The Shotgun Blog
« An hour of darkness will come | Main | Obama: Typical White People are Racist »
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Kill and release
Posted by Grant Brown on March 20, 2008 in Current Affairs | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/22305/27299784
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Kill and release:
Comments
Hmmm... Dubie was a physically abusive cult leader who has been compared to Charles Manson and Jim Jones. Hardly someone on which to base a generalized claim about how the life of men is valued.
I would also be interested to know more about the BC case you mention. I cannot help but believe that there is more to the story than you are telling if the woman did not get any jail time at all. So forgive me if I don't share your outrage. It just sounds like you have "issues".
Posted by: Fact Check | 20-Mar-08 2:42:30 PM
Fact Check
"Hardly someone on which to base a generalized claim about how the life of men is valued."
Wow, selective outrage on your part over an extra-judicial killing. Your statement makes Grant's point for him. Thanks.
What was he convicted of? Where is due process?
This brings to mind a thought I've mulling lately. We're rightly outraged over honour killings when a man kills a wife/sister/etc. over some infidelity. Not similarly punishing women who kill men over an infidelity is, in fact, allowing honour killing in a different form.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 20-Mar-08 2:51:43 PM
Women are only equal when it suits them.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 20-Mar-08 3:30:21 PM
This is a very weird case to say the least. George Patrick Dubie ("Daniel" Dubie) was not a Charles Manson. I knew him well. He was a con man and a manipulator for sure but he had lived a quiet life with Pim in Thailand for years. His life was marked with brilliant gifts that he unfortunately he principally used to create various money making schemes including the grand prize of marrying a multi-millionaire Geri Cvitanovich.
This light sentence does seem to trivialize such a violent act.
Posted by: hawaiianeyes | 20-Mar-08 3:47:31 PM
Fact Check,
Hawaiianeyes writes:
George Patrick Dubie ("Daniel" Dubie) was not a Charles Manson."
and yet you wrote:
" Dubie was a physically abusive cult leader who has been compared to Charles Manson and Jim Jones."
How do I decide whom to believe?
I know a way. Please provide the list of deaths at the hands of Dubie.
While you are at it, please provide a link showing the warrant for his execution for these crimes.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 20-Mar-08 3:56:22 PM
You are right that had it happened in Canada, she most likely would have not served any prison sentence. However how the Thai justice system came up with manslaughter is beyond me. It has all the appearance of pre-meditated murder.
Posted by: Alain | 20-Mar-08 3:59:35 PM
The following is from a Globe & Mail review of David Paciocco's book Getting Away With Murder -- The Canadian Criminal Justice System:
One evening in 1993, Lisa Ferguson loaded a rifle and went looking for her husband. Finding him asleep on the couch, she shot him dead. It was her response to [what she claimed was] an abusive relationship. Charged with murder, Ferguson was eventually found guilty of manslaughter.
Two years later, another Ottawa woman also shot her sleeping husband. Like Ferguson, Lilian Getkate was charged with murder, raised a battered-woman defense and was finally convicted of manslaughter.
Both women were sentenced to what is known as a conditional sentence of imprisonment. This means that they were sentenced to a term of prison, but one that would be served at home, under conditions that many people would regard as quite lenient. For example, one of the conditions "imposed" on Getkate was that she "continue to maintain regular contact with her family."
The conditional sentence of imprisonment was introduced in 1996 as part of a systematic reform of the sentencing process. Here's how it works: Having decided that a term of imprisonment is necessary, a judge then considers whether the sentence of custody can be served at home. A term of imprisonment served at home? If the offender abides by certain conditions, he or she will never even see a prison. Most Canadians will scratch their heads at a system that creates a fiction of this kind. The conditional sentence was created to reduce the number of admissions to custody. But should it apply to someone who kills a sleeping human being?
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 20-Mar-08 4:41:42 PM
Vast ignorance is one of my "gifts."
I had no idea that the justice system in Thailand would have charged her with something other than littering (for not collecting the dead body from the floor).
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 20-Mar-08 5:04:33 PM
If you want the long version of this story you may want to check out this site:
Posted by: hawaiianeyes | 20-Mar-08 7:10:31 PM
Fact Check: As h2o says, even if Dubie was a bad man, that isn't an excuse to killing him in cold blood. I would add that Ms. Crane was his constant companion for 28 years prior to killing him. Unless she was mentally incompetent, which was not pleaded in her defense, whatever schemes Dubie might have been involved in and was fleeing from, she must have known about. She was at least living off the avails of his ill-gotten gains, knowingly. (One media source described them as a modern day "Bonnie and Clyde".) It is difficult for me to conceive that she was a much better person than he was.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 21-Mar-08 1:27:27 AM
The B.C. woman who was sentenced to 2 years of house arrest for killing her lover in a fit of jealousy was Theresa Layne Senner. The story is reported by the CBC at the following:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/08/29/Senner_conditional_sentence20050829.html
Posted by: Grant Brown | 21-Mar-08 1:54:41 AM
Grant,
Interesting anecdotes there, but hardly a pattern that shows that the legal system is guilty of misandrony. Because what you don't mention (and might be ignorant of) is that conditional sentences for manslaughter have been handed down in Canada in many cases, including ones where males kill other males, ones where males kill females, and ones where females kill females. The idea that there is a gender bias is merely in your he-man-woman-hater's imagination. Nice try, Spanky, but if you have a legitimate beef at all it is that Canada is "soft on crime", not that we are a man-hating society.
Posted by: Fact Check | 21-Mar-08 6:47:12 AM
Fact Check,
Just curious. How do you feel about the wage gap between men and women? Is it based on discrimination? Of course, you know where I'm headed, right?
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 21-Mar-08 8:15:09 AM
h2o273kk9: "How do you feel about the wage gap between men and women? Is it based on discrimination? Of course, you know where I'm headed, right?"
I have no idea where you are headed, other than off-topic. Grant seems to think that Canada is a man-hating country (and so is Thailand, but less so). My replies have been to point out that he is delusional and there is no evidence from murder trials to support his delusions. So what pay gaps have to do with this, I have no idea.
But even if I play along with you, the question goes nowhere. If the wage gap is a result of sexism, then it certainly follows that Canada is not anti-MEN. If the wage gap is NOT the result of sexism, but one that has a reasonable explanation, then again Canada is not anti-men, but a fair one. Now if you have stats that show that men are UNDERpaid, then you might have something relevant to continue. Until then, you are on more of a skew line than a tangent.
Posted by: Fact Check | 21-Mar-08 8:49:28 AM
Oops. Musta forgotten to feed him.
For five weeks.
Jordan Desmond Heikamp was born premature to a 19-year-old homeless woman in May of 1997. He died of starvation five weeks later while living with his mother in a Toronto hostel for new mothers under the supervision of the Catholic Children's Aid Society.
Charges of criminal negligence causing death were dropped against Jordan's mother and a social worker.
Judge Mary Hogan of Ontario Court said no evidence was presented at the eight-month preliminary hearing to support criminal charges.
Mary McConville, executive director of the Catholic Children's Aid Society of Toronto said she thought there was a great sense of relief following the decision.
Kalev Helde, president of the Central Ontario branch of the Ontario Association of Social Workers said that different parts of the system do not communicate effectively with each other.
Paula Rochman, the lawyer representing Jordan's mother, said she was pleased with the decision.
Jordan might have said, "I'm dying. Why doesn't somebody help me?"
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 21-Mar-08 8:51:48 AM
Hubert W. Hogle, LLB asks a rhetorical question
in the letters column of the Globe & Mail.
A woman in Quebec drowns her six-year-old autistic son in a bathtub. She explains that she was depressed and frustrated at trying to get school authorities to understand her son's problem. The Crown proceeds on a man- slaughter charge and asks for a three-year sentence. The judge gives her a suspended sentence (Woman Spared Jail In Autistic Son's Death -July 3, 1997). Robert Latimer is charged with killing his daughter who had a severe form of cerebral palsy. He explains that he could not bear watching his child's continued suffering. The Crown proceeds with a murder charge and obtains a conviction of second-degree murder resulting in a life sentence with no parole for 10 years. Is there any explanation for the difference in treatment of these two individuals other than their gender? Does the law automatically assume that a man who commits a violent act is a brute while a woman who does the same is merely disturbed?
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 21-Mar-08 8:58:53 AM
Fact Check
"If the wage gap is a result of sexism, then it certainly follows that Canada is not anti-MEN. If the wage gap is NOT the result of sexism, but one that has a reasonable explanation, then again Canada is not anti-men, but a fair one. Now if you have stats that show that men are UNDERpaid, then you might have something relevant to continue. "
First, I fail to see where Grant complaining that Canada is anti-man. I do see, however, that he is pointing to double standards in the justice system that happen to work against males...generally speaking...more harshly than against females for the same crime.
