SCRA Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON CORRECTIONS AND CONDITIONAL RELEASE ACT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR LA LOI SUR LE SYSTÈME CORRECTIONNEL ET LA MISE EN LIBERTÉ SOUS CONDITION DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA JUSTICE ET DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, March 18, 1999

• 0930

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Paul DeVillers (Simcoe North, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. It is the meeting of the subcommittee on the Corrections and Conditional Release Act of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

We have as our first witness Ms. Verna Ryan of the P.E.I. Prison. Ms. Ryan, please make your presentation between five and ten minutes. Then I'm sure the members will have questions for you.

Ms. Verna Ryan (Manager, Provincial Correctional Centres, Prince Edward Island Prison): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and bienvenue to the Maritimes to the subcommittee. I appreciate the time you've afforded me this morning.

I will limit my comments to three areas outlined in the terms of reference. The first is in terms of reintegration of offenders.

In Prince Edward Island we are working closely with Correctional Services Canada in regard to our services to offenders. We have an extended service agreement with the federal government, so we house federal offenders in addition to provincial offenders.

Our efforts have been in terms of case assessment, case planning, case management and relief planning, and programming. We have been trying to work with Correctional Services Canada to mirror what is happening in the federal institutions, in terms of bringing our programs up to their consistent level. One of our goals in doing so is to provide the National Parole Board with information on offenders, both federal and provincial, housed with us, that's consistent with the information they're getting from federal institutions.

For example, if an offender has taken an anger management program in Springhill, it's our intention that if he takes an anger management program in the provincial institution, the parole board could expect the same content and delivery.

To this end, we would recommend that joint efforts between the province and CSC continue in terms of assessment, planning and programming, both in the institution and at the community level, and that the parole board recognize such, and also that the programming at the provincial level be accredited by Correctional Services Canada.

A standard mechanism or tool would also be very useful for us in terms of making sure the Parole Board is getting the information they need. We have developed a format where we get information to the parole board, but we haven't received a lot of feedback in terms of whether or not it is truly helpful for them in the decisions they make on conditional sentences.

The second area is conditional releases. Again, we've been working with CSC on offenders released to Prince Edward Island. Our provincial institution has been designated as a community-based residential facility, so we have people on day parole and people on statutory release who have residency clauses. Parole violators and persons who are revoked come to us as well.

One challenge is in regard to information in managing these offenders. We feel an automated system that both the province and the federal authorities have access to would greatly benefit both the systems—the offenders in terms of risk assessment, and how the institution places offenders, particularly parole violators. In the short term, parole violators might be dealt with as higher risks than they need to be, based on the fact we don't have all the information on their cases.

We would then recommend the province continue to explore our role with Correctional Services Canada, in terms of providing resources to offenders being reintegrated, and a joint automated record management system for provincial and federal use be established.

• 0935

The third area I would comment on is victim notification. Both federal inmates who are housed with us as exchange-of-service agreement participants and provincial inmates have access to our unescorted temporary absence program. This is a program we feel strongly about and encourage. At this point we make great effort to contact victims before a TA decision is given. We look for their input, and that input can sway the outcome of the decision.

What we are looking for, however, is clarification in terms of what level of effort would meet the notification requirement under the CCRA. So we're just looking for further clarification. That would be our recommendation on that point.

That concludes my comments.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Ms. Ryan.

[Translation]

We can go to the questions. Mr. Gouk, you have three minutes.

[English]

Mr. Jim Gouk (Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually have no questions. The brief pretty well backs up what was stated this morning. It's going to be one more of a number of things we'll have to sort through and give consideration to.

The Chairman: Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Marceau.

Mr. Richard Marceau (Charlesbourg, BQ): We hear the praises of close co-operation between the Correctional Services of Canada and the provinces in a number of situations.

On paper, the co-operation between the Correctionnal Services of Canada and the provinces seems to be a good thing, from a distance. However, we have visited a number of places, in particular New Brunswick. In fact, the situation is not as good as it is claimed to be. There seem to be some problems with provincial prisoners being held in federal institutions. The management of these institutions and the prisoners both indicated that the situation was not all that rosy and things were not going very well.

