3 - Friday, September 20, 1985 - North Shore News

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Tide Table For Pt. Atkinson

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Lifestyles...........49 Mailbox.............7 Real Estate.........13 Sunshine Girl... .....54 Travel.............12 What's Going On... ..53

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WEATHER:

Mostly cloudy Friday

Sunday 22

afternoon. Saturday, a mixture of sun and — - cloud. Highs 14-18.

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Death penalty to protect innocent _

THE LONG arm of Canadian law is coming up short for citizens concerned about safety and

justice.

In a Tuesday night public meeting organized by Citi- zens United For Safety and Justice (CUSJ), retired

-RCMP superintendent Bruce.

‘Northorp said he was sick of the half-truths “funneled through various media and

barked by’ prisoners’: rights”

groups that decried the ef- fectiveness of Capital punishment. .

“Tonight I am here to tell you the truth,” © Northorp told the approximately 30 North Shore residents who turned out to Delbrook Community Centre to hear his message.

CUSJ is .a- victim rights society . with’ 3,000 -paid members across Canada formed in 1981 in Duncan, B.C. by the ‘surviving family of Lise Clausen, a 15-year- old girl murdered by a con- victed sex offender.

: Guiding. philosophy of cusj,. according to Clausen’s mother Inge, is “that the punishment should fit the crime: Somewhere along the line the rights of the victims and their rela- tives have been forgotten by the court system.” _.-

“: Northorp, a 33-year RCMP veteran, prefaced his speech by telling the au- dience that he had, in the course of his career, negoti- ated. with convicted killers. He.-knew how their minds worked, “he said, he knew how the system worked.

“But lam not a hawk, ” Northorp. added.

VIOLENT CRIME

"He told the audience. that crimes of violence in Canada shad risen over.38 per cent from 1971 to. i983; crimes against. property had risen over 54 per cent in.that.same period, .

Statistics .such. as those taken from..a-July 5, 1985 Maclean's’ magazine article, which reported. the murder rate in Canada ‘as dropping from 2.7 per 100,000 people in 1976’ to 2.53 -per. 100,000 people in 1982, were true, Northorp said. but . not complete.

Abolition of the death

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW |

penalty, he maintained, had actually begun in 1963 when the, commutation ‘of execu- tions by Canadian ~ parlia- ment became standard pro- cedure: ‘“‘Between 1963 and 1976 not. one person sentenced to-death was ‘ex- ecuted no- matter how chelngus th the murder commit. te ” . Northorp: added that from 1967, when the death penalty was abolished for all but the killers of police officers and prison - guards, to 1976,

‘homicides of police’ officers

and prison guards ‘repre-

sented less than one per cent of Canada’s total.

Using charts compiled from Statistics Canada fig- ures, Northorp pointed out that the homicide rate in Canada from 1963 to 1976 had more than doubled.

Factors ranging from shif- ting murder trends to im- provements in technology and medical care had further muddied the statistical waters, Northorp said.

According to Northorp, serial killings were on the in-

‘crease, and with them the

growing numbers of missing bodies:. ‘‘Homicide rates would be much higher if those bodies were found.” -

Attempted murders, which Northorp said were not fig- ured into homicide statistics, had risen 850 per cent: since

1962.

Northorp reitertated that he was not a hawk, that he agreed with parole for de- serving offenders, ‘‘but the question remains: what is a just penalty for the David Shearings, the Clifford Olsons? Do we realiy want to rehabilitate these people and release them back onto our streets again?”’

Urging the audience to get involved, to learn the facts, to become squeaky wheels, Northorp quoted the defiant words of a contract killer he had negotiated with in a 1978 hostage taking incident: ‘Right now I got life and 64 years, do you think I care?”’

“Well 1 think we should give that person something to care about,’’ Northorp said, ‘‘his life.’’

NEWS photo Mike Wakefield

RETIRED RCMP superintendent Bruce Northorp expresses the sincerity of his convictions in his September 17 address to Citizens United For Safety und Justice. In his 40-minute address to the citizen’s rights group, Northorp called for the return of capital punishment and at- tacked the proponents of its continued abolition as purveyors of half-truths and misleading

statistics.

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