These are the new freedoms Paul Bernardo could get in a medium-security prison
Paul Bernardo’s transfer to a medium-security facility has led to questions surrounding whether the move will mean new freedoms for the serial killer.
Bernardo was moved from a maximum-security prison at Millhaven Institution near Kingston to La Macaza Institution in Quebec last week.
His life sentence and designation as a dangerous offender are tied to the kidnap, rape, torture and murders of 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy and 15-year-old Kristen French in the early 1990s near St. Catharines.
Shane Martinez, an adjunct professor of prison law at Osgoode Hall Law School, told CTV News Toronto that in medium-security prisons, people have more “mobility and opportunity.”
He said at a medium-security facility, prisoners can roam around, spend less time locked-up, and have more programming and employment options at the institution.
This is compared to a maximum-security facility, where Bernardo previously spent 23 hours per day in a cell, according to CTV News public safety analyst Chris Lewis.
“That'll all change in the medium (security prison),” he said.
“It’s just more relaxed. We’re not talking Club Med here by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a more relaxed environment,” Lewis said.
However, Martinez still called the security at a medium-security facility “significant,” even though it might be less so than at a maximum-security prison.
La Mascaza, which is located right beside Mont Tremblant International Airport, is a stand-alone facility built on an open campus model with a capacity of 240 inmates, according to Correctional Service of Canada. The federal organization called it a “secure and controlled institution – with every precaution in place to maintain public safety.”
“It is important to know that medium security facilities have the same perimeter controls as maximum security institutions (high fences, armed controls, armed correctional officers equipped with proper security equipment etc.) These facilities are strictly guarded 24/7, inmate movement is controlled, and we have rigorous security protocols.”
Martinez said the environments of medium and maximum-security facilities are definitely different. “But for him, I have a hard time seeing the experience being marked as different given how he is going to be isolated,” he said.
From his perspective, Martinez said it’s “relatively safe to presume” Bernardo will be kept in isolation.
The Correctional Service of Canada said it is “restricted by law” when it comes to what they can release about why Bernardo was transferred, citing his privacy rights when asked.
“Security classifications and transfers are based on: risk to public safety, escape risk, an offender’s institutional adjustment, and other case-specified information, such as psychological risk assessments,” the federal organization said in a statement on Monday afternoon.
Timothy Danson, a Toronto lawyer who represented the families of French and Mahaffy, said he informed them of the transfer last week and he said he could, “feel and sense their anguish and their despair and their sadness and their disbelief at the fact that there's a complete absence of transparency with respect to this decision,” Danson said on Monday.
"It's pretty disturbing,” he said.
“We asked why? What was the basis for it? What was the process? And they refused to answer our questions,” Danson said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.