My reason for asking about the wage gap is to see whether you were an ideologue. From your answer, I don't see it. Had you answered that the wage gap was de fact evidence of discrimination just because it exists, I would have wondered why you didn't feel that a disparity in the number of males vs. females in prison for any particular crime wasn't also de facto evidence of sexism using the same leap in logic.
Now that we have that settled, we can continue by asking how we can remove the variables that lead to evidence of disparity.
In the case of the wage gap, we might look at the type of jobs and education that each sex chooses, taking time out for child rearing, etc. and see how much a disparity is left.
In the case of sentencing for killing an intimate partner, what happens once we factor out the reality that more males do kill females. Is there still a disparity?
It is you who jumped to the conclusion that because this guy wasn't very nice, Grant has no case. I would like to see whether that is a factor or not. Perhaps Grant can elaborate.
However, Dubie was summarily executed without benefit of a trial and deserves justice.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 21-Mar-08 9:07:11 AM
Found on the web;
http://www.tartcider.com/120304.htm
Mon Dec 6/04
Men are pigs He did it
(This was Friday's update, incidentally. If it seems out of date it's because your-site's ftp servers were down this weekend. Again.)
"An 11-year-old girl and a 24-year-old man are in hospital in serious condition Monday, after being shot over the weekend while on a moving bus in Toronto. Statistics show that the perpetrators are probably black."
Outrageous, no? It certainly would be, which is why no Canadian newspaper would ever print such a thing about any identifiable group — any identifiable group, that is, except men. With regard to Wednesday's double-murder/suicide in Toronto's west end, this morning's National Post quoted "Cindy-Lee Dennis, a professor of nursing at the University of Toronto, [who] said that in cases of domestic disputes, statistically the man is most likely to become violent."
She goes on:
"Postpartum depression does not lead to violence, not at all. These women do not hurt their children; they do not hurt family members; they do not have violent thoughts."
Cases of the more serious postpartum psychosis, where women can harm their children, usually show up within weeks of the birth of a child, Prof. Dennis said.
So, as I read this morning that it almost certainly was Andrea Labbe who killed her husband Brian Langer and daughter Zoe, who attempted to kill her daughter Brigitte, who somehow wounded the family German shepherd, and who finally stabbed herself to death, I tried to come to terms with Professor Dennis' bizarre anti-diagnosis. It can't have been postpartum depression, she's saying, because violence against one's family precludes such a diagnosis; and it can't have been postpartum psychosis because that only happens within weeks of childbirth.
Whether it was deliberate or not, two things are implicit here: one, that women only kill family members while in the grips of mental illness (while men do it for sport, or so we are left to believe); and two, that Brian Langer killed his wife and daughter. Likewise, the Toronto Sun treated its readers to this quote from the London Abused Women's Centre's Megan Walker: "When I heard, I automatically said, 'Dad'. It's a fair assumption, given the statistics."
If these statistics are so easily attainable, universally accepted and relevant, then why didn't these media organs just cite them directly, instead of bringing in a nursing professor and someone who works with abused women to legitimize them? For that matter, what does a nursing professor have to do with a story about a stable family in which neither parent had any known record of mental illness? What does someone from a women's shelter have to do with a story about a family with no history of abuse? The media gave Labbe the benefit of the doubt on this, despite the fact that Langer called the police and said he had been stabbed, and got burned big-time. If it was any group other than men they'd be crucified for it.
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 21-Mar-08 9:17:40 AM
Fact Check wrote: "I have no idea where you are headed, other than off-topic. Grant seems to think that Canada is a man-hating country (and so is Thailand, but less so). My replies have been to point out that he is delusional and there is no evidence from murder trials to support his delusions. So what pay gaps have to do with this, I have no idea."
Then how do you explain a woman who kills the married administrator with which she's having an affair--premeditated murder of an ostensibly non-violent person--and gets off with a manslaughter conviction, and thus a slap on the wrist? Or that a woman who drowns her five children as spared the death penalty because she was "depressed"?
The fact is that when a woman stands accused of a brutal crime, people try a lot harder to find extenuating circumstances than they do for a man.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 21-Mar-08 9:24:24 AM
He made her do it!!!!
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=d3559993-aa42-41db-87b1-d227556b1840&k=73182
==Bitter custody fight preceded death of two daughters==
Allison Hanes, CanWest News Service; National Post
Published: Wednesday, October 18, 2006
BARRIE, Ont. - After more than a year of barely seeing his two daughters, Leonardo Campione appeared to have been on the verge of more regular visits with Serena, 3, and Sophia, 1, when they turned up dead in his estranged wife's apartment.
The 35-year-old construction worker was still facing criminal charges for allegedly beating his wife and slapping Serena - charges he denies.
But documents show Campione was headed to family court Oct. 6, armed with a report from the Children's Aid Society endorsing unsupervised access to his daughters for the first time since his wife filed for divorce in June 2005.
Court papers also suggest Campione planned to alert the court to "clinical issues" he felt might be impairing his wife's abilities as a mother.
The two toddlers were found dead of unspecified causes the day before the hearing, and on the date he would have made his pitch for joint custody, 31-year-old Frances Elaine Campione was charged with first-degree murder.
As the Campione v. Campione court file was finally made public Tuesday, it emerged that the tide may have been turning in the father's favour in the bitter divorce and custody battle.
After more than a year of being cut off completely from seeing his children due to his bail conditions and a restraining order, Leonardo Campione enjoyed a series of closely supervised visits with his daughters last summer at a provincial custody access centre.
Along with the positive CAS report saying he posed no risk to the girls despite nine criminal charges including assault and causing bodily harm, Leonardo Campione also had a letter from an anger management counsellor saying he was making good progress.
All this could have complicated Frances Elaine Campione's attempts to win sole custody of Serena and Sophia so she could return to her native New Brunswick and start a new life.
Through affidavits, letters, reports, financial statements, judicial orders, medical records and social services reports, the court file tells a he said/she said tale of two parents playing tug of war over their kids.
According to Frances Elaine Campione's version of events, she endured years of physical and emotional trauma by an alcoholic, controlling husband, only deciding to walk away from the marriage when he turned on their child.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The couple had been in a relationship for four years and already lived together by the time they married on Aug. 24, 2003.
They officially split on June 3, 2005, when Frances Elaine Campione fled their Bradford, Ont., home for a woman's shelter and pressed charges against her husband.
In an affidavit she filed asking for a restraining order 10 days after walking out, Frances Elaine Campione claimed the abuse began six months into her first pregnancy.
The last straw, according to her affidavit, was in June, 2005, when she alleged her husband approached Serena "and struck her in the face causing her lip to bleed.''
The file also reveals the separated single mother was given a mobile phone programmed to call 911 by a group that helps "high risk victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking."
Leonardo Campione described his wife in court documents as unstable and erratic.
"After the separation, the Applicant has been hospitalized on more than one occasion as a result of mental breakdown ... I verily believe that there are clinical issues with respect to the Applicant which ought to be made known to this honourable court."
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 21-Mar-08 9:32:13 AM
For people wondering about George Patrick Dubie's patterns of crime; He had been charged, he had spent time in jail, he had been convicted on more than one charge in more than one instance he did go on the run,on more than one occasion. He did abduct other people's children and took them on the run with him. He did have an open file with the FBI regarding a fraud ring, theft ring and porno. There have been many allegations of Dubie and Margaret abusing children, their own and others - apparently there is a child porn movie in the hands of child services in Victoria BC with proof.
He was a Charles Manson type and did call himself Jesus. He had this huge scenario he called the "significance" which was part of his cultic activities. He claimed he and Maggie were Adam and Eve, and their love story was the greatest ever. He had several lovers, and children while with Maggie because he needed "angels".
His road traveled is littered with missing people and unsolved murders.
Here are some links for you all to read if interested:
Abduction
http://gpdubie.wordpress.com/category/abduction/
Murder
http://gpdubie.wordpress.com/category/murder/page/2/
Mapping Dubie's activities
http://gpdubie.wordpress.com/category/maps/
Posted by: Hazel | 21-Mar-08 9:39:50 AM
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1717521/posts
===Sins of the mother===
Barbara Kay
National Post
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
We have heard the story before. The names change, the province changes, the particulars of the custody case change, the age of the dead child changes, but some things stay the same when a mother kills her own children: Any objective observer can see the tragedy coming a mile away, the children are not removed from her toxic embrace before it happens, and the mother is not only insufficiently punished (if at all) for the crime, but receives public sympathy on the assumption she was driven to it by forces beyond her control.
Last week, Frances Elaine Campione, 31, locked in a year-long custody battle with her estranged husband Leonardo, was charged with the murder of their two baby daughters, one-year-old Sophia, and three-year-old Serena. Whatever the truth turns out to be in this case, warning signs had abounded: The Children's Aid Society of Simcoe County, Ont. had kept an open file on this family for some time; former neighbours portrayed the mother as unstable and possibly suicidal; some described bizarre and frightening public behaviour; she had been hospitalized for treatment on several occasions.
