sentencing an aboriginals background is absolutely necessary. This is Canada’s problem and jumping to conclusions doesn’t do anyone any good.