Canadian Female Criminals are Just Big Kids

If you are are female and want to get away with murder, just head to Canada. Kala Homolka was freed from prison recently after just twelve years for the killing of three women--one of them her fifteen year old sister,Tammy Lynn. Karla even took part in raping her sister. Naturally, she blamed her husband, Paul Bernardo, for the whole thing and was given a lighter sentence for agreeing to testify against him. Despite video tapes showing Karla to have participated in these crimes, she was seen as a victim, especially because she was fair-haired and beautiful, kind of like an innocent child. If you want to read more about Karla Homolka's case and the politics and psychology of female killers, I highly recommend When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away With Murder.

Apparently, in Canada, if you just say you are sorry, you may not serve any jail time at all, and if you are female, all bets are off for what type of reduced sentence you can finagle out of the court system:

Female criminals have it even easier. Just over 15 per cent of women convicted of a crime will ever see the inside of a cell. The average stay, for those unlucky few who have to serve time, is just over 90 days for single crime, just under six months for multiple crimes. The average length of probation was about 15 months for "single-conviction" cases, about 19 months for multiple-conviction criminals.

And if you cannot stick to lower level types of crime, you can murder without having to lose too much time at work:

Consider the sentence of Teresa Layne Senner, of Vanderhoof, B.C. She killed Norman Wicks in November 2002 with a single knife stab to the groin after Wicks informed her he would not leave his wife to marry her, and after she learned he was having affairs with at least three other women besides her.

When Senner confronted Wicks in his home, she testified "stuff just started flying," including the knife that just happened to end up in her hand and then in his crotch.

The judge claimed not to buy her excuse that she was merely trying to get the knife out of the way of their quarrel, and safeguard Wicks, when the blade accidentally ended up in his nether regions.

The trial judge admitted most of Senner's testimony did not stand up to close examination. Nonetheless, because she "had no criminal record and had been a contributing member of society," he handed her a conditional sentence of two years less a day. She may live in her home and continue working. The only conditions are that she seek counselling and obey an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.

Wow, a slap on the wrist, being sent to your room and having to talk to a counselor. In Canada, women can revel in being treated like children. My only question is, with this patriarchal system of justice in Canada, should women really be allowed to vote? Or is this just Canada's tradition of niceness being carried to ridiculous extremes?

Update: Thanks to Lex's blog for pointing out these crime stats which show that Canada has more attempted crime and crime per 100,000 people than the US. Perhaps the US may not be such a den of iniquity afterall.