I would like to know your opinion in this regard. To begin with, is the federal-provincial co-operation that you boast about a number of times in your brief as good as you say?

Secondly, what things could be improved in order to keep things on track?

[English]

Ms. Verna Ryan: Our circumstance is quite different from New Brunswick's. We do not have the same arrangements as New Brunswick. In New Brunswick, with their provincial offenders, if it's a sexual offence and they are sentenced to over six months, they automatically go to a federal institution. If they have a provincial offender who is sentenced to more than a year, they automatically go to a federal institution. That's not the case with our situation.

We try to do just the opposite. We like to keep inmates in our province if they are from our province, thereby easing their reintegration because they have ongoing contact with their families. We're not looking to send inmates to federal institutions. We want to bring our programs up to a standard that's acceptable to CSC, so they are assured federal offenders receive the same service in P.E.I. So our system is in fact quite different from New Brunswick's.

• 0940

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Marceau.

[English]

Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose (Oshawa, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a comment and a question.

From our experience so far with other provinces, it seems the federal and provincial systems have trouble meshing. New Brunswick is not a happy situation. I am wondering if you would not be better advised to go the other route and coordinate or meld your program with that of another province or other provinces, which would bring you up to a size where you could look after your own programs and the federal people would look after theirs, as is done in provinces like B.C., Ontario, and so on. You then wouldn't run into this conflict so much.

Now, things are not perfect in the large systems either, but I fail to see how the federal system will ever be able to bend to accommodate small provinces, such as Prince Edward Island. It's just one of the facts of life.

Ms. Verna Ryan: In terms of your first comment about the provinces getting together, quite a few of the provincial institutions haven't progressed as far as CSC, in terms of case management and programming. We have really put a lot of effort into that.

The difficulty we have is we are served by the National Parole Board in Moncton. Our provincial inmates are served by that board and our ESAs are served by that board. So in terms of them getting the information they need to make appropriate decisions on release planning, we feel we have to give them information they're familiar with. That's why we're putting our efforts in that vein.

Mr. Ivan Grose: I understand. It's like every other question: it's not as simple as it seems.

Ms. Verna Ryan: No.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you very much.

Ms. Verna Ryan: I would also refer to the situation in Newfoundland, where the federal body, CSC, has taken a further step in Clarenville. They've actually taken over part of the institution. They have 30 beds there for their use and have invested in programming and staffing to meet their needs.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Ms. Ryan, in the Prince Edward Island situation, could you just briefly describe your institutions for the committee—the halfway houses, the mix between federal and provincial inmates in those institutions and in the houses? Do you have access to the correctional investigator?

Ms. Verna Ryan: On Prince Edward Island we have two adult facilities. One is very small, with 27 beds. The other one has 96 beds. Both are relatively small. Through the exchange-of-service agreement, we have ten beds that are set aside for federal offenders. That number fluctuates over the year. We have no halfway house facilities on Prince Edward Island. In fact, our provincial institution has been designated as a community-based residential facility because there is no purely community-based facility.

In answer to your final question, we do not have access to the federal correctional investigator, although we have trained our own staff, which obviously is not independent, using CSC trainers in investigation.

The Chairman: What's the situation with women offenders and aboriginal offenders?

Ms. Verna Ryan: On aboriginal offenders, we don't see the same over-representation we see across Canada on Prince Edward Island, due probably to just low numbers.

In terms of women offenders, I think there are a number of issues there. Our facility is a co-ed facility. We have a female unit in our 96-bed facility.

• 0945

There are certainly challenges with female offenders. Obviously they go to Nova, and upon return often use the Addiction Centre for Women for their base when they're back in the community. However, again, we're working with CSC's reintegration committee for women, looking at some community-based alternatives. Particularly in rural areas, we really have to find some new and creative ways to assist these women back into the community.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mrs. Ryan. Thank you for your brief. It will be helpful for the committee and our researchers. Thank you for accepting our invitation.

Ms. Verna Ryan: Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.

The Chairman: Next, would Ann Sherman come forward from the Community Legal Information Association of Prince Edward Island.

Ms. Sherman, if you could give us a presentation of between five to ten minutes, then we'd go to questions from members.

Ms. Ann Sherman (Executive Director, Community Legal Information Association of Prince Edward Island): I appreciate very much your hearing me.

