Toews supports electronic anklets for sex offenders
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/06/2012 (5252 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
PUBLIC Safety Minister Vic Toews has joined the chorus of those lobbying the Selinger government to expand its electronic-monitoring program to include high-risk sex offenders just released from jail.
In a letter tabled Wednesday by Progressive Conservative justice critic Kelvin Goertzen, Toews said provincial authorities can apply for a peace bond under the Criminal Code to restrict an offender’s movements, including the use of electronic monitoring.
“This type of proceeding should be a very convenient, effective and expeditious alternative when a criminal prosecution is not available,” Toews said in the letter dated June 6.
Goertzen enlisted Toews’ support in his bid to get the NDP to expand its use of electronic monitoring — ankle bracelets equipped with GPS technology that track offenders. Since April 2008, only high-risk car thieves under curfew have worn the anklets.
Goertzen said a candidate for a peace bond and electronic monitoring is 45-year-old Luigi Deangelis, who was released from Stony Mountain Institution on Monday. Police have said Deangelis is considered a high risk to reoffend and that all adult females are at risk of sexual violence.
“I think the public believes you can do something, the federal public safety minister believes you can do something, I believe you can do something. The only person who doesn’t think they can do anything is the guy who’s collecting his paycheque to do something,” Goertzen said.
Attorney General Andrew Swan said the use of electronic monitoring is not as simple as Goertzen or Toews portray.
“It’s not just a matter of slapping a bracelet on somebody,” he said. “If the goal is to prevent the person from coming into contact with any other person, or any other female, we’d have to do a lot of thinking before you’d think that electronic monitoring was really the right way to go.”
The NDP has already said it wants to expand electronic monitoring to include serious domestic abusers and stalkers, who would be prohibited from attending specific locations where a victim lives or works.
bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca