Mark Lange was handed an indeterminate sentence today in Yukon territorial court.

“This is not about how the system failed Mark Lange but how Mark Lange failed himself,” Judge Donald Luther said, before reading his reasons for designating Lange a dangerous offender.

The designation means Lange will be sent to a federal penitentiary. There, he will be held indefinitely unless the National Parole Board decides he can be released.

The 40-year-old man will have to serve at least four years to be eligible for day parole and seven years for full parole.

He could also theoretically spend the rest of his life in prison.

Lange has a lengthy criminal record – 42 convictions between 1990 and 2014 – including three weapons offences and six violent crimes.

These five violent crimes were central to the Crown’s case to have Lange designated a dangerous offender.

In 1993, he was convicted of uttering threats after he shot a classmate with a BB gun.

Five years later, he was convicted of spousal assault after repeatedly choking his partner at the time.

The same year he was also convicted of assault causing bodily harm when he and others attacked a man in an act of vigilantism.

In 2012, he was convicted alongside Dean Boucher of manslaughter in the 2004 death of Carcross’ Caribou Hotel owner Robert Olson.

The conviction came after a first conviction was overturned on appeal.

The dangerous offender application was brought after Lange was charged in 2014 with assault causing bodily harm, in the case where a man was beaten outside the Salvation Army shelter.

Throughout the hearing today, Lange stayed calm, alternating between staring at his feet and straight ahead of him.

Not so long ago, the prospects for his rehabilitation were good.

Three years ago, when he was sentenced for manslaughter, forensic psychologic Dr. Shabehram Lohrasbe told the court that Lange was not at high risk for violence in the future.

As a result, Crown prosecutors decided not to apply for a long-term offender status.

Lange had just spent seven years in a federal penitentiary where he had successfully completed a number of treatment and rehabilitation programs.

In addition to this, he had stayed sober.

After being released for the 2012 conviction – Lange had already served most of the time he was sentenced to – a pastor and teacher took him under his wing.

At the pastor’s house, Lange had to abide by three rules: no overnight guests, no alcohol and his room was to be kept clean.

It worked for a time; Lange was selling his art, paying his bills and staying out of trouble.

But then he started to feel like he was “doing time” at the pastor’s house, the court heard from various reports the judge read.

He started to get involved with a younger woman.

That was a huge mistake, Luther noted, as the woman had severe alcohol abuse problems.

Not long after that, he threatened her on Facebook, resulting in the 2014 conviction.

Lohrasbe testified for the dangerous offender application earlier this year.

He was surprised with how things had turned out.

In just three years, Lange had been convicted of uttering threats against a former partner, had beaten a man at the Salvation Army shelter and was back to abusing alcohol.

In 2012, Lange was aware that if he started drinking again, his criminal behaviour might relapse.

“If I drink again, I may as well be dead,” he told Lohrasbe in 2012.

A major factor in the relapse was that Lange thought he could handle having a drink – and then another one.

“Within hours of being released, I was already drinking,” Lange told the psychologist, referring to his 2014 release in the uttering threat case.

“I undid all the work I did over years in 30 seconds,” he said, referring to the Salvation Army assault.

Luther called the assault “monstrous, depraved and heartless,” and “vicious.”

On June 6, 2014 around 1:20 a.m., Lange was outside the Salvation Army shelter in Whitehorse when he, for unknown reasons, punched a man he appeared to have been talking to.

The man fell to the floor in a protective fetal position.

After the two initials blows to the head, Lange kicked the man four times to his lower body and 16 times in the head, including violently stomping his face.

The assault lasted three minutes.

Lange testified he had no recollection of the attack, except for the security video that was shown in court.

As a Salvation Army employee came out to figure out what was happening, Lange first tried to dupe him into thinking somebody else committed the beating.

He then threatened to attack the employee himself.

The victim suffered a concussion, blood in his ear cavities but survived.

He did not provide a statement to the RCMP or the court.

Speaking directly to Lange, the judge reminded him a dangerous offender designation didn’t mean his life was over.

“All is not lost,” he said.

“The key hasn’t been thrown away – you can still make applications to the parole board.”

During the decision, the judge noted Lange was a smart, articulate man and a very talented artist.

There was no other way in his opinion to protect the public from Lange’s violent criminal behaviour than to designate him a dangerous offender, the judge said.