Source: cbc.ca 1/5/23 A provincial court judge in Shelburne, N.S., has banished a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen from the country for two years, in what he described as an “extremely extraordinary” sentencing. Allen ____, 64, was charged with two counts of criminal harassment last month after he was accused of stalking a 25-year-old woman in Yarmouth on two occasions, in October and December respectively. The RCMP also issued a public notification in December describing ____ as a high-risk offender. More than two decades ago, he was convicted of sexual offences in the United States that…
Read MoreTag: Canada
Canada: Despite no public sex offender registry, recidivism rate has dropped by nearly 70%
Source: myscience.org 12/20/22 Study led by Professor Patrick Lussier shows significant decline in recidivism of sex crimes in Canada over 80 years Encouraging news: between 1940 and 2019, the recidivism rate of sex offenders in this country has dropped by nearly 70%, according to a study published in the journal Criminology and Public Policy. Improved knowledge of sexual offending and training of criminal justice officials could explain these results, argues Patrick Lussier, a professor at the School of Social Work and Criminology and leader of the meta-analysis. Over a two-year…
Read MoreCanada: Luring pedophiles through fake online ads is not entrapment, Supreme Court says
Source: cbc.ca 11/24/22 The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that online police investigations targeting adults looking to have sex with children do not constitute police entrapment. In a rare 9-0 ruling, the top court dismissed the appeals of four men convicted of child sex offences: Ontario residents Corey Daniel Ramelson, Muhammad Abbas Jaffer, Erhard Haniffa and Temitope Dare. An investigation by York Regional Police called Project Raphael ran from 2014 to 2017. It involved undercover police officers posing as teenaged escorts on a website they suspected of being a hub for the…
Read MoreCanada: P.E.I. has 199 people on the National Sex Offender Registry, but that number may drop
Source: msn.com 11/16/22 The number of people on P.E.I. who are on the National Sex Offender Registry could drop after a recent Supreme Court decision. Since 2011, any Canadian who has been convicted of two or more sexual offences is automatically listed on the registry for life. The Supreme Court has determined that is unconstitutional, saying the list should be based on an offender’s risk to reoffend. … Mullin believes the Supreme Court decision could make the registry more effective, without minimizing the effect on victims. “I think this decision…
Read MoreCanada: Jamie Sarkonak: What counts as a sex crime is too broad and it’s ruining people’s lives
Source: nationalpost.com 11/7/22 If some sex crimes are of such low significance that it’s considered a civil rights violation to put convicts’ addresses in a database for police eyes only, Parliament should re-examine its approach to sex-related offences as a whole. The recent Supreme Court decision in which it was declared unconstitutional to order all sex offenders onto a national registry upon conviction highlights a problem, not with the registry itself, but with the ever-widening scope of what constitutes a sex crime. It’s a sign that Parliament should return to deciding the…
Read MoreCanada: Supreme Court rules mandatory sex offender registry is unconstitutional
Source: nationalpost.com 10/28/22 Mandatory listing on Canada’s sex offender registry is, for some offenders, an unjustified infringement on their liberty that is not rationally connected to the goal of investigating or preventing sexual crimes, the Supreme Court ruled Friday. Automatic lifetime listing in the case of multiple sexual offences is similarly “overbroad,” the court decided in striking down both laws to permit discretion by sentencing judges. … Imposing those automatically, with no regard to an offender’s circumstances or risk of re-offending, is not justified by any rational connection to the…
Read MoreCanada will accede to U.S. request to share travel information on convicted child predators
Source: headtopics.com 10/17/22 Canada will accede to U.S. request to share travel information on convicted child predators Ottawa plans to introduce legislation that would allow the federal government to routinely notify Washington when Canadians convicted of sexual offences against children travel to the U.S. Read the full article
Read MoreCanada: Small Yukon First Nation bans sex offender using its COVID emergency law
Source: ctvnews.ca 10/11/22 WHITEHORSE — A First Nation of fewer than 300 people in Yukon’s north has used a law it created during the COVID-19 pandemic to bar a convicted sex offender from being sent to its community. The Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow issued a declaration under its Community Emergency Act banning Christopher Schafer from the fly-in community nearly 800 kilometres north of Whitehorse for at least the next 90 days. Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm said Yukon’s territorial court decision to allow Schafer to live in Old Crow…
Read MoreCANADA: Supreme Court considers if mandatory listing on sex registry is constitutional
Source: cbc.ca 2/8/22 Edmonton lawyer asks top court to strike down sections of Canada’s sex offender laws The fallout from a 2011 Edmonton sexual assault case has come before the Supreme Court of Canada. The country’s top court has been asked to consider striking down two sections of Canada’s sex offender laws as unconstitutional. In 2011, the Stephen Harper government altered the Criminal Code so the names of sex offenders would automatically be placed on the sex offender registry. The changes meant judges no longer had discretion on whether to submit…
Read MoreU.S. wants Canada to share travel information on convicted child sex offenders
