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But she stuck with the plan. And so a young girl was brutally tortured and murdered in a field far from her home.

McClintic was eventually identified as a person of interest thanks to surveillance footage. Taken into custody on an outstanding warrant, she confessed after a series of interviews and turned on Rafferty. Both were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, with no parole for 25 years. McClintic even later claimed, contrary to her earlier statements, that she was the one who wielded the hammer and beat Stafford to death.

She had more than one chance to flee with Stafford, to alert someone, to change her mind, to save a helpless child from a violent, gruesome, senseless end.

So, to review: McClintic chose Stafford. She lured her to the car. She bought the hammer that killed her, and the garbage bags that Stafford was buried in. She was present when Rafferty raped her. And then she beat her to death. None of these events is disputed by McClintic. This is her version of events.

And now she’s getting a break.

She’s still in prison, but describing her as “behind bars” doesn’t quite apply. McClintic has been transferred to a “healing lodge.” A series of these facilities exist in Canada as alternatives to traditional prisons. They’re still within the correctional system, but are intended to provide a different experience for Indigenous Canadians, who are incarcerated at a rate well beyond their share of the population.

Whether Canada should have these facilities to begin with is an awfully good question. The goal is valid, but the execution — a segregated prison system — is appalling. There’s no clear evidence the facilities even succeed at their primary goal, reducing recidivism, with different studies showing wildly diverging outcomes. But these are matters for another day. The important thing for today is to understand that these prisons are vastly more pleasant places to be incarcerated than a normal prison. They’re designed to be. That’s what they’re for.