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“Not wholly ineffective.” What a comfort that phrase must be to his alleged victim. It’s not a bad description for Canada’s COVID-19 response overall, really.

The alleged stalker is one of a growing number of offenders accused of serious and violent crimes who have been set free in recent days, Global News reported last week. The National Post’s Adrian Humphreys identified 12 recent bail decisions where COVID-19 came into play: In seven of those cases, the accused was released.

This coronavirus is highlighting all sorts of inequities in Canadian society, but this one seems especially cruel: If you’re a senior citizen whose relatives lack the means or the will to spring you, then you’re stuck living in fear. Meanwhile, judges are setting free allegedly very dangerous people because they might get or transmit COVID-19 in tight prison confines. In reality, though, both situations are the products of longstanding and well-understood institutional deficiencies that we have been all too happy to let slide.

Photo by Handout

At the best of times, Canada isn’t especially good at keeping inmates alive. A 2017 report from Correctional Service Canada found 291 federal prisoners had died of unnatural causes over 16 years: 154 by suicide, 64 by drug overdose, 41 by homicide, 12 by “accident.” In 2017, Reuters reviewed data from seven provinces and found there had been 254 total deaths over five-and-a-half years in their correctional facilities. Of those, 174 had been awaiting trial — i.e., they were legally innocent (as are the majority of inmates in provincial facilities). Only 34 were deemed to be from natural causes.