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Source: theglobeandmail.com 2/2/22 The U.S. government says it’s frustrated that Ottawa refuses to routinely notify Washington when Canadians convicted of sexual offences against children travel to the United States, noting that it alerts Canada when the same class of American offenders are heading here. The Americans say Canada cites federal privacy law as the reason. … Mr. Kenney said the U.S. government would like Ottawa to amend its laws to allow the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency to provide information on the travel plans of all registered child sex…
Read MoreCanada: Opinion: Quick-fix laws following horrific crimes are seldom effective
Source: edmontonjournal.com 1/4/22 On Sept. 17, 2021, Mchale Busch, 24, and her son, Noah were tragically confirmed dead. The accused, Robert Keith Major, 53, is facing two charges of first-degree murder and two counts of indignity to human remains. In response, Cody McConnell, Busch’s partner and Noah’s father, and his family are calling for changes to Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act to allow a landlord the ability to ask for consent to collect personal information. This would allow tenants to know if there is a registered sex offender in their…
Read MoreCanada: ‘Like I’m being raped all over again,’ child porn survivor tells court
Source: leaderpost.com 8/26/21 Three women shared with the court the long-term impacts child pornography has had on them and their children. “Lily” has never stopped being victimized by child pornography. As a child, she was sexually abused by her stepfather, the acts recorded and shared online. Although Lily is now an adult with children of her own, she continues to suffer from more than just the psychological impacts of her abuse. “Some of these perverts have contacted me,” she said. “I’ve received emails suggesting making porn with these strangers. One…
Read MoreCanada: Sajjan defends military amid uproar over general’s handling of sex misconduct file
Source: nationalobserver.com 8/6/21 Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s office is standing by the military’s decision to reassign a senior officer who wrote a reference for a convicted sex offender to a new job that involves reviewing ways to eliminate sexual misconduct from the Canadian Armed Forces. Yet survivors and experts of military sexual misconduct are expressing outrage over Maj.-Gen. Peter Dawe’s new role, saying it raises even more questions about the Armed Forces’ ability and commitment to addressing the problem. “This decision clearly illustrates an inability to think rationally about the…
Read MoreCanada: Naked in river, but not guilty
Source: castanet.net 9/4/21 Naked man in river at Pioneer Park beach not indecent, judge rules naked in river, but not guilty A naked sex offender in the river at a busy downtown Kamloops beach this summer was not indecent, a judge has ruled, finding the Crown case against him too thin to convict. Kenneth Wickstrom stood trial on one count of committing an indecent act in a public place. The charge stemmed from an alleged incident at Pioneer Park in June in which the 66-year-old was accused of stripping naked…
Read MoreCanada: What a new report reveals about Manitoba sex offenders and victims
[winnipeg.ctvnews.ca – 4/16/21] WINNIPEG — A Manitoba committee tasked with determining if the public needs to be notified about a sex offender has released a report giving the province a look at the offenders and the victims involved. The Community Notification Advisory Committee (CNAC) is a group of representatives from Manitoba Justice, corrections and Manitoba police agencies, along with medical or therapeutic practitioners and civilian members. The committee was created in 1995 to review sex offender cases referred to it by police agencies, and recommend if the public should be…
Read MoreCanada: Psychiatric patients awarded nearly $10M in lawsuit over experimental treatments
[orilliamatters.com – 2/12/21] ‘Those who were youths were harmed in a severe and lifelong manner that deserves particular attention,’ judge finds Patients who were subjected to “degrading and inhumane” experimental treatments at the former Oak Ridge maximum-security psychiatric facility in Penetanguishene have been awarded a total of just under $10 million. The awards for the 28 patients range from $1,000 up to $2.7 million for a vulnerable teenager in “mental agony” who was shackled naked to other patients, including a sex offender. … In 1975, after running away, stealing and…
Read MoreCanada: Baranyai: How should Ontario’s sex offender registry work?
[lfpress.com – 11/29/20] Ontario’s sex offender registry has some soul searching to do. Does it exist to punish offenders, or protect communities? And how can the framework for who goes on the list, which the Supreme Court has ruled discriminatory, support this core objective? The government has one year to amend Christopher’s Law, named for 11-year-old Christopher Stephenson, who in 1988 was tragically abducted, assaulted and murdered by a known pedophile. A coroner’s jury recommended creating an electronic registry of sex offenders to help police target their neighbourhood searches during…
Read MoreCanada: Sex-offender provision unconstitutional in not criminally responsible cases: court
[ca.news.yahoo.com – 11/20/20] OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed that Ontario’s sex-offender registry regime violates the constitutional rights of people found not criminally responsible for their actions by reason of mental disorder. The decision came Friday in the case of an Ontario man who was found not criminally responsible in June 2002 for sexually assaulting his then-wife, and other charges, due to a manic episode. Read the full article
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