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Topic: MILITARY JUSTICE PART 2 (Read 155 times)
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Clair "WHYTIE" Whyte
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Inside Canada's military prison
Sun, January 27, 2008
Strict discipline, hard work and spartan quarters await handful of Canadian troops sentenced to time behind bars
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, NATIONAL BUREAU
Stripped of rank, rifle and pride, she has traded her crisp military uniform for an orange jail jumpsuit.
Armed now with a meticulously polished cleaning bucket, the disgraced soldier keeps shoulders straight and eyes trained firmly ahead as she marches by rote around the sterile compound.
Strict rules bar her from uttering any words except those requesting permission to pass by staff and superiors.
Here in Edmonton, at Canada's only military prison, every day begins early and each waking moment is crammed with marches, repetive drills and scrubbing chores.
Ultra-strict discipline is the code -- and even modest privileges must be earned. New arrivals aren't allowed to talk or smoke or display pictures of loved ones inside their stark cells. And if they step out of line, they could spend excruciatingly long days sitting or standing -- but never lying down -- in a barren solitary confinement cell stripped down to socks and underwear.
"This is the end of the spectrum, the last step in the disciplinary chain," says Maj. Ron Gribble, the commandant in charge of the prison.
Those sentenced to fewer than 14 days in custody usually do time at a detention unit on their home base.
Offenders come to the Canadian Forces Service Prison and Detention Barracks from bases across the country and from deployments abroad, serving longer stints for serious violations of military rules or criminal convictions.
On this day, there are only four offenders, including the first female in three years. Outnumbered by on-duty staff, the inmates are divided in institutional wings by gender and status of sentence; officers and privates are peers and subject to the same tough discipline and basic cell quarters.
"There is no rank," says Gribble. "Everyone here is an inmate. They are either a service detainee, a service prisoner or a service convict."
Detainees returning to the military are all paid the same private's basic rate, whatever their rank, while those turfed from service receive a meagre prisoner's allowance of $1 to $5 a day.
Wayward soldiers who have made a mistake are here for rehabilitation, a reality check and a second chance. Those convicted of serious crimes are kicked out of the military and transferred to a civilian Corrections Canada penitentiary after serving as much as two years at the CF jail.
In 2007, there were only 39 inmates admited to the CF prison, and only 24 the year before.
"It speaks well for the discipline of our men and women in uniform overall. But it's also indicative of the size of our force too. We don't have a huge force," he said. "When you think of the British army or the American forces, they have huge militaries, so of course they are going to have a lot more discipline issues and they have a lot larger facility with a lot more offenders."
Each day here begins with a wake-up at 6 a.m. and ends with a mandatory lights out at 9 p.m. The hours in between are packed with duties and drills required to earn marks that allow the inmate to advance to the next level or stage of their sentence.
Most offenders lose weight during their stay due to rigorous physical activity.
No privileges are granted at the first stage. When they eventually reach the next level -- an average of 18-19 days -- family visits are permitted but without physical contact like hugs or kisses.
Inmates can be penalized -- most often for idleness, laziness or "illicit communication" in the shower or during a scheduled smoke break. But only top officials can administer punishment; custodians can only "correct" behaviour.
The regime includes a series of careful inspections in the morning and throughout the day. The offender must strip his or her cell bare of bedding and clothes, folding them all neatly into a tight rectangular box stowed outside the door until the day's end.
The busy grind continues with a schedule of meticulous personal hygiene mixed with washing floors, shining brass pipes and belt buckles and performing manual grounds work. All the while, their every move is closely monitored by CF guards called "custodians" and cameras that watch every open spot and hidden corner except for washrooms and private cells.
Security is tight, too, with steel bars, iron-locked doors and shatter-proof windows.
Inside each drab cell is a small window, a steel toilet and slender bed topped with a thin cot-style mattress.
That's luxury compared to the confinement cell, a completely barren whitewalled room where inmates are sent for severe reprimand for as many as two days at a time, left alone with their thoughts. A bread-andwater diet remains on the books for those in segregation, though Gribble said the severe punishment has been in "abeyance" for some years.
Under the National Defence Act, rules and laws apply to all Canadians deployed with the CF, which means a civilian working on mission could wind up at the prison. There have been three CF members transferred from deployment in Afghanistan, but Gribble stressed it's uncommon and would not divulge what offences were committed to warrant the detention.