My situation is a little different from everybody else's you'll hear this morning. I'm not part of the correctional system. I work for a community-based group that focuses on the broader aspects of justice. Essentially, the Community Legal Information Association is a public legal education and information association funded by the federal justice department, the provincial justice department, the Attorney General of P.E.I., and the MORE foundation. Our goal is to provide islanders with understandable and useful information about our laws and our justice system. Our work is a cooperative effort by members of community groups, lawyers' associations, government departments, and interested members of the general public.

There are two of your issues I would particularly like to address this morning, one of course being the whole issue of public education, which I believe is contained within your first issue, the administration of sentences and the preparation of inmates for their eventual return into the community. Specifically, it addresses how well the process assures both community safety and offender reintegration.

The third issue I'd like to address, because I sit as a member of the Victim Services Advisory Committee in P.E.I., is that of victims. And that's your fourth issue, around victims and their concerns about Correctional Services and the National Parole Board.

With regard to public education, I was privileged to be able to attend the earlier round of consultations and was very heartened to see in the consultation report that there was almost a national consensus around recommendations for more and better public education. I believe we have to spend the time and the money and the effort to educate Canadians about the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Canadians need to know the whys, as well as the hows and the whats. If you want to make a case for public legal education, you only have to look at the way the Young Offenders Act was viewed within the community, where there was really a lack of understanding of many of the various sections of the Young Offenders Act and certainly no understanding of the basic principles upon which the act was based.

Sentencing is complex. I don't believe there's any real public understanding of why we impose a sentence on those found guilty of committing a criminal offence, how a sentence is reached, or what we hope to achieve with those sentences. The Canadian public views sentencing as a punitive process and are focused exclusively on the punitive aspects and the safety of the community.

I think public education is crucial for future acceptance and support for this act. I have some examples of written information with me. I don't want to say that no public education is being done there. I'm merely making a case for more and better public education.

• 0950

I received this information sheet some weeks ago. It comes from the Solicitor General. It's a sheet of articles that you can cut and paste or scan into publications. It deals specifically with myths and realities, the sort of thing that's very useful for slipping into other sorts of written materials. More of this is very important, and written information is very important.

I also wanted to focus on this publication that came out in P.E.I., which is a handbook about corrections and parole in Prince Edward Island. It was published in 1994 by the community and correctional services division of the Health and Community Services Agency, in cooperation with the Correctional Service of Canada, National Parole Board, and Justice Canada. It's designed to be used by people who answer questions—questions from victims of crime, questions from offenders, and questions from the general public. It's also very useful for new staff orientation and for volunteers who are working within the correctional system. In my organization we've also found that law teachers and other people we call intermediaries, for instance people who are working with victims in the community, and members of the public are also very appreciative of the information this contains.

It's inexpensively done. It's done using the basics of plain-language writing. It's at a very understandable level. It does allow for a question and answer process and it will lead people on to other sources of information if questions can't be answered in here.

Those written materials I think are very important. But I also think we need to focus on getting information out in ways that are not just dependent on written material. So we also have to look at using the electronic media, using radio to the maximum, and making presentations to community groups.

In recent weeks, Ole Ingstrup, commissioner of Correctional Service Canada; Cleve Cooper, assistant commissioner for community contract and aboriginal policing; and Art Robson, who's the Atlantic regional director of the National Parole Board, have all given presentations to Rotary Clubs in Atlantic Canada. This has been part of a concerted effort to educate the community as part of a project I've been involved in with the Atlantic coordinating committee for crime prevention and community safety. We've made a concerted effort to have knowledgeable speakers, prestigious speakers, go out into the community to talk to the community about the reintegration of offenders and other issues of concern within the correctional system.

On P.E.I., every two weeks I do a radio program with the CBC—that's when they're on the air. It's a short program, ten minutes, which allows myself and the host to discuss various issues. The afternoon program on CBC reaches about 30% of the radio-listening audience on the island. It's a great way of getting information out.

Public forums, especially focusing on issues of interest to local communities, are also another very good way of getting the information out. And here in the Atlantic region we have some very popular radio phone-in shows. The topic of crime and corrections is always a hot issue, and you can be guaranteed a lively debate if you have one of those shows.

