Failed by system

DAVID ADAMS is not a model citizen. The 22-year-old pleaded guilty in Edmonton earlier this month to multiple charges related to his use of the internet to lure girls aged 13 to 15 into having intercourse with him.

And yet our society is now obliged to show him leniency. Mr Adams was beaten up in prison before his conviction by at least one guard and by fellow inmates. Last week, a judge sentenced him to 12 years for his crimes, but then cut the time in half, due to the injustices Mr Adams endured while in the state’s custody.

Canadians will react to this with justified anger. But they should direct their anger toward the right people. As Justice Terry Clackson said in his ruling, there is a “notion that prisoners have no rights and deserve whatever ill treatment they may suffer”. But, he added, “criminals are still people entitled to basic human rights”.

Exactly. The failure to protect inmates is directly connected to the mistreatment of hundreds of Canadians kept in solitary confinement for months and years on end. The recent example of Adam Capay, who has been in solitary for more than four years awaiting trial, is a symptom of the disease.

The blame for these miscarriages should be aimed directly at those responsible for Canada’s federal and provincial prisons. The same failure of courage that caused Mr Capay such harm has now robbed Mr Adams’s victims of the justice that should have come from seeing a predator put behind bars for an appropriate sentence.

When criminals are ordered released early, not for good behaviour but as a form of compensation for the state’s bad behaviour, the justice system fails crime’s victims.