Is government doing enough to protect kids from pedophiles?
Interim Staff
The recent capture of pedophile Peter Whitmore has prompted Canadians to debate his surprisingly lax treatment at the hands of this country’s justice system over the past decade. Writing in the Toronto Sun, pundit Linda Williamson noted several consistencies about Whitmore’s criminal behaviour: “his predilection for befriending and ‘grooming’ his young targets, the astonishingly light sentences he received, and his repeated requests for ‘treatment.” And, of course, the system’s absurd inability to keep him locked up.”
Williamson added that Whitmore’s numerous brushes with the law form an all-too-common pattern: a pedophile receives a sentence of “a year or two,” he’s held until the very end of his term because officials know that an uproar will occur when he’s let go, and angry citizens will drive him to another venue “where the whole cycle will inevitably begin again.”
Whitmore has been charged with two counts of kidnapping, two counts of sexual assault causing bodily harm, and one count of abducting a child under 14. He has been in custody since August 1, when he surrendered at an abandoned farmhouse in Saskatchewan following a two-day manhunt and a 10-hour standoff with police. Whitmore allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted two boys, aged 10 and 14 in late July.
Interestingly, Saskatchewan’s Attorney-General’s office plans to recommend Whitmore for dangerous offender status if he’s convicted despite an RCMP recommendation to the contrary. During the standoff, RCMP detectives made a deal with Whitmore, promising to argue in favour of no dangerous offender status, no life sentences, and protective incarceration if he gave himself up. Dangerous offender status gives judges the option of imposing indeterminate sentences upon criminals, and makes parole very difficult to obtain. As of May 2005, there were 336 dangerous offenders in Canada, including the infamous Paul Bernardo.
Frank Quennell, Saskatchewan’s Justice Minister and Attorney-General said the RCMP agreement with Whitmore is “not literally or metaphorically written in stone,” adding: “my department, the Crown prosecutor of Saskatchewan, were not party to any agreement or any deal and there will be – I expect – no effect on how this matter proceeds from the view of prosecution and from the view of sentencing positions the Crown prosecutor might take.”
Some worry that the RCMP’s ability to defuse dangerous standoffs involving hostages could be compromised if Saskatchewan doesn’t honour the agreement.
The case even caught the attention of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who told reporters, “we’re protecting our children from sexual predators by raising the age of consent from 14 to 16. And we will be toughening dangerous offender legislation as well.”
Whitmore has a long history of pedophilia. He was convicted of sexually assaulting four boys in 1993, and later jailed five years for two more assaults, although none of his subsequent convictions involved any physical abuse. In 2000, Whitmore made an appearance on Canada AM, in which he promised he would remain celibate and seek therapy. A week later, Whitmore was found with a 13-year old boy in a Toronto hotel, and sentenced to another year behind bars.
Ironically, the system’s inability to keep Whitmore locked up before this incident might be due in part to good police work; police often intervened before anything dangerous could take place. His later convictions were violations of court-ordered restrictions placed upon his behaviour, but because they didn’t involve actual sexual assault or serious personal injury offences, dangerous offender status couldn’t be used against him. On one such arrest, Whitmore was found in possession of a so-called “rape kit” which included latex gloves, pictures of young children, duct tape, a sleeping bag, and plastic zipper ties, which can be used as handcuffs.
While public commentary on Whitmore’s arrest was generally of the law-and-order variety, other preferred to blame society for his crimes. Anne Marie Aikins, a former rape crisis centre worker opined on the left-wing rabble.ca website in November 2001 that she was “angered by the inordinate amount of attention paid to this one offender by the Toronto police and the media last year, and frustrated by the fear-based energy that [Whitmore’s] neighbours wasted while attempting to protect their children,” adding “the underlying causes of sexual assault, incest, child abuse and domestic violence are complex and deeply rooted in our socialization.”
More typical were the words of Whitmore’s unidentified older brother, who suggested recently that police should take Whitmore and “lock him away, “ adding: “If I had been able to get inside [the Saskatchewan farmhouse] I would have taken care of business.”