In the past five years, there have been several comparable tragedies. In 2003, 13-month-old Zachary Turner was drugged and drowned in Newfoundland by his mother, Shirley, while she was out on bail for the third time on charges of murdering Zachary's father.
Then there was Toronto baby Jordan Heikamp, who in 2001 starved to death in his mother's care under the eyes of the Catholic Children's Aid Society (no jail time), and Toronto baby Sara Cao, abused to death in 2001 by her mother Elizabeth (again no jail time -- has any murdering mom ever done jail time in Canada?).
According to Christie Blatchford, who followed the case, Sara's mother was "treated by the system, and in the main by the media, as a pitiful [woman], worthy of sympathy."
When fathers kill, society holds them completely responsible. In a way, this is a backhanded compliment. They are assumed to be full-fledged moral agents acting from a willed choice. In the default absolution of women from responsibility for violence, however, we see the soft bigotry of low expectations, and a kind of infantilization process, which presents in the form of familiar excuses. Friends and relatives, women's groups and sympathetic media all declare the tragedy a result of post-partum depression, the ravages of a custody battle or other uncontrollable factors.
Thus, even though, ironically, the ravages and iniquities of custody battles are disproportionately borne by men, there is no question that in any single one of these and all other such cases, if the father were the killer, the outcomes would have been very different. Indeed, these deaths would likely have been prevented, for the same aberrant behaviour in a man over a period of months would render him unfit to parent in the eyes of all concerned. A murdering father, it goes without saying, would have been sent to jail, and for a long time.
As a rule, then, when fathers kill their children, it is usually in spite of the system's efforts to protect children, for both alleged and real warning signs by men are taken seriously. But when mothers kill, it is usually because the system willfully ignored obvious warning signs -- or even, as may be the case in the Campione affair -- actively colluded with a disturbed mother in isolating the children from a stable and engaged father.
So these tragedies don't happen because caseloads are too heavy, as CAS workers often plead, or because they are stupid. The culprit, in short, is cultural bias.
They happen because frontline social service people have been marinating in an ideology that wilfully shifts the blame for domestic violence from women to men or "society," whichever is handiest to the case.
They are trained to see women as victims, who need comfort and validation, and not -- in spite of a cornucopia of evidence to the contrary, as Lorne Gunter pointed out in his column yesterday -- as perpetrators of violence.
Not all deaths at the hands of disturbed parents can be prevented, but some can -- I think those Campione babies could have been saved -- if only those who stand between at-risk children and their fate jettison the persisting myths around domestic violence, and take a gender-neutral position when distinguishing children's natural protectors from their enemies.
bkay@videotron.ca
© National Post 2006
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 21-Mar-08 9:42:30 AM
Hazel,
Thanks for the info. Indeed, he does appear to be a very bad person.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 21-Mar-08 9:54:27 AM
Thank you H20. I hope it's helpful. Twisted as he may have been, I personally would prefer if his secrets had been unraveled through the system, to his being gunned down. I hope the sentencing of Margaret Crane isn't the end of the story. I believe she may have extremely valuable information with regards to the couples history of mass mayhem, fraud, prostitution, abductions and other equally serious allegations.
I think this story is much too complicated to being defined simply as a she vs he moment in history.
Posted by: Hazel | 21-Mar-08 10:25:35 AM
Hazel.
Well put. I agree.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 21-Mar-08 10:35:51 AM
People should bear in mind that a brief comment about a newspaper story on a blog is generally not intended to be a dissertation on an entire subject-area. Nor should one assume that it is meant to be the complete word on the case in question. No doubt every case has its complications and fits into a bigger picture. My blog comments are typically intended to be a bit of consciousness raising. Wait for my opinion columns if you want a more nuanced and a fuller treatment of most subjects.
For the benefit of Fact Check, however, I feel compelled to make three observations:
(1) Your initial call for me to produce details of the case in B.C. was met by me. You do not acknowldge that it tends to confirm the point of my initial blog, which is a bit shameful of you. In fact, your subsequent vague reference to cases in which men have allegedly been given house arrest for killing their partners (among other claims) remains unsubstantiated. It's a bit hypocritical to demand details from others that you are unforthcoming about yourself.
(2) If you are near a university research library, check out: Grant A. Brown, "Gender as a Factor in the Prosecution of Intimate Partner Violence," Sexuality & Culture, vol. 8, no.s 3-4 (Transaction Periodicals, 2004), pp. 3-139 for an exhaustive analysis of gender bias the treatment of domestic violence in Edmonton, Alberta. The conclusion, in a nutshell: From the minute the police show up at the door to the minute the judge hands down a sentence, men are treated more harshly than women, even after controling for all aggravating and mitigating factors. Being male is almost always the best predictor of harsher outcomes -- even better than the severity of injury, prior criminal record, the presence of children, etc. (E.g. men who cause no injury are more likely to be taken into custody by police than women who cause medium to serious injuries to their partners.)
(3) Comments like the following: "Grant seems to think that Canada is a man-hating country (and so is Thailand, but less so). My replies have been to point out that he is delusional" and "The idea that there is a gender bias is merely in your he-man-woman-hater's imagination. Nice try, Spanky" are beneath my dignity to respond to, because they are unworthy of a respectable person to utter. If you wish to be taken seriously, conduct yourself accordingly.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 21-Mar-08 12:33:14 PM
Grant,
"(1) Your initial call for me to produce details of the case in B.C. was met by me. You do not acknowledge that it tends to confirm the point of my initial blog, which is a bit shameful of you."
You did produce the details, but they confirm nothing other than in one single case a woman got a conditional sentence, which you should know is no proof of any broader generalization. I did not acknowledge the details because they demonstrated nothing.
"In fact, your subsequent vague reference to cases in which men have allegedly been given house arrest for killing their partners (among other claims) remains unsubstantiated."
Well, one like you who claims to have studied the issue so thoroughly (see your #2) should not need me to point to such cases, you should already know of them. But in case you are not as informed as you claim and for others who don't know how the Internet works, go to google and search using the terms "manslaughter", "conditional" and "sentence". A wonderland of other anecdotes will open up to you!
"(2) If you are near a university research library, check out..."
Now you are on to something. A study that examines trends can be proof of general claims. Had you blogged about more than a single isolated case I would have responded differently. Hell, even if you blogged about the single case and then mentioned that is is but one illustration of what your study shows I would have responded differently. As it is, your own blog post was nothing to take seriously, so I didn't.
"(3) Comments like... are beneath my dignity to respond to...."
Really? Then why did you respond to them. You commented on what you thought of them and even gave it an item number all its own. Next time you decide not to respond to something, how about actually not responding to it? It seems your dignity is not as high as you might think.
Posted by: Fact Check | 21-Mar-08 3:23:06 PM
Fact Check,
Your demagoguery knows no bounds, on this tread I provided you with six more cases other than that of Theresa Layne Senner that Grant mentioned.
Lisa Ferguson
Lilian Getkate
Andrea Labbe
Elaine Campione
Mother of Jordan Desmond Heikamp
Woman in Quebec who drowned her six-year-old autistic son
When Grant pressed you to provide just one example of a man who was given conditional sentence for murder you sidestepped his challenge and referred him to look it all up by himself. You provided him with key words proving to us that you did look for this information by yourself and come up empty handed.
Just for your information there was a very recent case in Toronto where homosexual man got away with murder but that does not count as we all know that homosexuals virtually run whole Ontario administration of justice, and recent incarceration of Perry Dunlop for his refusal to participate in farce of Cornwall Public Inquiry is just another proof of it.
Here is your “proof” if that is what we are going to call it.
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/299599
Nurse avoids jail in killing
Feb 01, 2008 12:38 PM
Peter Small
COURTS BUREAU
A male nurse who made a citizen’s arrest by grabbing a cocaine-intoxicated robber by the neck, unintentionally causing his death has been given a suspended sentence.
Provincial court Justice William Wolski gave Norman English an 18-month suspended sentence Thursday after he pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm. The judge said it was ironic that someone who has dedicated much of his career to preserving life would be involved in taking one.
The court found that English used excessive force in a reckless manner.
The 47-year-old nurse, who works with a transplant team at a major Toronto teaching hospital, was originally charged with manslaughter in the death of Stephen MacEachern, but the court accepted his guilty plea to assault causing bodily harm.
Outside court, defence lawyer Frank Gabriel said his client was very happy with the sentence. The judge was “terrifically fair,” Gabriel said. English declined comment.
But MacEachern’s spouse, Debbie, who asked that her last name not be used, said the sentence is not fair, considering a life was lost.
