TORIES EYE THREE STRIKES FOR OFFENDERS

Proposed Bill Would Ease Ability To Label Criminals As Dangerous

The federal government is preparing three-strikes legislation that
would make it easier to label criminals as dangerous offenders after a
third serious conviction.

Unlike California's famous three-strikes-you're-out law, the proposed
federal bill will not trigger an automatic life sentence for repeat
offenders. What it will do is reverse the burden of proof in
dangerous-offender hearings for people already found guilty of three
violent crimes.

That means that once someone has been convicted a third time they will
be considered guilty until proven innocent of being a dangerous offender.

The bill is part of the Conservative anti-crime package and will
probably be tabled this fall, Justice Minister Vic Toews said yesterday.

The new legislation would make it much easier for judges to slap
three-time offenders with the designation which brings an unlimited
prison sentence, although offenders could begin applying for parole
after seven years.

"At present there is an onus on the prosecutors at all levels to
demonstrate dangerous offender," Toews said.

"We feel that once a person has been convicted three times, a
presumption should apply that the individual is dangerous because a
court has found that individual to be so."

Toews said the law will apply to violent offenders and serious
sexoffenders. He said he has been consulting with provincial
officials, as well as bureaucrats in his own department, on the
legislation.

- -- The river I step in is not the river I stand in.