Globe & Mail: Nearly 850 convicts are unlawfully at large in Canada

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Globe & Mail: Nearly 850 convicts are unlawfully at large in Canada
Date: Dec 28, 2006 9:32 AM
PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL
DATE: 2006.12.28
PAGE: A1 (ILLUS)
BYLINE: ALEX DOBROTA
SECTION: National News
EDITION: Metro
DATELINE: Ottawa ONT
WORD COUNT: 984

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Nearly 850 convicts on the lam nationwide
Police, victims groups concerned over data showing 145 inmates have
escaped prison

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About 850 convicted criminals -- including a suspected biker-gang
affiliate who fired 15 shots at police officers and a man who killed a
gun salesman execution style -- are unlawfully at large in Canada.

The figures, obtained from Correctional Service Canada, show 145 inmates
escaped from federal penitentiaries between June of 1966 and October of
2006 and have not been caught.

The rest, 704 convicts, are unlawfully at large after having failed to
report to a parole officer during that same time frame.

The records take into account only convicts unlawfully at large from a
federal institution where they were serving a sentence of two years or
more.

Statistics compiled from the information provided by Corrections Canada
show one in four fugitives commits a crime within an average of 50 days
of their breakout. Robbery and break-ins are the most common felonies
with fugitives, but murder and sex offences are also on the list.

The findings, gathered from access to information requests made by The
Globe and Mail, have alarmed police officials and victims groups, who
have called for a review of parole sentences and minimum-security
prisons.

"Escape is rather a loose term," said Bruce Miller of the Police
Association of Ontario. "Escape is often nothing more than calling a
taxicab or calling a friend to drive you off." Minimum-security prisons
are meant to house inmates serving the latter part of their sentence or
who are perceived to pose no risk to society and who show no signs of
wanting to flee.

But in the past nine years, more than 500 inmates have walked away from
such facilities, many of which have no fences or walls.

All but 12 were caught.

Corrections Canada did not disclose the number of escapes from
minimum-security penitentiaries prior to 1997.

Among the convicts still on the lam are two of Quebec's most-wanted men:
Martin Pellerin and Steven Solyom. Both escaped from Montee St. Francois
Institution in Laval, the federal penitentiary that recorded the largest
number of escapes in the country.

Mr. Pellerin, a suspected affiliate of the Rock Machine biker gang, was
arrested in 1995 after a high-speed chase, during which the 38-year-old
man fired 15 shots at police officers.

Two years later, he tried to kill a fellow inmate at Donnacona
Institution, a maximum-security federal penitentiary.

Despite his violent history, correctional officers judged it was safe to
transfer Mr. Pellerin to a minimum-security prison in 2000.

In June of that year, he escaped.

Four years later, Mr. Solyom would escape from the same prison, where he
was serving a murder sentence. In 1989, Mr. Solyom shot dead a business
owner who cashed the cheques of welfare recipients; Mr. Solyom then made
off with $1,500.

Among those convicts on the lam who failed to report to a parole
officer, Jason Vincent Liss is likely the most notorious. In 1993, Mr.
Liss robbed a gun range in British Columbia. He took five semi-automatic
handguns. But before he left with his loot, he ordered a gun salesman
into a storage room.

Mr. Liss, then 21, made the salesman kneel and shot him twice in the
head. The RCMP has been looking for Mr. Liss since February of this
year.

For the victims, or their relatives, the knowledge that such
perpetrators are at large makes for a long and painful recovery, said
Steven Sullivan, the head of an Ottawa-based victims advocacy group.

"It really affects their quality of life," said Mr. Sullivan, president
of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime.

Victims registered with Correctional Services Canada are notified as
soon as an escape happens, he said, and some have to go into hiding.

"For victims, the knowledge that the person is out there, you could bump
into them any time on the street, could have a huge impact on their
ability to feel safe in their homes and their communities." In some
cases, fugitives also pose a danger.

In 1999, Darby Cairns walked away from Elbow Lake minimum-security
institution in British Columbia, where he was serving a sentence for
murder.

He was caught 20 days later and charged in the deaths of two people who
were killed while Mr. Cairns was at large.

Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Miller, of the Police Association of Ontario, have
called on the federal government to raise the bar for transfers to
minimum-security prisons and for parole sentences.

The Conservative government has promised to do away with statutory
release laws and is also planning a review of the federal corrections
system, said Melisa Leclerc, a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister
Stockwell Day.

But one prisoners-rights advocate said convicts on the lam will always
exist in a system of justice that values rehabilitation.

Stiffening security conditions in penitentiaries or cracking down on
parole sentences would reduce inmates' ability to reintegrate into
society and would increase their likelihood of reoffending, said Graham
Stewart, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada.

"Short of having a person in a box with a key, there's always some
opportunity to run away," Mr. Stewart said.

But a spokesman with Correctional Services Canada said the numbers of
convicts unlawfully at large must be put into context.

"One must not forget that we have 22,000 on our watch," Guy Campeau
said. "It's a small proportion [of people unlawfully at large]." Mr.
Campeau also said his department has boosted the number of guards in its
minimum-security prisons since 1999, when 107 convicts escaped. That
number has decreased drastically over the years, to 31 in 2004, and 28
in 2005.

And only 14 of the 145 federal penitentiary escapees unlawfully at large
in October went missing since 2000.

He said he expects many of this year's escapees to be caught within the
following months.

But he acknowledged that the number of convicts on the lam will likely
remain around 800, as more will escape custody or will fail to report to
their parole officers.

There is no national police unit in Canada specialized in hunting them
down, which is why many convicts can simply blend into communities
across the country and pass unnoticed for long periods of time, said
Halton police Detective Sergeant Greg Sullivan.

Until two years ago, Det. Sgt. Sullivan headed the only provincial
police unit in Canada that specializes in hunting convicts on the lam,
Ontario's Repeat Offender Parole Enforcement Unit. Since its inception
in 2002, ROPE has snatched an average of 300 convicts unlawfully at
large per year.

"The problem is . . . when a parole warrant is issued, it's sent to the
local police department," Det. Sgt. Sullivan said. "And there's really
no effort to try and find that person. Most police departments are
inundated with other problems."






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