In the early hours of Sept. 22, 2006, English met MacEachern, 45, at a downtown Toronto bar and the two went to his apartment near Yonge and Carlton Sts. After they arrived, MacEachern shoved English to the ground and stole his wallet, court heard.
English gave chase and caught MacEachern in the building’s stairwell. As they struggled, he used his arm to grip MacEachern by the neck, while shouting for police. When English got off the man, he noticed he wasn’t moving. Building security officers arrived and used CPR to try to revive MacEachern.
Unknown to English, the man was very high on cocaine and died on the scene. The cause of death was pressure exerted on the neck of a person with acute cocaine addiction.
The judge said English was reckless in the way he went about retrieving his wallet, but he did not know MacEachern was acutely intoxicated. “I am satisfied that Mr. English should be punished but I am also satisfied that he is a person unlikely to reoffend.”
English has expressed great remorse, the judge said.
During the 18 months, English must take counselling, do 35 hours of community service, and consume no alcohol or controlled drugs.
Although English he had assault and drunk driving convictions nearly two decades old, he is now “a contributing member of society,” Wolski said.
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 21-Mar-08 5:54:38 PM
I note that Fact Check's last entry is rather defensive. Contrary to what Fact Check asserts, a single positive case does tend to confirm a generalization. In my initial blog, I referred to two cases. The reader is invited to draw their own conclusion from these cases. I didn't make any radical generalization -- unless you think it fair to characterize an ironic remark as a scientific proposition. If Fact Check wants to polarize every observation in this way, then it would be equally fair to (mis)characterize his remarks as defending the proposition that there is no gender bias anywhere in the criminal justice system.
Still, no specific case where a man was given a conditional sentence for killing his partner is offered. Nor is an analysis of a representative sample of cases provided that would justify the assertion that I am "delusional" and gender bias exists only in my "hate-filled imagination." One would think that a serious commentator who uses such strong language would feel honour-bound to justify it -- but not our anonymous and ironically self-titled "Fact Check." (Why not call yourself "Supreme Fact Checker" or "Her Majesty Fact Checker"? It would be equally persuasive as a moniker.)
As for my so-called "response" to what I said I will not respond to: What I clearly intended to convey is that I will not rise to the bait by defending myself against scurrilous and unfounded slander on this blog; I will not go to the trouble of refuting gratuitous insults. I said that not for Fact Check's benefit -- Fact Check obviously has an axe to grind and a knit to pick -- but for the benefit of other potential trolls out there....
Posted by: Grant Brown | 21-Mar-08 6:05:56 PM
"but for the benefit of other potential trolls out there...."
Thanks for the seque. :-)
"As it is, your own blog post was nothing to take seriously, so I didn't."
Curious in its obvious self-refutation by way of its existence in the first place.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 21-Mar-08 6:45:21 PM
Grant,
"I note that Fact Check's last entry is rather defensive."
Really? And I thought you were the one being defensive. Whatever.
"Contrary to what Fact Check asserts, a single positive case does tend to confirm a generalization."
If you really believe this then you are a fool. Showing one case of a woman given a light sentence for manslaughter no more shows that courts generally go easier on women than it shows that women generally kill their husbands. It is a single positive case for both general claims, so if you really think it supports the one, then you must think it supports the other.
"Still, no specific case where a man was given a conditional sentence for killing his partner is offered."
I'm sorry you are uninformed on your supposed area of expertise and unwilling to use google as directed to find many such cases. I guess if you really need spoon-feeding, I can oblige. Joao Almeida killed his wife and was determined to be "a moderate risk for further violence" but given a conditional sentence for manslaughter (two years less a day). Oh yeah, one more thing: The case was in Edmonton. Last month. You hadn't heard? I thought you were the expert on domestic violence in Edmonton. No?
Hey! Since you believe that single cases tend to confirm generalizations, I guess this case confirms the generalization that the courts are now going easy on men! Wow! That was EASY!
"Nor is an analysis of a representative sample of cases provided..."
Now you are being silly. So unless I write a 137 page essay studying the issue I can't criticise your poor analysis? Tosh! But I did skim your article briefly and think it must be as full of holes as your posts here.
For example, you note that alcohol was a more common factor in cases where police were called and women were the aggressors than when men were. You then go on for two paragraphs speculating on why this might be and find your possible reasons are "consistent with the hypothesis of systemic discrimination against men." But this is all hooey, since right BEFORE this interesting speculation you tell us that "this disparity [between men and women being charged when alcohol was involved] is not statistically significant". Your words: NOT statistically significant. So if it HAD been statistically significant, then maybe your speculations show that it is possibly because of gender bias, but there is no statistically significant difference to even be explained. You ignore your own statistical analysis because it gets in the way of your preconceptions. Bad show, old man!
Also, you point out that men are 16 to 20 times more likely to be charged where there is no injury and speculate that this is also gender bias. Could be. Or it could be that men tend to initiate low-level violent confrontations (like Ralph Kramden: "Bang, zoom, straight to the moon!"), and so those charges could be appropriate. Again, the data are CONSISTENT with gender bias, but they are ALSO consistent with the lack of bias. You just don't know which it is, and so you stick to your pet theory despite the weakness of the case.
I could go on, but like I said it is asking a lot for me to wade through 137 pages of errors to give a total analysis. I have seen enough to know you are no expert and do sloppy work.
"Fact Check obviously has an axe to grind and a knit to pick..."
No. If I had a "knit" to pick, I'd point out that the phrase is "a NIT to pick". But doing so is beneath my dignity, so I won't.
Posted by: Fact Check | 21-Mar-08 7:21:02 PM
>"Women are only equal when it suits them."
Shane Matthews | 20-Mar-08 3:30:21 PM
>"The fact is that when a woman stands accused of a brutal crime, people try a lot harder to find extenuating circumstances than they do for a man."
Shane Matthews | 21-Mar-08 9:24:24 AM
Both very true statements.
I think that the reason why people in general try to find mitigating circumstances for women is because women are primary care givers in our society and most other sociaties.
That is to say, the most vulnerable people are dependent on the care of women, in most cases, and we are more comfortable with the fantasy that women are more nurturing and less brutal than men.
I think this is a fantasy that has long passed it's "best before date".
I recommend the book "When She Was Bad"
Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence
by Patricia Pearson
review:
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~kbirks/gender/viol/pearson.htm
As a Feminist, Patricia Pearson concludes that until women are held to the same level and standards as men for the same acts that women will never truly be equal.
Posted by: Speller | 21-Mar-08 9:50:10 PM
Fact Checker, you are clearly out of your depth here.
1. The expression "tends to confirm" does not equal "proves." A single case is either a confirming instance or a disconfirming instance of some generalization. It therefore either "tends to confirm" or "tends to disconfirm" the generalization. (Assuming it is not irrelevant, of course.)
2. Joao Almeida was 88 years old, suffering from dimentia, and had other medical conditions such that a prison sentence would likely have been a death sentence -- i.e. "cruel and unusual punishment." It isn't even clear that he was mentally competent to be tried. Judge Cafaro opined that dealing with it by way of a plea bargain and conditional sentence seemed the most expedient way to make the case go away. If that's the best you can do for a counter-example, I'm laughing.
3. You were the one who (a) imputed to me the generalization that the legal system is guilty of "misandrony" [sic]; and (b) claimed that gender bias in the legal system is a figment of my "hateful imagination." Given your quickness to jump down my throat for (not) making the first generalization on the basis of two instances, it is hypocritical of you to make the second without any support whatsoever.
4. You manifestly either didn't read my research, or didn't understand what you read. It is more than "speculation" that gender bias is behind the fact that men are charged 16 to 20 times more often than women in no-injury cases. Literally hundreds of sociological surveys over the past 3 decades or so have established beyond doubt that women are *at least* as often the aggressors in low-level intimate partner violence of the sort that does not result in injury -- by women's own admission. Do you honestly mean to suggest that it is just coincidence that in the subset of instances that the police respond to, men happen to be the aggressors in (not 50%, as the sociology indicates, but) 90-95% of them? Since this point was made in my article in a crystal clear exposition, and has been cited by some of the most respected researchers in the field of IPV (e.g. Don Dutton), your allegation that my work is "sloppy" redounds upon the prosecution.
5. Your postings were, from the very outset, personally insulting: accusing me of having "issues;" accusing me of being "delusional;" accusing me of being a "woman hater;" calling me "foolish;" etc. As one would expect from someone so quick to hurle unfounded epithets, your defensive remarks are exceptionally ill-informed, poorly reasoned, self-satisfied, and weak. Consequently, I have lost all interest in debating you on this or any other thread that may arise in the future. If you wish to engage in an honest and respectful debate in the future, you will have to choose a new moniker and a more respectful tone.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 21-Mar-08 11:31:09 PM
For the life of me, I can't figure out the point of this story. It certainly didn't merit the debate that followed.
