A young man going twice the speed limit in Hochelaga in 2022 killed a pedestrian. He was sentenced Thursday to 17 months of house arrest. The prosecution wanted two years behind bars. He can still go to school and work; nothing’s said here about whether he’ll be allowed to drive.
La Presse also has the story, mentioning that Salman Rahman won’t be allowed to drive for two years – but he’ll be at home for 17 of those 24 months. Nothing’s said in this version of the story about work or school, but that he’ll be allowed to go to the mosque on Friday afternoons and “circulate freely on Christmas.” A nice cultural dissonance to round off the story.
Roman 04:13 on 2025-12-19 Permalink
That’s wild!
Ephraim 10:42 on 2025-12-19 Permalink
Just to be devil’s advocate. The point of prison is to reform a person, to keep them from recidivism. The thing is, would putting in him in prison have any real effect, other than making those who were wronged feel better? I’m not saying that he shouldn’t be punished, I’m saying that prison versus house arrest isn’t going to change a thing, if you ask me. Now, having to contribute to the family from his income, might. Losing his licence forever, might. If allowed to drive, having to have a speed regulator installed that is GPS enabled (at his own cost) might. But let’s be serious about it, the end result is that we want him to not do this again… so what is any of this doing to accomplish this?
We already know statistically that there is almost no statistical correlation between crime and punishment, it’s between crime and apprehension. So unless we are going to make sure that the cops catch 95% of people exceeding the speed limit, it’s not going to work.
Mark Côté 11:24 on 2025-12-19 Permalink
“The point of prison is to reform a person, to keep them from recidivism”
One of the problems of our justice system is that people disagree on its objectives, which is reflected in the conflicting opinions of how prisoners should be treated. Reform is one goal. Others include removing felons from society and straight-up punishment.
Tim S. 11:52 on 2025-12-19 Permalink
” the end result is that we want him to not do this again”
Actually, the end result is we don’t want anyone doing this again. I don’t know what the right approach to punishment is – I do believe he is remorseful, what halfway normal person wouldn’t be? – but the overall effect of judges, time after time after time giving light punishments, is to create the impression that society just really doesn’t value the lives of pedestrians and that some mistakes are more forgiveable than others.
Ephraim 14:35 on 2025-12-19 Permalink
As I said, we know that punishment doesn’t work.as a deterrent unless you apprehend. Imagine a parking meter. The lower the chance of you getting a ticket, the less chance you will pay the meter, so when you park for short periods, most people take a “chance” and don’t pay. But if there was a camera that sees your licence plate and if you haven’t paid, it automatically sends you the parking ticket, well… you pay 100% of the time.
Even in Singapore, it isn’t the SGD$300 (and up to SGD$10,000 for repeat offences), it’s really the fact that almost everyone gets caught. The cameras are everywhere and everyone is aware of it. You may not get caught immediately, but a day later, you might get the ticket delivered. They issue 17K littering tickets a year. How many do you think the SPVM issue a year? I’m tending towards absolute 0.
Nicholas 16:07 on 2025-12-19 Permalink
I’m not necessarily opposed to no prison time for killing a person, but it depends. But they should be way stricter on driving penalties. Going at least 87 km/h an hour on a local street means you have reckless disregard for the rules of the road and the safety of others. That is a speed you could get ticketed for on the Ville Marie (speed limit is 70 km/h); it’s wholly inappropriate on a local street. A car is a weapon, and if you are that irresponsible with it you should never be able to use it again.
I would also love a lifetime ban for driving while impaired. But if that’s too politically difficult, then escalating driving bans, which should be used for other serious violations. You made a mistake, we won’t send you to jail, but you’ve lost your moral right to drive. And if someone drives while their licence is suspended, then jail is fully appropriate, as you’re unwilling to submit to the penalties given voluntarily so we’ll make it involuntary. Car forfeitures, interlocks, speed governors, all these should be part of the mix too. All this is way better than a few months in jail.
This serves as deterrence (drivers nearly all say losing their driving privileges would be devastating), punishment and rehabilitation (except for the most serious crimes), without carceral confinement. And the more this can be automated, the more we can punish low-level offences with smaller, more frequent penalties, rather than low-probability, severe penalties.
Chris 15:13 on 2025-12-20 Permalink
> I’m saying that prison versus house arrest isn’t going to change a thing
Prison means he’s 99.999% not going to be on the roads killing again, house arrest does not.