A local crime expert applauds a group of western Canadian justice officials who are ganging up on organized crime, in hopes of rewriting dusty pages of the criminal code.
Public safety officials from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba met Saturday, and agreed they’re handicapped by archaic rules for wiretaps, time-served credit and bail decisions.
“Our laws are so outdated, organized criminals laugh at them,” Grant MacEwan criminologist Bill Pitt told Metro yesterday. “We’re going to wake up one day down the line, and everything we know is going to be corrupted by organized crime.”
Removing two-for-one credit with respect to time served in remand tops the list of priorities.
“It’s an absolute abomination,” Pitt said. “People are riding out their time in there. Let’s have a little bit of truth in sentencing.”
A major concern for officials is that wiretap laws have not been updated since 1974, and that outdated regulation can hinder the process of approval by months.
United front efforts were assembled to inspire federal fast-tracking, according to Alberta Justice Minister Alison Redford said.
“Organized crime is highly techno-wise,” Pitt said. “We’re catching up, but we better catch up in a hurry.”