The Thailand connection was no connection at all. We don't exactly have a wealth of statistics for the Thai justice system.
Men are imprisoned at a higher rate than women because there aren't enough women's facilities to hold an onslaught of new prisoners. Judges take this sort of thing into account during sentencing. Building more women's prisons would take political backing.
Why doesn't someone ask a cop whether women commit assault as often as men? Oh ya, you're also claiming the police are biased. Makes me wonder if you wanted a debate, or wanted to pound your point home.
You aren't interested in debating FC because of his attitude? I imagine some readers aren't interested in commenting on any more of your posts for the same reason.
Posted by: dp | 22-Mar-08 12:18:18 AM
>Treatment of women by the justice system
Top
As for the perception that women who murder their husbands are treated harshly by the justice system, Dr. Mann found that few female domestic homicide offenders receive prison sentences, and that those who do rarely serve more than four or five years. Justice Department sources, report that women who kill their husbands were acquitted in 12.9% of the cases, while husbands who kill their wives were acquitted only 1.4% of the time. In addition, women convicted of killing their husbands receive an average sentence of only 6 years, while male spousal killers got 17 years.
FROM>
http://www.dvmen.org/dv-141.htm#pgfId-1026260
Site Map for E-Book on
Domestic Violence Against Men In Colorado
http://www.dvmen.org/dv-2.htm#chapter13
Posted by: Speller | 22-Mar-08 5:02:58 AM
dp
"Why doesn't someone ask a cop whether women commit assault as often as men? Oh ya, you're also claiming the police are biased. "
Is a slap assault? Throwing a dish at someone? A kick to the groin? If you said yes, then the answer is yes.
Do they do damage as often as men? No.
Are police biased? Last month, during a discussion on domentic violence, the Ottawa police chief said (I quote from memory):
"Men need to change".
Since not all men commit dv, this was sexist.
Since not all dv is committed by men, it was sexist.
This is just one instance of the commander of a major city setting the tone for the department and it was broadcast on television news for all of us to internalize.
Message received! I must watch my step when arguing with a woman. Even if she isn't sexist, the institution protecting her is.
Based on this, do you still think there is absolutely no bias out there against males in dv situations whether in enforcement or the courts?
I'm sure most cops, judges, etc. do their best to be fair but sometimes it is just easier for them to arrest and deal with the male because it is expected of them. Less paperwork and no TV cameras looking through their garbage trying to attack their reputations.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 6:46:05 AM
Grant, Grant Grant.... Tsk tsk....
"1. The expression 'tends to confirm' does not equal 'proves.' "
Correct. But it is a weasel phrase used by people who want others to think it is more significant than it is. Generalizations really need general statistics for support. The problem is that a single fact will "tend to confirm" countless false generalizations, so "tending to confirm" is really a very VERY weak claim, although it sounds pretty butch. It reminds me of the "there was a relationship" between Saddam and Osama claims. That was true too, if by "a relationship" Bush meant that they hated each other....
"2. Joao Almeida was 88 years old... [blah blah blah]."
You asked for an example and you got one. Maybe you can discount it as an "outlier" if it does not fit your preconceptions, but that just shows you don't want to hear that you're wrong. Your example of a Charles Manson-like cult leader killed in third-world countries, the one you thought so good to start a thread with it - is no typical case either.
"4. You manifestly either didn't read my research, or didn't understand what you read."
Ah! The last refuge of the disproved "academic"! Well played, sir. Well played....
"It is more than 'speculation' that gender bias is behind the fact that men are charged 16 to 20 times more often than women in no-injury cases."
Really? Because all you have in your study is the statistic and not ANY data at all to correlate to it as a cause for the disparity. None. In fact, all you have is that the statistic is "surprising". Is that proof? Interesting....
"Literally hundreds of sociological surveys over the past 3 decades or so have established beyond doubt that women are *at least* as often the aggressors in low-level intimate partner violence of the sort that does not result in injury -- by women's own admission."
Not in the data you site in your own paper (the GSS data) in the first several pages. What that data shows is that women say that they have experienced low-level violence 50% more often than men in the last year and 15% more often in the previous 5 years (Table 1.1). Furthermore, that data does not say ANYTHING at all about who was the aggressor. So if a man threatens to hit a woman and she replies that if he does she will hit him back, both can truthfully report experiencing threats of violence even though one was the aggressor and the other responding. In an actual physical fight if the man threw a punch and the woman responded by hitting back, both could truthfully report to having been hit by a partner. Is that haw it generally happens? Who knows? Your data certainly does not tell us at all. But the police arrest data "tends to confirm" the claim that men are more often the ones who start it, thus are more often arrested. So "the cops have it in for men" is one possible explanation and "men are more likely to start trouble" is another. That you side with the former with no way to tell the difference is telling of your biases.
"Do you honestly mean to suggest that it is just coincidence that in the subset of instances that the police respond to, men happen to be the aggressors in (not 50%, as the sociology indicates, but) 90-95% of them?"
As I just showed, the sociological data shows no such thing. Measurements of how often people were exposed to violence is no measure of how often they started it. And it's not 50% anyway. Read your own article, man! Either you did not understand the data you were citing or you are lying about it.
I liked it better when you were posting about Heather Mills being Paul McCartney's prostitute. At least there you are more clear about putting your cards on the table as to who you are.
Posted by: Fact Check | 22-Mar-08 7:46:30 AM
Fact Check,
What is your opinion regarding the idea that since the broad view in our society on domestic violence as being predominantly a male on female phenomenon, this may be leading to cases where unfair conclusions are reached during arrests, etc. and it predominantly impacts males.
Do you believe it may be happening?
Could it be a result of the broader exposure of dv as a problem?
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 8:09:13 AM
h2o273kk9: "What is your opinion regarding the idea that since the broad view in our society on domestic violence as being predominantly a male on female phenomenon, this may be leading to cases where unfair conclusions are reached during arrests, etc. and it predominantly impacts males."
Let me unpack this a bit. First, it is certainly true that public perception is that domestic violence is much more commonly male to female than it is female to male. Second, arrest statistics (such as Grant cites in his journal article) suggest (but don't prove) that this perception is accurate.
So for the moment, let us presume that it is true that domestic violence is disproportionately committed by men with women as victims. So when police are faced with a case of domestic violence or when the public (including a jury that might be hearing a case) learns of a case of domestic violence, it would be naturally to suppose that it is likely that the man is the aggressor. When that assumption is in fact right, then making it will not result in any unfair consequences. But in the cases where it is NOT right, assuming it is could well lead to unfair conclusions, wrong arrests, and even wrong convictions.
The problem with generalizations is that while they are generally true, they are not always true. It is for this reason that things like prior criminal histories are often not admissible in trials. If a jury knows that a person has been convicted of rape twice before, they might be much more likely to convict in a new case than if they didn't. While the guy might be guilty once again, allowing prior bad acts in evidence makes it almost impossible to defend against any fresh charges. So with any man accused of being the aggressor, the fact that men often are (or, at least, are thought to be typically the aggressor) makes it more likely that he won't get an unbiased hearing if he is in fact innocent.
So with domestic disputes men and women probably yell at each other about equally. Merely verbal fights are probably closer to the 50% Grant claims for violence. But when things escalate, women are more likely to cause property damage and men more likely to commit assault. Thus arresting the man where the situation has become violent might most often be the right call, in cases where it is not the man might have a much harder time convincing people that it is a mistaken judgement.
Now let us assume that Grant is right and that the conventional wisdom and police arrest stats are wrong and that in fact women are equally likely to be the aggressors in violent domestic disputes. In that case, arresting the man will only sometimes do justice and the incorrect belief that men are most often the aggressor will result in much more often the justice system failing to arrest culpable women and unfairly subjecting innocent men who already have been victimized by violent women to even further wrongs at the hands of the state.
So rightly or wrongly, believing generalizations leads quite naturally to profiling that sometimes gets things wrong. That's just how the world is, not just with issues of domestic violence, but with all generalizations. Generalizations even when true are a double edged sword. They help us get at the right result more often than not, but when they mislead us, they do so is ways very hard to fix.
Posted by: Fact Check | 22-Mar-08 10:59:56 AM
Fact Check,
Thank you for the clarification.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 11:49:27 AM
I will be addressing the domestic violence issue in a future column, but I might as well say something more about it here, since it has raised so many hackles.
Google 'Martin S. Fiebert' and you will be directed to his on-line annotated bibliography of references to sociological surveys on domestic violence. There are about 200 entries currently.
What the surveys reveal is that in roughly 1/4 of cases, only the male aggresses against the female; in roughly 1/4 of cases, only the female aggresses against the male; and in roughly 1/2 of the cases the violence is mutual.