"It's not for showing up late for work, let's put it that way. You can't take people out of a theatre of operation without creating a hiatus. They have to backfill that individual because it's mission-critical," he said. "This is the extreme. The last thing we want to do is send a man or a woman here to go in to detention, because it is harsh. You are taking away their liberties and retraining them, so we don't want to do that lightly, especially in a theatre of operation."
Master Warrant Officer Robert Gagnon, the prison's chief disciplinarian, said a high percentage of inmates arrive with drug or alcohol problems that are often linked to their offences. They are forced through immediate detox, with counselling and a multi-faith centre on site to help them break bad habits.
Blind to race, gender and the type of crime committed, Gagnon's job is to get the bad soldiers all back in line. He does it by working on "individual minds," while treating them all the same.
"You have to put your personal feelings and biases on the side and do your job," he says. "I don't care who it is, male or female or what colour they are. My instinct is to make sure this person is released a better soldier, a better person."
Getting there isn't an easy road. Upon admission, every inmate must forfeit all personal belongings, including wallet, jewelry and cigarettes.
The only item permitted is a plain wedding band.
Brass have recommended changes to "modernize" the rules, including the ability to admit or release on a Sunday and to extend the day so lights out are at 10 p.m. There are also plans to practise more military skills for those returning to the Forces, and focus on vocational, job-finding and life skills for those not going back to the military after release.
"We're concerned about sending solid people back to the military but we also have a duty to Canada to send people back out that are going to be productive citizens," Gribble says. "Depending what they've done in the military, we don't want to send problems back out into Canadian society."
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PRIVILEGES FOR INMATES OVER TIME SERVED
STAGE ONE
- no talking
- no cigarettes
- no visits
- no phone calls (except one 5-minute phone call to next of kin within 48 hours of admission)
- no TV
- no computer
- no personal eff ects in cell
STAGE TWO, Level 1
- talking allowed after meal and during smoke breaks
- three cigarettes a day
- no TV
- one 30-minute visit
- one 10-minute call per week
- 30 minutes of computer time daily to email family, visit military links and do educational or legal research
- two photos and one book permitted in cell
STAGE TWO, Level 2
- five cigarettes a day
- visits permitted
- two 10-minute phone calls or 1 20-minute call per week
- 60 minutes TV viewing
- 30 minutes+ computer time
STAGE TWO, Level 3
- as many as seven cigarettes per day
- visits permitted
- three 10-minute phone calls per week
- as much as 120 minutes TV viewing
- 30 minutes+ computer time
WHYTIE
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1 RCR 83-87, 4 RCR 98-02, UN - CYPRUS 84, Strathroy-Caradoc Police 03-Present
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Mike Blais
SSM (NATO Bar), CPSM, UN-Cyp, CD
Ultimate 2000+ Member
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Posts: 3213
A ROYAL CANADIAN "NEVER PASSES A FAULT"
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Could this be party of the problem?
Who's screening our recruits?
Military accepts B.C. man who allegedly boasted of murders, said he was Christ
Stewart Bell, National Post Published: Monday, January 28, 2008
About 39,000 people applied to join the Canadian Forces last year. Security clearance checks are conducted once recruits are in basic training.Marcos Townsend, CanWest News ServiceAbout 39,000 people applied to join the Canadian Forces last year. Security clearance checks are conducted once recruits are in basic training.
Private Stephen Cox had been at the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu for all of 10 days when the complaints began.
In handwritten statements to a Military Police corporal, a dozen platoon members said Pte. Cox had claimed to be the Son of Man and the Second Coming of Christ.
He said God had chosen him to cleanse the world of evil and that he was going to kill the Jews, Catholics, blacks, aboriginals, gays and lesbians, they wrote.
"I heard Private Cox talk of mass genocide of all humans who do not share his beliefs," one complaint read. Said another, "It was revealed to him that he was the second Christ and it was his duty to join the Canadian Army and get into JTF-2 [the special forces] so that he would be in place for the apocalypse in 2012."
The military is supposed to screen its recruits before sending them to basic training. The Canadian Forces calls screening "essential" to ensuring that Canada's soldiers are loyal, trustworthy and reliable.
So how did Pte. Cox make it to boot camp?
He was known to police as a marijuana trafficker and wannabe underworld figure who, during a police sting, had boasted about killing a B.C. couple and hacking up their bodies with a knife. But he still managed to pass the "reliability screening" that all applicants to the armed forces undergo.
How commonly this happens is anyone's guess. The Canadian Forces has no records on how many applicants fail the reliability screening -- which includes criminal records, credit and reference checks.