One of the other things I wanted to show you was a kit of information we developed on the island designed for media. This is done with funding from Correctional Service Canada by my association. It's very inexpensive. It lists contacts, telephone numbers, names, e-mail addresses, and it focuses on some things that when we wrote this were important to islanders. So we look at youth crime. We have a session on story ideas that are positive rather than negative, because so much of the publicity about corrections focuses on our failures and very little focuses on the successes.

It doesn't take a lot of money to get information out, and it can be distributed in lots of ways. The National Parole Board does a lot of public education already. I would like to see more done. I would like to see it done maybe less formally, and I'd like to see it done in cooperation with a community advisory committee and with organizations in the community such as mine.

• 0955

In a draft of their brief for presentation to this committee, the Canadian Criminal Justice Association said:

A simple, succinct statement listing the benefits of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to citizens, victims, corrections staff and offenders would be highly enlightening, informative and influential in raising public confidence in Federal Corrections.

I think openness and education is the way we can raise that public confidence.

Moving on to victims' issues, as I said, I currently sit on the P.E.I. Victim Services Advisory Committee, and I have a few issues the committee asked me to put before you today.

The first issue is one of restorative justice. I'd like to emphasize that we're very supportive of restorative justice. We're supportive of processes and procedures that are victim-centred and victim-sensitive, because unless they're victim-centred and victim-sensitive then the restorative aspect is lost. We also think there has to be recognition that there are cases in which a restorative process is not going to work, where there is no way you can restore the harm that's been done. These are in extraordinarily serious cases. There are even in those cases ways in which the victim can be involved in a process that promotes healing without focusing only on vengeance.

I would like to quote from comments by our former Attorney General of P.E.I., Mr. Mitch Murphy. In terms of victims, he said:

...most victims want to be dealt with sensitively (and) require information in a timely manner and understandable format. They want their privacy interests respected. They want effective interventions with the offender and most of all they do not want to be re-victimized by the offender, other offenders or by a seemingly at times uncaring justice system.

We would also like to see offenders pay restitution and surcharge while they are incarcerated, particularly when they're on work release and being paid, and suggest that the payment of restitution and surcharges could be a condition of parole. We recognize that fear is not only a great motivator, it is a great barrier. Many victims and others in the community who would like to provide information to parole board hearings are afraid of doing so because they're afraid of repercussions from the offender. We would support amendments that explore the issues of keeping the source of such information confidential.

Victims in rural areas, especially on the island, find it difficult to attend parole board hearings that are elsewhere on the mainland because of the travel expenses involved. We would like to see a provision in the act that victims in need will have their travel expenses paid to attend parole board hearings.

We support the provision of information to victims. We think this could be facilitated if arrangements were made at the time of disposition. We believe that contact with the victims, personal contact, is important, because written information doesn't take into account literacy problems or cases where language poses a difficulty.

To finish off, I want to reiterate the fact that I am fully supportive of restorative justice measures. I really support the brief of the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, who pointed out to you that lengthening or even doubling a sentence appears to fall into the trap of relying on a sentence for justice and finding the right number of years to satisfy what can never be fully satisfied, and certainly not in a courtroom or a penitentiary. I think this is something that's very important to keep before us, especially as you deliberate the new private member's bill on consecutive sentencing.

I hope you have the wisdom of Solomon as you try to sort out these issues, because they are extraordinarily difficult. I appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to hear from me this morning.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Ms. Sherman, for your comprehensive brief.

I wonder, could you leave those documents you made reference to for our researchers?

Ms. Ann Sherman: I will, yes.

• 1000

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Gouk.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just a comment.

Ms. Sherman, you certainly provided us with some good information. It's good to know what is being done out in communities in support of this, because no matter what kind of legislation we come up with or what procedures, one of the biggest obstacles we recognize we have to deal with is the lack of public knowledge.

Ms. Ann Sherman: That's right.

Mr. Jim Gouk: We recognize that more and more as we proceed. We find out more about things that perhaps I really didn't support in principle going into this, and I'm starting to have a change of opinion myself. And we've often made the comment, how are we going to sell that to the public? I think the service you're providing certainly does help do that.

