Justice explainer: Yes, statutory release means offenders leave institutions after two-thirds of a sentence but here's why

Many victims of violent crime and their family members are shocked to learn about the concept of statutory release but it does make sense, honest

(This is a rewritten version of two op-eds published in 2022 and 2023 about the murder of Doug Presseau after conversations with his mother - PJH, May 13, 2025)

As Kirkland Russell was stabbing Doug Presseau in the chest on a downtown Chilliwack street eight years ago, he yelled “Why won’t you f—king die!?”

Presseau was a Good Samaritan trying to stop Russell for which he was stabbed 14 times.

And he did die.

Presseau had come to the aid of Russell’s girlfriend, Bobbi Burris, who herself had been stabbed. That’s when Russell, who had consumed approximately 30 beers that night, turned on Presseau and killed him.

Minutes prior to Presseau’s stabbing on July 7, 2017, another man, Steven Drage, was killed by a knife attack near Russell and his friends. While common sense and circumstantial evidence mght point to Russell as the murderer, no witnesses saw the attack so no one was ever charged.

A serious and violent prolific offender, Russell’s extreme drunkenness that night was considered a factor diminishing intent, which took second-degree murder off the table. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to eight years behind bars, a shocking slap in the face to the victim’s mother, Barb Presseau.

“Our grief over the loss of our beloved Doug is now compounded with this shocking injustice,” she said after the March 2019 sentencing.

That shock and grief was compounded even further in 2022 when Barb learned about an element of criminal sentences in Canada that many people may not know about: Statutory release.

Unless sentenced to life in prison or labelled a dangerous or long-term offender, no criminals spend even close to their full sentence behind bars. 

After serving two-thirds of a sentence in an institution, whether it is for sexual assault, robbery or manslaughter, offenders are released into the community to serve the final third of that sentence.

If you have a long memory you might remember the concept of "time off for good behaviour." That was how it worked up until the 1990s. In 1992, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act was amended to add "statutory release." This is a type of conditional release that is automatic and is not granted by the Parole Board of Canada.

No one officially tells the public when an offender has reached two thirds as this would be an endless stream of communication and could prove to be a safety risk where vigilantism is a concern. 

But arithmetic isn’t hard, and I did some back in 2022 when Barb Presseau talked to me about her concerns with the justice system. After his credit for time served, Russell was sentenced on March 6, 2019 to 2,030 more days in jail, which means statutory release should have come after 1,353 days. So from that sentencing date it was 365 days to March 2020, 365 more to 2021, and again to 2022. Add up the rest of the days, subtract one day for a leap year and, by my calculations, Kirkland Russell’s statutory release date was Nov. 19, 2022. 

“I can’t believe how short these sentences end up being,” Barbara said.

Russell had more than 50 convictions to his name before he killed Doug Presseau yet his time behind bars, technically, was March 2019 to November 2022, something close to three years and nine months.

“People need to know that there are offenders on our street that have been assessed high risk for violence and high risk for sexual abuse,” Barbara said to me just weeks before Russell’s release. “They are walking on our streets right now and there will be another one in November. That is not OK.”

Where did that murderer go?

If you have seen enough Hollywood movies, you might picture the end of a jail sentence looking something like a corrections officer walking an offender to the prison walls. The creaky gate is pushed open, he lights a cigarette and walks out into the world.

Now imagine that offender had spent years behind bars, eating prison food, watching his back for shanks, best-case scenario taking some educational courses or training. He's not ready for society. The most well-rounded person out there would be overwhelmed by the “real world” after serving years behind bars, so how well do you think someone who made life decisions so terrible that they got sent to jail is going to do?

After a sentence is fully complete, authorities release offenders and the state has no more say where they live or what they do. On statutory release, however, the parole board knows where people like Russell are living, they can be monitored and they need to adhere to strict conditions.

Barb brought up to me the case of Myles Sanderson in Saskatchewan, who went on one of the worst mass killing sprees in Canadian history in 2022 while out on statutory release. His stabbing spree in remote norther communities left 11 people dead, and it stirred up controversy over the practice of statutory release.

In discussing the case of Sanderson, Queen’s University law professor Lisa Kerr said, essentially, that was the exception that proves the rule. In more than 98 per cent of cases over the five previous years, statutory release was completed without the offender being charged with a new criminal offence.

Writing for the Queen’s Gazette in September 2022, Kerr said the rate of violent recidivism in Canada dropped from 1.6 per cent in 2015-16 to 1.1 per cent in 2019-20. And while it may seem counter-intuitive, “The purpose of statutory release is public safety: it ensures that inmates do not leave a penitentiary without supervision and structure.”

In her article, co-authored by lawyer Amy Carter, Kerr concludes that even Sanderson’s release was, at the time, the right decision based on a number of factors.

“The board’s decision was a reasonable one for that moment in time. It appears to represent careful consideration of the many factors that are in play when assessing risk and broader goals of public safety in the near and long term.”

As for Russell, he did indeed violate one of the conditions of his release less than one month out of prison while living in a halfway house in an unknown community. He was sent to Pacific Institution in Abbotsford for an assessment after violating that release condition, and his risk was deemed manageable and he was sent back.

“I am so absolutely disgusted with our justice system,” Barb told me in 2023 after the breach.

“He has breached a condition in just under a month. Obviously this person is not rehabilitated in any way.”

According to Court Services Online, Russell doesn’t have any fresh criminal charges since he was released so it’s entirely possible he has otherwise adhered to the conditions, and the transition to society was at least good enough to get him to stop offending. A reliable source tells me he is living in Hope and I haven’t heard a peep about him since then.

Barb talked to me in 2022 and again in 2023 when Russell breached, because she wanted people who may not know about these elements of the justice system to learn.

If we are not going to lock people who commit crimes up forever, and we certainly are not going to do that, we need to rehabilitate them at least enough to protect society when the are released. Statutory release helps this transition.

This legal reality is cold comfort for the mother of a murder victim.

“The more people that know that our justice system is (messed) up the better,” she told me in 2023.

“First I learned that eight years isn’t really eight years. Now I learn that parole with conditions isn’t really parole with conditions.”

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Paul J. Henderson
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