But rejection figures for the next level of screening, which begins only once a recruit has started basic training, are low: Since 2002, the military has found reason to deny just six of the almost 75,000 people it screened.
Mr. Cox says he was upfront with recruiters in Vancouver about his troubles with police, but Captain Cindy Tessier, spokeswoman for the Canadian Forces Provost Marshall, said Mr. Cox's past did not turn up during screening.
"It didn't. I don't know why it didn't," she said. "The bottom line is: The information wasn't available during the screening process. But the important thing is [that] as soon as his behaviour was brought to the attention of the authorities, it was dealt with."
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Stephen Cox grew up in Wales as Stephen Mark Richards. He was a Sea Cadet and Marine Cadet but in 1980 he left school at age 16 to join the Royal Marines Commando and was trained by the SAS, the British Special Forces.
He moved to British Columbia, worked as a welder and befriended an associate of the Hells Angels. When the headless remains of a marijuana grow-operator named John Bayer Jr. were found by spotted owl researchers on a logging road near Spuzzum, B.C., on Aug. 15, 1996, Mr. Cox became a suspect.
RCMP homicide investigators found a marijuana grow-room in a bunker under Mr. Bayer's garage. They also found documents linking him to Dale Weir. Phone records showed that, on the day of the murder, Mr. Cox had made calls from Mr. Weir's home in Chilliwack, B.C., and then left four days later for Colombia, the home of his wife, Maria Hurtado Zafra.
"It became known to the police that Cox was a close associate of Weir and involved in the growing and trafficking of marijuana," the B.C. judge who heard the murder case wrote.
The murder remained unsolved and, in 2000, the RCMP homicide squad began an undercover operation using a controversial technique called the "Mr. Big scenario," in which an officer poses as a criminal boss and tries to get a suspect to boast about his crimes.
An undercover constable approached Mr. Cox, who used the alias Magnum, about joining a criminal organization. "Cox was eager to participate and promote himself as a candidate for membership in the crime organization," the judge wrote.
On Aug. 18, 2000, Mr. Cox handed the undercover Mountie a photograph of a tattooed man and said, "$25,000 for the hit," according to B.C. court records. "If you want the contract, no problem; you have to bring the upper half for confirmation -- What I mean by upper half, shoulder up-- the head."
During his conversations with the undercover Mountie, Mr. Cox claimed he had murdered Mr. Bayer and his wife, Lani Sheldon, because Mr. Bayer had cheated Mr. Weir out of money. He said he cut up the bodies with a knife and left them in a remote area.
The RCMP charged Mr. Cox with two counts of murder. He was denied bail and spent 18 months in custody. He said that between jail, the trial and lack of sleep, he became delusional.
"I saw myself, after 14 days of no sleep, like the Son of God, you know, Son of Man, son of the devil. I saw World War III. I saw fights against Muslims," he told the National Post in a recent interview.
"I was going nuts. My family and my lawyer asked for me to be sent for an evaluation because I needed to get some sleep, so I went to Colony Farm[psychiatric hospital]."
At the murder trial in New Westminster, B.C., the judge said Mr. Cox's statements to the undercover officer could not be believed because he appeared to be lying and exaggerating to impress "Mr. Big," and much of what he said about the murders was already in circulation.
The judge also said Mr. Cox had claimed he used a knife to dismember the bodies, while the evidence suggested a blade with small teeth, such as a hacksaw, had been used.
The one taped conversation the judge felt could have implicated Mr. Cox in the murders contained "deficits in the quality of recording," the judge said.
Mr. Cox was acquitted.
In an interview, Mr. Cox said he was not without blame. He admitted to selling marijuana and keeping illegal guns in his home.
"Basically, it's my own fault," he said. "I was lying through my teeth to try and fit in, make all this money, and I said things I shouldn't have said and suddenly I was arrested and charged with murder."
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Upon his release, Mr. Cox went to his local recruiting office.
"The reason I joined the Canadian military is I wanted to give something back," he said.
The Canadian Forces Recruiting Group puts all potential soldiers through "reliability screening." It talks to each applicant's references and verifies their identity, education and qualifications.
At the same time, the Deputy Provost Marshal Security runs credit checks and puts the person's name through CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre.
"If, during our criminal-records name check on CPIC, we come across any indication of links to organized crime, outlaw motorcycle gang or other such organizations, we follow up with the police force of jurisdiction/interest and get additional information. Based upon this, we then make a recommendation to the hiring authority. The hiring authority makes the final decision," Capt. Tessier said. "In some cases, CPIC does not have this information, either because the investigation is ongoing, the person was never charged/ convicted, or for other reasons. If we don't know about it, we cannot use it."