The position we're in with this committee is dealing specifically with the provisions of the CCRA. We're looking at what would be necessary to amend that document in order to make it work better. I think we're going to have to look at that whole issue of educating the public. I don't see how it's going to fit into the CCRA itself, but we're certainly going to be looking at that nonetheless and trying to find ways to make it work better, keeping that factor in mind.

Ms. Ann Sherman: Yes, I understand that. I think, however, that it's very important that as the new act is developed and introduced there is along with that a process for developing information and delivering it into the community, because it's community support eventually by which the act is going to stand or fall.

Just as one small example, very often when we hear criticism of sentencing, it's usually that sentencing is too lenient, and it's usually based on a very short incomplete media report, either the two-minute sound bite on the radio or a short item in the newspaper that doesn't go into details. What I've found when I've talked to people in the community is when people are presented with the information that the judge has before him when he or she develops a sentence, very often communities would come up with a sentence that is even more lenient than the one that was imposed by a judge.

What's missing, and I don't know how you can address this, is the full information behind the result. What happens all too often is that we get the end results through our media but we never get any information about the process or the circumstances that led to that result.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Well, that's certainly true, but unfortunately there are also a few cases that go the other way and absolutely outrage the public. You only need a couple of those to taint all the rest.

Ms. Ann Sherman: Well, that's true. And they do say that hard cases make bad law, so I think the thing we have to remember is not to predicate our laws on the few difficult cases and failures we have.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Gouk.

Monsieur Marceau.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: You gave us a brief introduction to your organization but did not say how many members it has. When you talk about an association, you talk about people. Apart from the employees who are subsidized by the two levels of government, meaning the two full-time employees and the one part-time, how many members does your association have?

[English]

Ms. Ann Sherman: Well, we're not a membership-based association. We were originally funded through the Department of Justice access to legal information fund. They support organizations like mine in every province and territory in Canada.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: From a second question, I'm going to take up where Mr. Gouk left off.

You mentioned the lack of understanding on the public's part, the problem of the 30-second clip. That's also the problem we politicians face when we try to explain issues that are often complicated. We cannot do it in 30 seconds. It is a fairly general problem.

One of the questions often raised by the committee members when they return to their constituencies is, "You toured the prisons somewhat. What was it like?" To echo my friend Ivan Grose, people will ask us, "How did you like the resort you visited?" We are asked this question. That's what people say. Jim Gouk said that what he saw made him change his preconceived ideas a bit.

• 1005

What suggestions could you make to give the public a better idea? What catches their attention is the person on parole who goes out and perpetrates a massacre. However, that's not what happens most of the time. Not at all. How might the government give the public a better idea on what is actually going on in the Canadian correctional system?

[English]

Ms. Ann Sherman: I think you can make good use of CPAC, the parliamentary channel. I think there have been documentaries that have been developed for CPAC. I think that's one good resource.

One of the things we do on the island—and admittedly we don't have any federal penitentiaries there—is we have open days. We actually have tours. For Law Day each year, traditionally high school students have visited these local jails, the adult offender institutions and the young offender institutions.

The facilities are fine. And I don't think we should ever have to apologize about housing offenders in reasonable facilities. That's a basic sort of criterion of civilized society, I think, that we do house people in good standard institutions.

But when people fully internalize the fact that you have no independence, you're told when to get up, you're told when to go to bed, you're told when the lights go out, you're told what to eat, when to eat, how to eat.... When you go into a young offenders institution and you realize that you can't just sort of pick a chair up and move it somewhere else, that there are actually restrictions on your movements and the way you interact with other people, that's the sort of thing that really brings home the issue of freedom and what is lost by being incarcerated.

Certainly I'm also aware of people talking about institutions as holiday camps, but I think that's a reaction to the fact that building any sort of institution and staffing any sort of institution is extraordinarily expensive.

One of the things about the Corrections and Conditional Release Act is if we can look at ways of moving people at those institutions into the community in ways that maintain the safety of the community and also maintain the confidence of the community and involve the community in the process, then I think you'll see less negative reaction to the perception that prisons are not punitive, that they're almost welcoming and restorative places for people to go.