Some of these surveys expressly ask which party initiated the violence when it was mutual. By the admission of the women themselves, they initiate roughly 1/2 of the time. Women are more likely than men to use weapons, and to attack while the other person is sleeping, driving, or has his back turned. (In post WWII Russia, women tended to attack men when they are too drunk to defend themselves.)
These results have been replicated time and again, over decades, and across a broad spectrum of developed countries. (It is different in truly "patriarchal" countries, e.g. in the Muslim world.) They are about as robust as sociological evidence ever gets. But you have to actually invest the time to do the research to discover this.
The Canadian GSS is a "crime" survey. According to Don Dutton ("Rethinking Domestic Violence"), crime surveys tend to find a higher ratio of violence by men against women than "conflict tactics" surveys, because many people do not perceive a slap or a shove or even a punch thrown by a woman to be a "crime". The reverse is less likely to be the case.
So, yes, it is shocking that men comprise 90-95% of those charged with domestic assault in cases where there is no injury to either party. And yes, I have spoken with many police officers, criminal lawyers, academics, and judges about the results of my research. The bias against men in domestic violence situations is generally acknowledged to be the worst-kept secret in the legal system.
In my article, I quote Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sterling Sanderman to the effect that women can expect a "female discount" in sentencing in the order of 25-33%. Justice Jack Watson, now of the Court of Appeal of Alberta (then the senior Crown Prosecutor in Edmonton) basically confirms this. What I have to say about IPV isn't the least bit "radical" or "new" or even "surprising" to anyone who has an open mind and the time to look into these things.
I don't attribute this bias in the legal system to any particular "misandrony" that can be found there. As my second column for this magazine argues, the (subconscious) attitude that a male life is generally worth less than a female life is a deep-seated product of evolutionary forces, working on the fact that males are genetically more expendable than females. It is a natural subconscious tendency that everyone -- myself included -- has to resist with effort. What this discussion thread illustrates is that some people are more wedded to their primeval subconscious biases than to a rational embrace of equality.
Posted by: Grant Brown | 22-Mar-08 12:33:59 PM
Grant,
That is my basic understanding as well following many years of observing and debating.
The feminists like to talk of a false consciousness. Is there ever was any merit to the idea generally, I would suggest we start looking here.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 12:42:01 PM
>Consider the following story presented by Michael Fumento in his Battered Justice Syndrome article:
"Lynn Herndon Kent was asleep in bed four years ago when her husband Lamar put a pistol to the back of her head and blew her brains out. Shortly before, he had taken a life insurance policy out on her. Now, with her blood soaking into the pillow, he called a friend to have him hide the gun, then called the police and explained tearfully that Lynn had been killed in a robbery. They didn't buy it, Kent confessed, and a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison and 15 on probation. But now Kent is free, because Florida Governor Lawton Chiles has granted him clemency."
Are you outraged that such a thing could happen? Would you be less so were you to find out the names were switched, and that it was Lynn who did the killing and Lamar who did the dying? Yes, it was that which made the difference and why she was granted clemency.
The issue of domestic violence becomes bizarre when it is the woman who is accused. A seemingly invariable defense is that they were, in fact, the abused, and acted simply in self-defense. Consider the feminist mantras:
• For women, violence is a necessary resource for self-protection.
• In this country, women murder mainly as a means of survival.
• The majority of women are in prison because men abuse them.
• You're innocent. You're the victim.
Now compare these mantras with the facts. When it comes to the murder of intimates, as criminologist Coramae Richey Mann documented in her 1996 study of female killers, When Women Kill, murderesses are seldom helpless angels: 78% of the women in Mann's study had prior arrest records and 55% a history of violence. Only 59% claimed self-defense.
FROM>
http://www.dvmen.org/dv-141.htm#pgfId-1026278
Also on the above linked page:
The twelve "female only" defenses by Warren Farrell, Ph.D.
"Women Who Kill Too Much and the Courts That Free Them: The Twelve 'Female-Only' Defenses" excerpted from The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell, Ph.D.
AND
Do men kill women more than women kill men?
The six blinders
1. A woman is more likely to poison a man than shoot him, and poisoning is often recorded as a heart attack or accident. [This will skew the figures]
2. Contract killing is also less detectable because it is premeditated and often hired out to a professional. When it is discovered the Department of Justice registers it as a "multiple offender killing" — it never gets recorded as a woman killing a man. [This will skew the figures]
3. The money factor. Women who murder husbands or boyfriends usually come from middle class backgrounds The money allows the best lawyers, more acquittals, therefore fewer female murderers to become Justice Department Statistics.
4. The Chivalry Factor,
5. and the Innocent Woman Factor prevent many women from becoming serious suspects to begin with.
6. The Plea Bargain Defense sometimes leads to the dismissal of charges.
When the six blinders are combined, we can see how we have consciously and unconsciously kept ourselves blind to women who murder men. A distortion of statistics is created by the Six Blinders.
Site Map for E-Book on
Domestic Violence Against Men In Colorado
http://www.dvmen.org/dv-2.htm#chapter13
Posted by: Speller | 22-Mar-08 2:36:02 PM
Speller,
Thanks for the additional input.
I can't honestly say what the actual statistical values are for male on female vs female on male violence. We could argue endlessly on the particular number.
After re-reading Fact Check and Grant, I noticed a curious agreement that I suspect has not been recognized.
They actually agree that some men are unfairly being treated and others viewed suspiciously due to a societal view that holds that men are more often to blame. This bias is unfortunately natural. I think the disagreement is to the frequency and level of this unfairness and perhaps, how it is being perceived.
I leave you with an observation from Fact Check.
"So rightly or wrongly, believing generalizations leads quite naturally to profiling that sometimes gets things wrong."
If this were racial profiling, much of our society would be up in arms. As it is gender profiling, it would appear that this is something we take for granted.
This is why I mentioned "false consciousness." I think the feminists, in particular, should look at their own false consciousness by not recognizing the role women play in the violence, not recognize the feminist pressure to view males as "naturally" at fault, and not recognizing institutional sexism (eg. Ottawa police chief) that prohibits males from sometimes getting a fair shake.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 3:13:35 PM
Canadian study of RCMP attitudes
The most extensive study of the reaction of police to current domestic violence laws that we are aware of is a Canadian study by Theresa Petkau. During 1995-96, she made a qualitative evaluation of in-service wife assault sensitivity training provided to front-line police officers. The stakeholder perspective sought was that of patrol constables. In summary she found that:
"For the most part, [Canadian] constables uniformly regarded rigid black-and-white policies dictating mandatory charge and arrest as an ineffective response to wife assault insofar as the policies purportedly thwarted a sensitive response to wife assault calls, first, by overlooking individual dynamics within each family, second. by ignoring wishes of the parties involved, and, third, by disallowing possibly more effective approaches. As well, officers criticized these policies on the basis that they (1) deterred women non-supportive of charges from seeking help. (2) in some cases, negatively impacted upon the family unit as well as the accused by burdening already stressed families and leading, in many cases to their breakdown, (3) acted as a powerful tool in the hands of vindictive women, (4) gave rise to charges which officers considered unwarranted, and (5) resulted in unnecessary substantial costs to the criminal justice system in general and the police in particular. Officers also directed criticisms at the wife assault charge and arrest policies for negating their helping role, hindering their investigative role, violating their keen sense of justice, forcing a compromise of their sense of ethics and fairness, thwarting professional development of intuitiveness, contributing to the move towards rote policing, and serving as yet another example of administration's tacit sanctioning of policy violations (by virtue of staffing levels supposedly insufficient to allow for unabridged adherence to policies).
FROM>
http://www.dvmen.org/dv-59.htm#pgfId-1034490
2/3rds down the page
The Money Quote>
"Officers also directed criticisms at the wife assault charge and arrest policies for negating their helping role, hindering their investigative role, violating their keen sense of justice, forcing a compromise of their sense of ethics and fairness, thwarting professional development of intuitiveness, contributing to the move towards ROTE policing, and serving as yet another example of administration's tacit sanctioning of policy violations"
Read the whole E-Book.
It gives examples from across the Western World and studies which show that, although the focus of the E-Book is on Colorado, the Intimate Person Violence(IPV) or Domestic Violence(DV) dynamic/ratio cuts across all societies.
Posted by: Speller | 22-Mar-08 3:35:53 PM
"As my second column for this magazine argues, the (subconscious) attitude that a male life is generally worth less than a female life is a deep-seated product of evolutionary forces, working on the fact that males are genetically more expendable than females."
This analysis is weak because the legal bias, if one does exist, is more recent. It is politically motivated.
U.K. Chief Rabbi Johnathan Sacks writes;
""Liberal democracy is in danger," Sacks said, adding later: "The politics of freedom risks descending into the politics of fear."
Sacks said Britain's politics had been poisoned by the rise of identity politics, as minorities and aggrieved groups jockeyed first for rights, then for special treatment.