About 39,000 people applied to join the Canadian Forces last year, and more than 26,000 reliability screening tests were conducted. The military says it does not know how many recruits failed the initial screening. "We don't track this information," said Captain Holly Brown, public affairs officer for the Canadian Forces Recruiting Group.
The only figures the military could provide concern security clearance checks. Last year, the military screened 16,000 people for security clearances and none were denied.
While the military says Mr. Cox's history with the police did not come up during his reliability test, he said they knew. "They didn't want me in but they couldn't stop me," he said. "They had all that information. That was all there. I had seven interviews with senior staff at the Vancouver recruitment centre, all the way up to the head boss, who told me quite categorically, 'I don't want you in but I have no choice.' "
Pte. Cox was sent to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., for basic training, but members of his platoon overheard him talking about his past troubles. To get it out in the open, he summoned his platoon and told them everything, he said.
On Jan. 23, 2005, Corporal Daniel Kelly was investigating a reported theft from Pte. Cox's footlocker when he first heard the platoon's concerns. The platoon members were worried because he was about to be issued a firearm. They threatened to quit unless he was removed from the platoon.
Their written statements said: - "Private Cox told me that we [the remaining platoon members] would become his holy crusaders, charged with the task of hunting down and murdering all who do not share his beliefs." - "He then explained that he had conducted many missions as a black op, although he would not go into detail, claiming it was classified. He did say that he had killed before and would kill again if he thought he needed to. He then skipped forward in his life and said that he was arrested on two counts of murder. He said he had been charged with killing two Hells Angels." - "All who oppose him or his ideals should be lined up and shot. He said he has killed before and that he has no problem looking into someone's eyes and killing them if ordered to, or if the person was untrue of heart."
Mr. Cox denies saying any of this. He said he had criticized members of his platoon for laughing at a fire-safety video and this was their way of exacting revenge.
Cpl. Kelly interviewed Pte. Cox, who claimed Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were watching him because of the double murder in B.C. He thought they had a master key to his locker and were taking his things.
The private was obsessed with his hunting knife, according to Cpl. Kelly. He kept asking about it and wanted to know where it was. The knife was unusual, Cpl. Kelly testified -- 13 or 14 inches long, with a diamond-shaped blade that was serrated on both sides and was so sharp it could pierce body armour.
The military discharged Pte. Cox and sent him home to Abbotsford, B.C. The military knew he owned a gun and contacted the Abbotsford Police Department, which seized his AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle.
The police then went to the Provincial Court of B.C. to ask a judge to ban Mr. Cox from possessing weapons for five years.
"He continues to be obsessed with weapons, including his knife," the judge wrote on March 28, 2007, agreeing to the weapons ban. "His paranoia as to being watched by CSIS, Interpol, etc., was still evident in his evidence before me. There is nothing before me that would indicate that the alarming circumstances that existed in 2005 do not continue to exist."
Mr. Cox appealed the weapons prohibition last August. He argued that the statements used against him by the military were false and that those who made them were never brought to court for cross-examination.
His lawyer, Jeff Ray, said he suspects police tipped off the army about his client and it had to contrive a way to discharge him. "I think there's real merit to my suspicions that the military dropped the ball in either not checking up his background or not investigating him more than they normally do an applicant, and then once he gets in, they find out about his background and they have to find a way to get him out."
A decision in Mr. Cox's weapons appeal is pending.
"They believe me to be the biggest bad guy there is, which I'm not," he said. "I've done a few bad things. I'll be honest, I've grown some pot, OK? I broke the law and I look at it this way: I paid 18 months for it; I spent time in jail, OK fine. I've done my time. Leave me alone."
He sees himself as a victim of shoddy police work and a wrongful murder case that continues to haunt him. But even he wonders why the military recruited him, only to kick him out after two weeks.
"If they didn't want me in the military, why the hell let me go in to begin with?"
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1RCR 1977-79 Depot (Italy PL), B Coy, Mortars, Pioneers, D Coy (CFB London)
3RCR 1979-82 M Coy, Pipes & Drums, Sigs, Mortars. (CFB Baden-Soellingen)
1RCR 1982-88 Mortars. Dukes, Cyprus-Welfare NCO 84-85, Injured, WO&Sgts Mess, (CFB London)
1988-92 Med-remuster to HELL/ 35 DU, CFB Baden
1992 Medical release. God Bless you all!
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