Improvements needed to monitor high-risk offenders: BC minister
Posted September 15, 2017 5:21 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – BC’s Minister of Public Safety says more needs to be done to make sure monitoring technology and the justice system are up to date to prevent high-risk offenders from committing future crimes once they are released.
Mike Farnworth’s comments come just one day after convicted sex offender Raymond Caissie pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Serena Vermeersch in 2014.
The case prompted outrage from local community leaders, including then Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts, who questioned why Caissie was released from prison less than a year before the murder when he was designated at a high risk to re-offend.
“We do need to look at, particularly when it comes to high-risk sex offenders who are not taking treatment or refuse to take treatment, how they are dealt with,” Farnworth said at a joint provincial and federal justice ministers meeting in Vancouver on Friday. “I will be approaching the federal government and justice minister to sit down and talk about these things.”
Farnworth notes that today, police use more sophisticated technology, such as GPS tracking, to monitor the movements of high risk offenders and deter future crimes.
“Courts can classify someone a dangerous offender, but when you have a case like this, where all the proper procedures were followed, all the monitoring was done, that things still went wrong,” he said. “I think it’s appropriate to review not only the technology that’s used, but also what more can we do in the future.”
