Not one sane person is mourning the attack last weekend on Robert Pickton, one of the most violent and sadistic serial killers in Canadian history. In fact, a makeshift spear to the head, which the Vancouver Sun reported was the weapon used, was probably too gentle a treatment in terms of what the murderer deserves.
Mr. Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder in 2007, but he is believed to be responsible for the deaths of many more women (he bragged to an undercover officer after his arrest in 2002 that he had killed 49 women). Over the course of many years, the former pig farmer would lure women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and take them to his 17-acre farm in Port Coquitlam, where he would have sex with them, murder them and desecrate their bodies. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, and he was living in a maximum-security prison in Quebec when he was attacked on Sunday.
The spear to Mr. Pickton’s head also did what the Canadian government and Supreme Court would not, which was to spare his victims’ families the cruelty of enduring an utterly pointless parole hearing. Canada’s most vile and notorious serial killers will likely never be released from prison, but they nevertheless get to go through the exercise of applying for parole, despite the devastating trauma it reignites for families. Mr. Pickton became eligible for day parole in February.
So it is tempting to see this attack as a good thing: necessary retribution for a decidedly evil man, and a way to deliver some peace to his victims’ families. But the worsening violence in Canadian prisons isn’t something we should celebrate, despite how much it might tickle our innate desire for vengeance against the worst of the worst.
Earlier this month, Ivan Zinger, Canada’s correctional ombudsman, raised the alarm about rising rates of assaults both between prisoners and against correctional staff in federal penitentiaries. According to Correctional Service of Canada data, prisoner-on-prisoner assaults jumped from 573 in 2014-15 to 1,331 in 2023-24. Mr. Zinger suggested one reason might be an idle prison population caused by the cancellation of various programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. (The Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, meanwhile, points to the reduced use of solitary confinement.)
In any case, there are several reasons why the public should care about the conditions in Canada’s penitentiaries. Unlike Mr. Pickton, most people who are currently incarcerated in this country will be released in some capacity and will attempt to reintegrate into society. That reintegration becomes much harder – meaning recidivism is more likely – if prisoners are immersed in violence, abuse, gang activity and the like for the years or decades they are kept in prison. The constant threat of abuse from other prisoners is also a burden that offenders’ families have to endure, and while the public might not have much sympathy for them – it was their relative’s actions that landed them in prison, after all – it all contributes to an ecosystem of trauma where the effects reverberate well beyond the prison walls. On a purely pragmatic level, too, it costs time and money to investigate and treat prison assaults. Mr. Pickton’s intensive-care stay in hospital won’t come cheap.
Then there are the moral implications. In a just society, imprisonment is not supposed to be compounded by violence, torture and gross indignities; the removal of one’s freedom is itself the punishment. And though inmates lose certain rights over the course of their incarceration, they do not lose all of their Charter-protected rights as individuals. It is a reflection of us as a moral and democratic society that we maintain baseline living conditions even for the most heinous criminals, which should include basic programming, palatable food and protection from abuse or assault.
It is fair to argue that the justice system itself badly needs reform – that too many recidivist, violent criminals are being released on bail (the government did introduce legislation back in the fall to make it tougher for repeat violent offenders to receive bail) and that our parole system prioritizes the rights of those convicted of crimes over those of victims’ families, as well as the safety of the community. But reform has to happen at a systemic level. To put it crassly, we can’t rely on inmates wielding spears to keep deranged serial killers from their parole hearings – nor should we.
Mr. Pickton might have gotten what he deserves. But it’s not what Canada’s justice system needs.
Robyn Urback