The process, he said, began with Jews, before being taken up by blacks, women and gays. He said the effect had been inexorably divisive."
What the good rabbi alludes to but doesn't say directly is the Jewish groups led the charge in promoting this divisisveness.
"Jewish women have been disproportionately represented in the women's liberation movement."
http://jwa.org/feminism/_html/timeline.htm
"In The Culture of Critique, Kevin MacDonald advances a carefully researched but extremely controversial thesis: that certain 20th century intellectual movements – largely established and led by Jews – have changed European societies in fundamental ways and destroyed the confidence of Western man. He claims that these movements were designed, consciously or unconsciously, to advance Jewish interests even though they were presented to non-Jews as universalistic and even utopian. He concludes that the increasing dominance of these ideas has had profound political and social consequences that benefited Jews but caused great harm to gentile societies. This analysis, which he makes with considerable force, is an unusual indictment of a people generally thought to be more sinned against than sinning."
Earl Raab outlined Jewish interests:
"We have tipped beyond the point where a Nazi-Aryan party will be able to prevail in this country. "[w]e [Jews] have been nourishing the American climate of opposition to bigotry for about half a century. That climate has not yet been perfected, but the heterogeneous nature of our population tends to make it irreversible..."
Posted by: DJ | 22-Mar-08 5:00:18 PM
DJ,
You'll love this part:
The untold story of Betty Friedan: Her roots were Red and propaganda her trade.
Jessica Lynch and the neo-com revolution: Made for Redfem television but far from the truth. Was it scripted in advance?
Karl Marx and the gender wage gap: What fine propaganda it makes to claim women earn less but what an economic disaster it leads to. And attack the patriarchy while you're at it.
Women's birth-right under attack by fem-socialists: Infanticide as a Redfem goal.
Karl Marx's prescription for women's liberation: What's a trifle like a 100 million dead on the path to utopia?
When family dissolution becomes the law of the land: Repeating the Soviet Union's mistakes in America.
The feminist subversion of the gender system: Why stop with simple imitation, lets destroy the whole society.
So, is radical feminism a socialist front? Naw, that insinuation is just a facet of patriarchal oppression. And Redfems have a great deal on a bridge too, but don't look too closely at the timbers.
Patriarchal power or Marxist mischief? The great lord and patriarchal master of California doesn't get laid after touting masculism at Republican convention. And Redfems win in handout of government goodies that are paid for by those male patriarchs.
Men step aside, the Redfems are set to win the Culture War: Patriarchal knuckle-draggers unwanted. Don't know who's going to fix the faucet or the car though.
FROM>
http://www.dvmen.org/dv-49.htm#pgfId-1000472
Posted by: Speller | 22-Mar-08 5:16:34 PM
Speller,
"Men step aside, the Redfems are set to win the Culture War: Patriarchal knuckle-draggers unwanted.
It's temporary.
"Don't know who's going to fix the faucet or the car though."
Freezing in the dark tends to focus the mind of a mother of small children.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 7:19:33 PM
RE Grant Brown's comment:
No doubt every case has its complications and fits into a bigger picture. My blog comments are typically intended to be a bit of consciousness raising. Wait for my opinion columns if you want a more nuanced and a fuller treatment of most subjects.
My bad, I thought I was responding to a blog post on a media story about Margaret Crane.
I didn't realize your entry was 'just commentary' on a 'consciousness raising' exploit.
After posting one article on my site about GPDubies murder, I was overwhelmed with the numbers of people who knew the man who contacted me some way or another to tell their stories.
The information was so overwhelming I had to create a new blog simply to hold it all.
Your argument about gender equality has teeth, and is a very important discussion. However, this article you clipped, with which you choose to illustrate your case, is so very completely wrong for the task, and I'll tell you why.
This is not about a jilted lover gunning down a man in passion and getting away with it. This was not a domestic act of violence (they lived apart, he was involved with another woman for a number of years, and married just prior to that to yet another woman)
This is about one person of a pair of con artists, abusers, abductors and worse shooting down the other.
You'd be better off comparing this case to gang on gang violence. I know that is going to piss some people off, but that is exactly what this is.
I've read through the comment section of this blog entry and all I can say is OMG some people around here are very very angry. They remind me of the very things they are railing against, namely so called feminazi's and their historical counterparts of the 50's and 60's.
Its ironic and hysterical really because what I see is the beginning of an era of manism, teetering around in their big sisters footprints without giving proper recognition - Yo!
Look it, todays society sucks as far as gender relations go. But whose faulty is that? According to some of the comments here I'd say we've got a lotta injured mamma's boys here. Lots of mommy issues, no doubt. But the truth is, its both men and women's faults.
Maybe someone with more passion for the subject than I might find this interesting to look into;
The rate of domestic abuses against men by women in Canada has reduced rather dramatically ever since the feminist movement rallied together to begin shelters for women. More women got away from abusive situations, thats true. A very interesting side effect occurred as well.
The more options a woman had to get away from an abusive situation, the less likely she was going to devolve into assaulting her partner or kids.
Female on male domestic abuse stats dropped significantly between then and now. Not enough that domestic violence isn't an issue anymore. It is, a huge issue.
At the moment there are very few options available for men to quit an abusive relationship. I am pretty confident if some enterprising manists took it upon themselves to stop biccing about feminazis and the like and started doing something for the community of men such as securing real estate and permits and staff for man centered shelters and their children - society will begin to change towards men, for the better. And when Men are better off, healthy and secure that much better for women and children. And Vice Versa.
Thanks for the space to say my piece, again.
Hazel.
Posted by: Hazel | 22-Mar-08 7:37:35 PM
Hazel,
"At the moment there are very few options available for men to quit an abusive relationship. I am pretty confident if some enterprising manists took it upon themselves to stop biccing about feminazis and the like and started doing something for the community of men such as securing real estate and permits and staff for man centered shelters and their children - society will begin to change towards men, for the better."
Thanks for your honest observations. At this time, I only ask that you consider helping those men,...for the better of all...men, women, children.
Thx.
H2O
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 7:58:09 PM
Hi H20, Got a lot on my plate at the moment, but I've supported men in many practical and not so practical ways and don't expect to be stopping any time soon. I would be a lot more enthusiastic to get involved in organized advocacy for men if men who're trying to make changes for the betterment of the lives of men would stop calling me names like feminazi and the like.
Really, it doesn't do much to foster the fuzzy's.
Maybe you could help out with that among your friends?
Thanks
Posted by: Hazel | 22-Mar-08 8:11:07 PM
Hazel,
Judging by the fact that women’s shelters are run by lesbians looking for sexual services in exchange for the privilege of staying at women’s shelters, I get the feeling that men’s shelters will be staffed by homosexuals looking for sexual services in exchange for the privilege of staying at men’s shelters.
This is a swell of an idea.
Advice to men abused by women in domestic situations.
Pack all your belongings and all tools of your trade and head for the nearest men’s shelter. Do not forget to take with you all Vaseline you can find in your house as you are going to need it.
I am not making it up please read below.
================================================
http://www.canadacourtwatch.com/
Exposing Ontario's morally corrupt women's shelter industry - One video at a time!
(March 2, 2008) Thanks to internet based video download sites springing up worldwide, it is now possible for the people to get the truth out to the world and to expose corruption as never before - in video! The age of accountability and transparency with government-funded special interest groups and agencies is fast approaching as more and more justice minded Canadians step forward to speak out about injustices they have faced because of Canada's legal system!
This new video from Canada Court Watch is based on an interview with a former resident of an Ontario women's shelter. In the interview, this mother speaks about how she and other residents in the women's shelter were psychologically and sexually abused by the women's shelter workers. This video about Ontario's government funded women's shelter industry is now posted on one of the new video storage sites at Vimeo.com. A second similar video from another women who was a resident in another women's shelter will be posted soon.
Link to women's shelter video
http://www.vimeo.com/745927
This latest video supports what Erin Pizzy, the founder of the women's shelter movement in the world has stated publicly for years - that many of the women's shelters have been infiltrated by radical feminists where lesbian workers sexually exploit and prey on the vulnerable women who come into these facilities. Some woman report that they feel that they have been more abused in women's shelters than with their former partners. Court Watch does have such shocking video testimony from other women as well as children in its video collection which reveal shocking truths about the women's shelter industry in Ontario, Canada.
This video would be of assistance to groups and/or individuals who may be trying to expose abuse of power by women's shelters and to bring greater accountability and transparency to women's shelters in their own community. It is a good video to take to your local MP, MPP or corporations to show how many of the donations to the women's shelter industry are being squandered and abused and to support arguments that funding must be stopped until measures to make shelters accountable are made mandatory and published for all taxpayers to see.
