http://digbig.com/4maxr
"Those with no hope of making a case for parole would have their parole application summarily dismissed, with no hearing, under his proposal. But such a change seems more political posturing than good lawmaking. If the parole board is doing its job, it can review a case like Olson's every two years and quickly dispatch his request. The alternative is to allow some bureaucrat to decide which lifer gets a parole hearing, and that opens the possibility that a prisoner who deserves a second chance will be denied it. In the last 31 years, some 19,000 convicted killers have been let out of Canadian prisons on parole or statutory release. Only 45 of them have been convicted of subsequent murders. For the vast majority of these prisoners, then, parole works."
