Monday, July 04, 2005
I'm watching the Karla Homolka interview on RDI right now, and it's sort of surreal. This woman who I can vaguely remember the trial of 12+ years ago and who has been in the news a lot especially the past few weeks and months as her day of freedom drew near. Now from the title of my post, one might be led to believe that I'm one of the people who don't thinks she should be freed. Well I'm not.
She has completed the term that the justice at the time saw fit to lock her away for, and from all accounts she was an exemplary inmate. Of course what she did was horrible, however we do live in a democracy and the decisions of the past need to be respected. Did the Crown make a mistake when they drew up the plea bargain? Maybe, but they acted to the best of their ability based on the information they had available to them.
As for Karla reoffending, I feel that if the justice system does not get complacent in its monitoring of her, there is no concern about her reoffending. When the crimes were committed she was a 17 year old kid, who was obviously under the control of a powerful man (Paul Bernardo). I honestly don't believe that she is (or was then) capable of committing crimes like that by herself. Not that it matters what I think, but whatever. Is it easy to write off her crimes as "I was a weak girl under his control"? Yes of course it is, but that's just a cop-out.
I can't imagine what it must be like for someone coming out of prison after knowing nothing else for 12 years of your life. Not to mention being someone reviled by the vast majority of the population, some of who have websites devoted to your death. She must be terrified. She really looks like a woman who has been in jail for 12 years.
I just glanced back at the television for the second half of the interview, and it's still surreal seeing her speaking and giving this interview.
-image courtesy of cbc.ca
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