WHY DO WE KEEP TRYING TO FIX UNFIXABLE HUMAN DEFECTS?

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has his majority and will
now embark on a $5-billion-plus plan to emulate the failure so evident
in the U.S. -- by building more prisons, creating stiffer sentences for
a variety of offences, making parole eligibility tougher and march
more benign criminals (read: those associated with marijuana use and
sale) into Canada's expanding penal system.

It's a foolish plan that makes all Conservatives look silly. When
conservative-to-the-core Conrad Black pans Harper's plan, you know it
has its faults. And, to see how Harper and his circle ignored their
government's own statistics to push forward with this billion-dollar
boondoggle, pick up a copy of Harperland: The Politics of Control by
Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin.

However, while the folly of the prison-expansion plan should be
evident to most rational-thinking people not consumed with living via
the dogma of a political creed, there should be room -- indefinitely --
in Canada's prisons for the worst of the worst.

Take Jack Samuel Froese, for example.

The now-notorious serial rapist served his sentences and is now living
with family in Kamloops.

The fact he raped women (emphasis on the plural) and spent a scant few
years behind bars is proof that, in this particular case, sentencing
was laughably lenient.

KTW obtained Parole Board of Canada decision sheets relating to
Froese. They are disturbing, revolting and maddening.

He is a remorseless rapist who, in the words of the parole board, is
"still likely to commit an offence causing death or serious bodily
harm to another person."

The details of his crimes, and his unbelievable callousness toward his
victims, are sickening.

And, while serving time for rape in a community corrections centre, he
was found with a list of names and phone numbers of women.

Yet, here he is, in our midst -- and the fact he is free should stun
even the most liberal person among us.

Froese is one of many lost causes, joining the ranks of serial rapist
Paul Bernardo, serial child killer Clifford Olsen, mass child murderer
Allan Schoenborn and many, many others.

Money and time and effort and brainpower is wasted on trying in vain
to rehabilitate these rapists and killers.

Froese blames his crimes on drug and alcohol use. Schoenborn convinced
a judge he had a mental disorder when, three years ago, he killed his
three sweet young children.

It shouldn't matter.

To be blunt, factories will always produce defective products. Among
thousands of perfect creations, one or two will leave the assembly
line not quite right. We toss these in the garbage.

Froese, Schoenborn et al are the human equivalents and should be
treated as such.

During the federal-election campaign, NDP Leader Jack Layton was spot
on when he called for government to spend money on preventing crime
from happening.

He's right.

If we spent millions on reaching at-risk youth so they don't become
criminals, petty or otherwise, we wouldn't need to spend billions
housing them a decade down the road.

Some of that money can surely come from the millions we now spend
trying to fix the Froeses and Schoenborns of the system, through
"programs" and "therapy" behind bars.

And, with the remaining billions?

How about one super-maximum prison high in the Arctic, where the likes
of Froese, Schoenborn, Bernardo, Olsen and others can live out the
rest of their lives?