Take two of the most recent infamous cases of murderers being diagnosed with mental illness, Vince Li and Richard Kachkar. Li was convicted of first stabbing, then beheading and finally eating fellow passenger Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba in 2008. Kachkar was convicted of stealing a snow plow and then deliberately ramming it into the police cruiser of Sergeant Ryan Russell in 2011. Both men were found not criminally responsible and were sentenced to mental health hospitals to be treated until cured.
This has not sat well with the families of the victims and their supporters, especially with Li and Kachkar being given escorted. Li has been granted unescorted passes, while Kachkar is seeking to be moved to a less secure general forensic unit at hospital in Whitby where is. (Not likely to be granted.) To them it seems as though they, the families, have been given life sentences through the death of their loved ones, while their killers have been given a slap on the wrist.
To placate this, the federal government with its get tough on crime agenda has tabled B C-14 the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act (http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=6323682) to toughen things up. The purpose of the bill, it is claimed, is “...to specify that the paramount consideration in the decision-making process is the safety of the public...” and to identify high-risk accused.
And that – creating a new category of high-risk offender – is the most controversial part of the bill. This would apply to persons “...found by the court to pose a higher risk of committing acts of violence.” Eric Gottard, a partner with Peek & Company and chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s National Criminal Justice Section, says that inappropriate release and recidivism “...is a non-existent problem. It’s a make-believe problem.” http://www.nationalmagazine.ca/Articles/January-2014/Not-Criminally-Responsible-Reform-Act.aspx Critics point to such high profile cases as Li and Kachkar to suggest that any supervised release is inappropriate.
Under the proposed new rules a high-risk offender would be denied unescorted passes and only allowed escorted passes under special circumstances. The designation would stay until removed by the court. The time between reviews could be up to three years.
S. Penny writing in Part for Accountability Competency and Transparency (PACT) https://www.onlineparty.ca/issue.php?ISSUEID=814 says that “...it will create serious and unmanageable bottle necks in an already overburdened system. [By having people continue to occupy these beds longer than what their risk and clinic status warrant.] Forensic beds are expensive, and they have not been able to meet the growing demand for forensic mental health services in many years.”
Gottard says “There is no viable, rational connection between the nature of the violent act itself (committed, by definition, when the person is not able to appreciate the illegal nature of their actions) and the patient’s risk to re-offend and the appropriate treatment regime. “
The amendments assume that the safety of public is currently not being taken into account. Dr. Zohar Waisman, Kuchkar’s attending psychiatrist, in recommending that he not be transferred to a less secure general forensic unit, said, “I certainly believe in his rehabilitation. That’s my job to treat him and rehabilitate him, but public safety comes first through this process.”
Finally, according to S. Penny, the amendments could make the public less safe due as a high-risk designation would make it more difficult for a person to transition through the system. Thus lawyers would be reluctant to pursue a not criminally responsible defense. Great critics might say. Not so great I and others say. People who are mentally ill might pass themselves off as being well, do their time and come out still as sick as ever, without receiving any treatment, and reoffend. With a person designated not criminally responsible they are going to get treatment and be watched as they reintegrate into society.
At the heart of this issue are two things: lack of forgiveness by the families of those victimized by mentally ill persons and a lack of understanding of mental illness. In the first instance the average person has no clue what forgiveness is and is not. They erroneously assume that to forgive means allowing the guilty party to escape the consequences, which is not necessarily the case.
In the second instance we, as a society, tend to fear the mentally ill, despite all this talk of openness. We somehow see the mentally ill person as someone who should remain in control of themselves and if they lose control they should be punished. Using this same logic we should be locking up those who have seizures, heart attacks and other physical health problems that result in the death or injury of other persons.
Both of these issues will be the subject of future blogs.
