The hard part of community policing – reporting on a pedophile released back into the community. There is more the chief of police can do.

 BURKE breached the conditions of both his probation order and prohibition order by attending the community centre and was arrested and held for a bail hearing.

 On March 7, 2013 BURKE appeared before Justice F.L. Forsyth of the Ontario Court of Justice and pled guilty to breaching both his probation order and prohibition order.  BURKE was sentenced to a period of incarceration and was made subject to a probation order for a term of three years.

BURKE has served his period of incarceration and was released April 16, 2013.  One of the terms of his probation order is to reside in the Walkers Line and Medland Drive area of Burlington, Ontario.

 Some additional conditions imposed upon BURKE, in addition to those still in effect by virtue of his prohibition order include:

 Not attend any restaurant or establishment that has anywhere on its premise an area designed for the use of persons under the age of 16 years.

 Email access is only to be for the purpose of communicating with family/friends over the age of 18 years.

 Not use any electronic device to access chat rooms or social networking sites.

 “In the interest of community safety and in accordance with the Police Services Act, and Ontario Regulation 265/98, I have chosen to exercise my discretion to notify the public that Mr. BURKE is residing in our Region,” said Chief Tanner.  “The Halton Regional Police Service Offender Management Unit has a comprehensive community safety strategy in place and will work closely with the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services in this matter.”

BURKE is a 71-year-old white male, 5’10” in height, weighing approximately 175 pounds, with short white hair and blue eyes.  BURKE has occasion to wear prescription glasses.

Everything you just read is completely true.  But there is more to the story and while it may not be the responsibility of the police chief to tell you – you should know that Anthony Burke is a pedophile.  He was not born a pedophile.  The community he was raised in either forgot to, or didn’t know how to nurture, love and care for him.

Every pedophile the police arrest was at some point in their lives molested, they were victims and they need treatment.  That is not the job of the police – they are there to protect us and in telling the community that Anthony Burke is on the streets again – Chief Tanner is warning everyone.

Chief Tanner however has a degree in psychology.  He understands, or should understand that while his community has to be protected – it also has to take care of and protect people like Anthony Burke.

Circles of Support and Accountability work with convicted pedophiles and have an impressive success rate. Hard work – pedophiles are not nice people – but they can be prevented from destroying the life of a young person.

There is in this province a program called Circles of Support and Accountability – COSA, that works with pedophiles released from prison.  Circles are made up of about five citizens who work almost daily with the pedophile.  They are there to keep a constant eye on the core member of the Circle.  They are trained to spot the behaviour that leads to another offence.

Pedophiles rarely change – the damage done to them in their youth was so extensive that they are seldom able to recover.

Circles of Support and Accountability are about people helping people – and that includes those that are not very nice.

What Circles do is prevent pedophiles from re-offending as pedophiles.  They might get arrested for stealing something but if the Circle does their job they pedophile will not destroy another life.

It isn’t pleasant work – these men for the most part are hard to like.  But Circles do work and one would hope that when Chief Tanner alerts the public he at the same time does some work in the background to create a Circle for Anthony Burke.

Anything less and all the Chief has done is drive Anthony Burke underground – but he will find a way to re-offend – and in that act he destroys a life the way his has been destroyed.  It doesn’t have to be that way.

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6 comments to The hard part of community policing – reporting on a pedophile released back into the community. There is more the chief of police can do.

  • katarina

    I am a 11 year old grade 5 student in burlington and the parents of my friends and my parents have recived an e-mail about this and whats really creepy is that alot of people in my school/neighborhood have been saying he lives near our school.Also the last place he was seen was Tansley Woods swimming pool.

    • Clo

      I live in this area have children and am seriously afraid that he lives on my street. Does anyone know what street he lives on? Sorry but I believe in the rights of my children not the pedophile. I also wanted to put up signs of his picture so in case anyone sees him ( there are 3 schools around) they can call police. Kids come first.

  • Meg

    Did I really just read that? The stance of the author of this article a LUDACRIS, sympathy for the molester?? I suppose you would also agree with some “experts” that are now saying that there’s nothing wrong with pedophilia at all and that it is a “normal” sexual preference, no different than homosexuality and heterosexuality and that should be legal?! Probably!

    Lets get this straight. Yes sexual predators were molested themselves as children thus creating the monsters they are today. But just like with all temptations, lusts, deviant inclinations (whether “born that way” or birthed from environmental factors), we all have the CHOICE to act on them, and before we have the choice to ACT we have the choice whether or not to obey the THOUGHTS, let them fester and grow. We have the CHOICE whether to get help or not. So don’t give me this crap about poor Anthony. He’s getting off easy, castration and live imprisonment would have been the “fair” punishment.

    P.S. I am also from Burlington and you will note my email is valid. And who cares if “Terri” doesn’t use a real email address! It doesn’t invalidate her comment which is absolutely VALID! Some people don’t want to use a real addresss so what?! So sorry that she cares more about the safety of her children than the pervert! You are something else!

  • Terri

    I agree with the above comment. I am the mother of 3 young children. This notice came in my 8 year old son’s agenda today from school. I applaud the chief of police for making the call to protect the children. As sickened as I felt reading this notice as a parent. I felt more empowered to protect them with the knowledge. Seeing his photo online gives me the ability to recognize suspicious behavior around my children. It is an uneasy feeling. I had a talk with my children tonight about the ‘dangers present’. What to do. How to stay safe.

    My issue is this article telling us that this man ‘deserves’ rights also, needs to be protected. I, the law abiding citizen, would have to take the chance that one of my children will be put in harms way, to ‘protect’ this man’s ‘rights’. He lost that novelty when he committed these heinous crimes. We deserve as a community the power, and knowledge as parents, to protect our children from abuse. He should still be in a jail cell. The simple fact there is fear, and need to warn people, is enough to make me sick. Why let a person out to reoffend. No matter how ‘damaged’ their childhood. We let them roam freely to damage another child’s life. I for one, am glad that this decision was made to release details.

    • parrking

      Terri’s comments are heard frequently. They are part of the social dialogue where all honest comment is valid. Unfortunately, Terri isn’t valid – the email address she used was phony. We see a lot of that in Burlington.

  • Sam Hardakker

    I’m sorry, but the “pedophiles are people too” part of the article should not be included. You want to write a piece about that, fine, but don’t include it in the press release from the chief.

    This man is sick and should never have been let out; he should be locked up without any chance for parole; that is the best way to keep our children safe.