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A dangerous sex offender was allowed to attend an Alberta hospital unsupervised and without the requisite guards, the Toronto Sun has learned.
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The unnamed offender is caged in the Wild Rose province and has a lifetime ban on being within 300 yards of children, a prison source told the Sun.
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“The prison didn’t want to pay overtime so they downgraded him from medium security to minimum security to make it work,” the source said. “So he was given an unescorted absence.”
According to the source, the pedophile is serving an undetermined federal sentence in a medium-security facility.
“But there’s a rule that convicts can be reclassified, and for the purpose of a hospital visit, that’s what they did,” the prison insider said. “He went from medium security to minimum.”
He added: “However, the line below that particular rule declares that this does not apply to dangerous criminals.”
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The source noted that only the National Parole Board can make the reclassification — in this case, that didn’t happen. It was the warden’s decision.
“When they did this there was panic from the guards,” the source said.
MP Frank Caputo (Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo), former Crown prosecutor and the Conservatives’ justice and public safety critic, is appalled.
“It is disgusting that Corrections Canada not only reclassified a sexual predator but left him unguarded among the most vulnerable in a hospital setting, all in the name of expediency,” Caputo told the Sun.
He added: “How can Anne Kelly (commissioner of Corrections) or Dominic LeBlanc (Public Safety minister) justify putting innocent children and hospital staff in danger? This is a colossal failure, and we need answers.
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“Corrections Canada is broken.”
Most sex offenders on the Prairies and in Alberta are caged at Bowden Institution where — theoretically anyway — the convicts can get the psychological help they need.
In theory.
“Sex offenders have a hard time integrating in a normal prison setting,” the source said.
Correctional officers see these societal pariahs on a day-in, day-out basis. They know their tricks and ticks. Guards know how these monsters operate because they’re not wearing rose-coloured glasses.
And it doesn’t take a sociology or criminology degree to get to their vile core.
“But corrections bureaucrats and management will tell us, ‘We know these people better than you’,” the source said. “We spend all day, every day with them but management is like, ‘ WE know these guys, Trust us.’”
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Additionally, a tidal wave of drugs has washed into prison via drones delivering goodies from buddies on the outside. Corrections seems reluctant to purchase tech that can be found on Amazon to stop the drones.
“Increasingly, the union is doing management’s job. They are the ones raising red flags about these situations. I can’t help but suppose leaving a sex offender in public is not a very good idea,” the source said.
“The brass will get told: ‘You can’t do this.’”
But they do.
“And then it becomes another, ‘We told you so.’ They’re willing to gamble and public safety is not worth the gamble … particularly if a sex offender like the one in the hospital commits a crime.”
Tales of this nature from Corrections Canada (Hello! Paul Bernardo) have become like a ’70s sitcom in summer reruns.
After a while, it is not funny in the least.
@HunterTOSun
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