Crime

Alek Minassian, who was found guilty of 10 counts of first-degree murder in the 2018 deadly Toronto van attack, has been handed a life sentence in jail with no parole for 25 years.

The new inspector of constabulary for England and Wales pledges to focus on crime and resist “thought policing.”

Here in Britain we seem to police everything except crime. Yet some signs suggest that things could change. Andy Cooke has been named the new chief inspector of constabulary, with responsibility for overseeing the operational procedure of all police forces in England and Wales and making recommendations for improvement. Cooke clearly wants to send a message, telling the Times in an interview, “We’re not the thought police.”

TORONTO – Jacob Hoggard, the frontman for the Canadian band Hedley, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting an Ottawa woman but acquitted of the same charge against a teenage fan.

Hoggard, 37, has also been found not guilty of sexual interference, a charge that relates to the sexual touching of someone under 16, in an incident involving the same fan when she was 15.

The singer, who wore a dark suit, hugged his wife in the courtroom after the verdict was read.

As jurors in the Jacob Hoggard sexual assault trial begin their deliberations, they weren’t told the Hedley frontman is facing a third sexual assault charge in addition to the two young women who accused him of violent rape in 2016.

According to court documents, the new information against Hoggard was sworn April 13 detailing the same charge — sexual assault causing bodily harm — in relation to a third complainant, this time on June 25, 2016 in Kirkland Lake, Ont. His next court date on that charge is in August.

Canada’s supreme court has ruled that life sentences without the chance of parole are both “cruel” and unconstitutional, in a landmark decision that could give more than dozen mass killers who committed “inherently despicable acts” the faint hope of release in the future.

The court unanimously determined on Friday that sentencing killers to lengthy prison terms with little hope of freedom risked bringing the “administration of justice into disrepute”.

The closely watched case centred on the fate of Alexandre Bissonnette, the gunman who killed six worshippers at a mosque in Québec City in 2017, but the court’s decision will possibly have consequences for at least 18 others who are serving multiple life sentences.

In different ways, progressive prosecutors Chesa Boudin, George Gascón, and Larry Krasner are facing backlash against their disastrous policies.

Progressive prosecutors are on the run. Having taken office on promises of de-prosecuting and decarcerating without affecting public safety, they’ve helped usher in the largest one-year homicide increase in U.S. history. A CDC report notes that the nation’s homicide rate has risen to its highest level in over 25 years, with the largest increase coming “among non-Hispanic Black or African American males aged 10–44 years.” No surprise, then, that those who promised leniency without consequences now find themselves in serious trouble.

A 27-year-old man is dead after being shot by police near an elementary school in Scarborough’s Port Union area on Thursday afternoon in an incident that prompted hundreds of children at nearby schools to go into lockdown.

Toronto paramedics told CP24 they were called to the corner of Lawrence Avenue East and Port Union Road at 1:24 p.m. for a shooting.

Suicide by cop?

New data on Asian-Americans in New York City undercut a common assumption.

Many analysts, along with the general public, believe that poverty is a major, if not the major, cause of crime. But a new study from a Columbia University research group should remind us of something that history has consistently shown: that the relationship between poverty and crime is far from predictable or consistent. The Columbia study revealed the startling news that nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of New York City’s Asian population was impoverished, a proportion exceeding that of the city’s black population (19 percent). This was surprising, given the widespread perception that Asians are among the nation’s more affluent social groups. But the study contains an even more startling aspect: in New York City, Asians’ relatively high poverty rate is accompanied by exceptionally low crime rates. This undercuts the common belief that poverty and crime go hand in hand.