Anyone wishing to obtain a DVD copy of this latest video may contact Court Watch at info@canadacourtwatch.com. Copies are downloadable for free to Court Watch members upon request. Details of Canada Court Watch's position on women's shelters can be found at;
[Link to position statement]
http://www.canadacourtwatch.com/positionstatements/Women's%20Shelters.html
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 22-Mar-08 8:16:33 PM
Hazel,
"Maybe you could help out with that among your friends?"
Can do!
To the angry men reading:
Please stop referring to those women trying to help men as feminazis/etc..
To the angry women reading:
Please stop referring to the men trying to help women as pigs/bastards/etc.
Best wishes to you Hazel.
H2O...
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 8:31:15 PM
Love this H20, I can totally get behind that!
Posted by: Hazel | 22-Mar-08 8:52:11 PM
Hazel,
Now is only we could get everyone else to forgive, forget, and help out...we'd have something.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 22-Mar-08 9:00:44 PM
KK, I know what you refer to. I don't believe (maybe I'm naive) that these examples of infiltration are only found in women's shelters. Nor do I think its a true statement that because it happened in women's shelters by predatory gay women, that male run shelters will be run by predatory gay men.
With that said, I hope that all centres of community outreach pay attention to this extremely destructive and abusive pattern of behavior because the potential is there, in heterosexual and even celibate circles too.
For examples google Cornwall Clan + Ontario, or "Kevin Arnett + Canada's genocide." and also Clifford Heggs + orato for other examples.
I reject the notion that predatory behavior is the domain of one gender over the other.
This kind of predation of the vulnerable cross all socio sexual boundaries and is found anywhere you find the needy- because that's where the predators gather for easy pickins'.
Posted by: Hazel | 22-Mar-08 9:23:44 PM
Baby steps H20, baby steps! lol
Posted by: Hazel | 22-Mar-08 9:28:42 PM
Hazel you are naive.
Dr. William Holt Wehrspann child psychiatrist and a pedophile operates his pedophile ring in Toronto, everybody knows about it and OHIP still pays him for so called "therapy" that he offers to sexually abused children and other pedophiles at his office. Better still, Dr. William Holt Wehrspann is a Canadian "expert in children's false allegations of sexual abuse". Toronto CAS knows this and uses Dr. Wehrspann as their expert witness to cover up all mishaps of all pedophiles on CAS payroll. The only "punishment" Dr. Wehrspann ever got meted out to him is that he got booted out of George Hull Centre and was stripped of his hospital privileges. This punishment was not so much for pedphilia as it was for botched attempt to murder mother of sexually abused boy who tried to expose Toronto pedophile ring.
Americans at least once in a while arrest and prosecute pedophiles disguised as so called therapists or psychiatrists. No such luck in Canada.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/nyregion/21arrest.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 23-Mar-08 12:17:06 AM
Hazel:
I agree with you that both of these people were horrible. Thus, "You'd be better off comparing this case to gang on gang violence." OK, but last time I checked, when one biker is caught knocking off a rival biker he is locked up for decades. In Thailand, drug trafficers are treated vastly more harshly than Ms. Crane. She got almost as long in jail for carrying a pistil (1.5 years) as for killing a man who was -- let's not forget --lawfully at large (2 years). The suggested comparison bears out my complaint.
"The rate of domestic abuses against men by women in Canada has reduced rather dramatically ever since the feminist movement rallied together to begin shelters for women." There has been no change to the ratio of male-initiated:female-initiated IPV over the past 3 decades, so if what you say above is true then there has been a general decline in IPV by both sexes. I'd need to see the evidence, and I'd be wary of attributing the cause to the rise of women's shelters. In the old days, male relatives of beaten women would settle the score with their abusive husbands; that was more effective than women's shelters as a deterrent.
Before men can help themselves getting shelters and other resources for IPV, people have to realize that it is an issue. As things stand, they don't. That's why the first step is consciousness raising. Consciousness raising has to come before fund-raising is possible.
On a more positive note, let me reiterate that IPV isn't ubiquitous. According to the 2004 GSS, 95% of men and 94% of women with partners experienced NO violence by a partner or former partner in the previous 5 years. Of those who did, only about 2% required medical attention. The problem of violence against women is greatly over-blown by those with a vested interest in the "industry."
Posted by: Grant Brown | 23-Mar-08 12:56:13 AM
KK, Yes I believe I am naive in many ways.
What you wrote about the dr.? Thank's I will be looking into that too. I have some experience being in the system, shelters, crisis centers foster care et all. And I have witnessed everything you are talking about. In fact, I am deathly afraid of shelters and crisis lines because of my experiences with them. Still, I like to think my experiences are not the norm, and good does take place in more of these places than not. (Naive?LOL Probably)
re: Before men can help themselves getting shelters and other resources for IPV, people have to realize that it is an issue. As things stand, they don't.
Agreed 100%
I honestly believe the issue of predation is not male vs female. I think its the result of psychological damage. On one of the video interviews you posted (from a woman who stayed at the Durham shelter) she said it very clearly imho, these were abused people who ended up becoming abusers.
I think our society is out of whack, and by demonizing one side of the gender fence over the other, there is no consciousness raising, only the raising of ire which in turn leads to even more disenfranchisement between the genders.
PS the stats about declining female on male abuse since the shelters began to go up, is out there.
Posted by: Hazel | 23-Mar-08 9:53:55 AM
What a beautiful discussion.
Grant - I agree with you 100%. We are failing men and we need to get on that, soon. I used to be so angry at men because of the abuse I'd suffered at the hands of boys and men. Rape, molestation, violence. But one day I woke up (and had a son) and realized that all of those men had mothers who were supposed to raise their sons not to be like this. So who to blame now? Having a son also makes me realize how we marginalize little boys in so many ways. It only harms both genders, in the long run.
Playing the blame game only has us chasing our tails and abusing each other.
I do have to say, if Fact Checker and Grant Brown could put together their talents (checking facts) and (seeing who the real marginalized are) you two could change a lot of perceptions!
Posted by: Sam | 23-Mar-08 11:51:05 AM
Hazel, I would tend to disagree with you that proliferation of women’s shelters resulted in an overall decrease in violence in our society. If women and their children fleeing their abusive husbands and boyfriends end up in women’s shelters where they are exposed to even greater level of violence from other women staying there and sexual advances and sexual abuse perpetrated by staff of these institutions than it seems that we as society and taxpayers are not combating violence and sexual abuse but merely spreading and diversifying it.
I find it quite strange that despite differing views of all participants of this discussion all seem to agree that there is an urgent need for more of government’s direct intervention in order to stop domestic violence. Everybody seems to agree that we need to spend more of taxpayer’s money on advocacy groups, educational programs, women’s shelters, etc., men call for even more money to be spend on replication of services available to women by creation of creating equivalent or similar men’s advocacy groups, men’s educational programs, men’s shelters, etc.
Fleeting exception to that commonly held view was Grant’s momentary lapse into Conservatism when he wrote quote “In the old days, male relatives of beaten women would settle the score with their abusive husbands; that was more effective than women's shelters as a deterrent.”,
this fleeting moment of Grant’s sanity was immediately followed by quote, “Before men can help themselves getting shelters and other resources for IPV, people have to realize that it is an issue. As things stand, they don't. That's why the first step is consciousness raising. Consciousness raising has to come before fund-raising is possible.”
Grant’s call for government payola to men’s movement was immediately followed by quote, “On a more positive note, let me reiterate that IPV isn't ubiquitous. According to the 2004 GSS, 95% of men and 94% of women with partners experienced NO violence by a partner or former partner in the previous 5 years. Of those who did, only about 2% required medical attention. The problem of violence against women is greatly over-blown by those with a vested interest in the "industry."”
Talking about the pot calling a kettle black; "violence against women is a marginal problem of society overblown by those with the vested interest in the “industry”. Who is saying that?? “Grant A. Brown, an Oxford-trained philosopher, now practising family law in Edmonton”, men who makes his living of Canadian divorce racket who as it seems also happens to have vested interest in the "industry."
One would think that if an issue is blown out of proportion than the first thing to do would be trying to cut it down to size by withholding government funding. When government provides funding to any particular group of individuals, by mere fact of providing funds government endorses activity of that group of individuals, and assumes fiduciary responsibility for their actions. That puts government in very awkward situation when such group starts to act in ways that are detrimental to society or if members of such groups start to act criminally while allegedly carrying out tasks financed by the government.
Availability of government funding and government protection attracts individuals with unresolved mental problems who are bent on victimizing others under guise of helping them.
My impression is that we are slipping into some form of collective madness by calling for increased funding instead of eliminating all funding to address (read; make worse) marginal issues.
Than again, what do I know how bad things are??? I do not work day in and day out in IPV industry.
Posted by: Karol Karolak | 23-Mar-08 4:54:44 PM
As usual, Karol Karol