Emergency rooms are overcrowded all over Quebec and are braced for worse.
Updates from January, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
There’s a special weather statement which includes “a mix of precipitation over Southern Quebec from Wednesday evening through Thursday” which doesn’t sound special, but pretty standard for the time of year.
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Kate
Although prisoners are not supposed to have cell phones or drugs, some have both, and some have been posting selfies to Instagram and getting deliveries by drone.
I suppose prisoners’ lives ought to be as bleak and empty as possible, to make them really feel the punishment, but I can only imagine what a difference it makes to have a phone and feel connected to the outside world when you’re behind bars.
steph
Incarceration doesn’t have to be bleak, but it has to involve some sort of ‘punishment’. We incarcerate when people transgress from the group – cutting the connections to the outside seems reasonable.
Without getting into a debate about which crimes deserve incarceration or not – if you’re going to prison, you’re gonna miss your kids/spouse’s birthday. This threat incentivizes ME not to break the law.
jeather
You are cut off. You are living in a jail instead of with them. We want people in jail — who will, mostly, be coming out in the future — to have connections to loved ones so they have options when they get back out, and not punishing them by blocking all phone calls and letters etc.
Blork
Incarceration in Canada is generally supposed to include some aspect of rehabilitation (AFAIK) and isn’t just “punishment” like in the old days. There is no shortage of stories of hapless saps who got busted doing some small crime going into the system and coming out a few years later as hardened criminals. The more you deny things like contact with the outside, the more likely that is to happen.
That said, part of incarceration is that you are supposed to live in a highly controlled and structured system. So you’re not supposed to have your own cell phone, where you can call whomever you want at any time. No, contact with family needs to be encouraged, but it needs to go through the system. This (ideally) helps prevent nefarious calls (e.g., ordering dope by drone drop, talking with fellow criminals on the outside, etc.) while providing enough contact with loved ones to encourage rehabilitation and to make GETTING OUT desirable.
jeather
Right, but the current setup of access to family contact is not exactly generous. I agree that getting drugs by drone drop isn’t ideal, but in the US, and I would assume in Canada, mostly drugs come in via guards, so I’m just unconvinced that drug-by-drone is the biggest issue (it does seem to be cell phone by drone based on the article).
I don’t know exactly what the best solution is here. Cell jammers plus more, and cheaper, access to phones?
shawn
I personally don’t think prisoners’ lives ought to be as bleak and empty as possible. Off-topic but here’s a link to a CBC story on a prison farm in Ontario: https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/cbc-docs-pov/scenes-from-a-prison-farm-these-inmates-raise-cattle-grow-vegetables-make-maple-syrup-and-keep-bees-1.6163019
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Kate
We’ll be hearing a bit about the 1998 ice storm now that we’re reaching a quarter century since that memorable period.
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Kate
The city created a program to help merchants when their businesses were blighted by road construction, but the paperwork was so dense and incomprehensible that hardly anyone applied. Now they’re simplifying access although it sounds like there are still some bureaucratic hoops that have to be jumped through.
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Kate
As reader Meezly reported in a comment below, shots were heard around midnight in Mile End, specifically at Park Avenue and Villeneuve. Several calls were made to 911 and police found shell casings, but no victims have turned up.
Dominic
Id bet 20$ at least some of these events are actually the cops themselves to wag the dog on getting press for random gunfire going off.
Meezly
My next door neighbour saw someone run away right after the shots were fired. It’s the same apartment building where those ruffians were beat up and one fell out the window. I heard the cop saying that neighbours have been telling them how problematic that building has been.
A friend in Point St-Charles also had a cop situation yesterday outside of a building where a shooting occurred this past summer. Coincidence, maybe.
“Going about your life in Montreal, there’s little chance any of this will touch you, unless you’re walking on the wild side.”
If you asked me two days ago about media reporting about armed violence, I would’ve agreed with this statement and think that the media is just scare-mongering. But now I’ve had it happen right outside my home in a supposedly “nice area”. I’ve been touched!!
Kate
Meezly, point taken. I hope you stay safe!
jeather
This sort of matches with the what kind of experience do we deserve in jail post — I know that for some crimes, not necessarily the ones you would think, I want people to be punished harshly; but the point of the justice system is to take it a step away from vengeance and to choose what helps society as a whole. Equally, when something happens to or near you or loved ones, you feel that it’s a much bigger problem, even if it’s just bad luck/coincidence — but journalists should be looking also at the bigger picture not scaremongering (or downplaying).
Michael
@dominic, you would bet $20 that police officers came and shot up neighbourhoods? What is wrong with you.
shawn 21:50 on 2023-01-03 Permalink
As a federal civil servant we are waiting to see what the government’s back-to-the office plan is going to be. Just crazy to be doing this now imo.