Victim's Restitution Bill

[HunterDave]

I just received a bulk email from my Member of Parliament.

"Today I was very proud to be the seconder of Guy Lauzon’s Victim’s Restitution Bill, a Bill that I worked on with my colleague. The Victim’s Restitution Bill will ensure that any federally incarcerated inmate who successfully files a lawsuit against the Federal Government and is issued a monetary reward does not personally receive any of that reward. As proposed in this Bill, the monetary rewards will be completely garnished from the inmate and given, firstly, to the victim of the inmate’s crime; secondly, to any individual who has an outstanding restitution order, including the beneficiary of an unpaid spousal or child support claim, any beneficiary of a civil judgment or ongoing proceeding; and finally, to the victim services organization in the province in which the crime occurred. This is just another example of something we can do to put victims first."

This Bill makes perfect sense to me.

[Gramps.257]

X2

[Grizzly Adams]

Do we still pay his lawyer ?


Grizz

[Okotokian]

have we actually had any examples of this? I also think it should depend on the crime and what the lawsuit amount was for.

Don't get me wrong, Im all for stronger laws on crime. Bring in the three strike law and I'm fine. But this one has some holes in it.

Example: Guy assaults another guy, gets convicted, sent to the slammer for a short stay. Original victim has no major or permananet injuries. In the slammer, government is somehow negligent, inmate (who would have gotten out in a few weeks) is blinded. Are we saying the original guy who got beat up and was fine two days later gets a million bucks? Or the money is simply given to the local victims services organization? I'd say getting blinded with no restitution is a bit too steep of a penalty for assault.

Now if there is a restitution order that is a whole different matter as that would imply the original victim actually lost something. I' m all for that being paid off.

In the end this bill will mean nothing. Who is going to launch a suit if they can't keep the money? Victims of crime will get nada. It simply protects the government. But it looks good, doesn't it?

[Skybuster]

Oks, I agree with your comment that it should depend on circumstance, how severe was the crime, how severe is the restitution. I would hope that some sense of fairplay is involved there. Properly documented of course.

But as for being a mean nothing bill? If it prevents inmates from launching a restitution suit and only protects government, that's still a good thing. If the fair play rule is in effect big restitution suits will still go forward. And lets not forget who it is protecting when suits don't go forward - government - which ultimately means - us. Those that do go forward will have some benefit to victims, it's all good. Less for the criminal, I like that.

[HunterDave]

Originally Posted by Okotokian

In the end this bill will mean nothing. Who is going to launch a suit if they can't keep the money? Victims of crime will get nada. It simply protects the government. But it looks good, doesn't it?

You might be right about victims of crime getting nada but neither will the criminal. OR, the criminal will get part of the settlement after he pays his back child support and pays a victim restitution for the car that he stole and wrote off. I like the idea of holding people accountable for their actions........it takes the onus off of the victim to go to court and sue the criminal and ensures that the people deserving of the cash gets it.