I also think we need to recognize the fact that putting people in institutions does institutionalize them. I've seen this very much with young offenders. I don't know about adult offenders because I don't work within the system, but I know that there are young offenders for whom being in an institution is probably the safest place they've ever lived in their lives. It's probably the place where they've had the best discipline they've ever had in their lives. At least they know what's what when they're in the institution. Living in an institution is an artificial situation, and for some people it's a much easier place to live in than the community at large.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Marceau.

[English]

We'll pass on to Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Sherman, I'd like to thank you for your presentation. It's excellent and well thought out, and your replies have been well thought out. A lot of what you say we've heard before, but that's what we're after, a consensus of opinion.

If you think people don't know anything about the Young Offenders Act, you ought to be in our position. There are people who vehemently get into my face and tell me that it's a joke, it's got to be changed, and it should be toughened up. On questioning them, I find they know absolutely nothing about it. But that's life.

• 1010

Now, your submission is also excellent, but to you and to the all people who appear before us, I would ask, could you get these printed documents to us a couple of weeks before we appear? That way, we have a chance to look at them before we come and not try to scan them while we're listening to you. We refer to them as bedtime reading, and that's exactly what we do: the night before the hearing is when we read them, and then we're prepared; we know what your submission is all about. So it would help us a lot if you could do that.

You mentioned consecutive sentencing, which is a thing with me. What is your opinion on changing consecutive sentencing, according to the private member's bill? Briefly.

Ms. Ann Sherman: I knew I shouldn't have said anything about that.

If we move into consecutive sentencing such as is used in the United States, I think you tend to make sentences completely ridiculous and irrelevant. I can understand the impetus behind doing away with concurrent sentencing for very serious serial offences where you have multiple victims of murder or sexual assault and rape. However, if we get ourselves into the situation where we're ending up with 150-year or 200-year sentences, then I think we've lost the point completely.

There must be some way in which we can look at responding to all of the criminal incidents without completely ridiculing what's happened to the victims. So focusing on just one and then having a number attached I think ends up making a lot of victims feel there was no consideration of what happened to them; that not only were they not given a voice within the process, but their particular incident was ignored completely because everybody focused on another one.

I think you have to be very careful in how that's done, and I'm afraid I don't have any guidance to give you, other than caution.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you. That's what I've been getting so far.

Incidentally, as a point of interest, a life sentence in the United States averages out about a year less than a life sentence in Canada, and that's including their 150-year sentences. So it's all for show, really.

Ms. Ann Sherman: Well, this is it. You see, it's even more meaningless, because you do hear about people who've been given a 150-year sentence and yet they're out on release, the same as Canadians.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Ms. Sherman, on your points in your brief on victims, were you involved in the work the standing committee did last year and our report on victims?

Ms. Ann Sherman: No. Our coordinator of victims' services was involved with that.

The Chairman: Okay, because there was a major report that was done—

Ms. Ann Sherman: Yes.

The Chairman: —and there is likely legislation that will be forthcoming.

I have a brief question. You say you're involved in the P.E.I. CAC, community advisory committee?

Ms. Ann Sherman: No, we don't have a community advisory committee as such in P.E.I. I've been very involved with community groups that are seeking to bring in some restorative justice processes. We're beginning to look at community justice forums, but we're also beginning to look at starting circles of support in response to an incident last year. I've been involved in educating community groups about that and developing the process, the identification of volunteers, training of volunteers, and establishment of circles of support.

The Chairman: The CCRA now has a provision that at each institution the warden has the discretion of having a CAC. The recommendation has been made to us a couple of times now that this should be made mandatory, as opposed to discretionary. I would like your thoughts on that.

Ms. Ann Sherman: I would support that. I've been in contact with Walter Brown in New Brunswick, who heads up the citizen advisory committee on the Miramichi, I think, although I could be corrected about that. I've certainly provided information to him and he's provided information to me. I would like to see something like that on the island.

The Chairman: Fine. Thank you very much, Ms. Sherman. We appreciate your attendance here.

[Translation]

Thanks very much again.

Ms. Ann Sherman: Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: We go now to Mr. Brian Saunders, the executive director of the John Howard Society of New Brunswick.

• 1015

Welcome, Mr. Saunders. If you could make a presentation to us of between five and ten minutes, then we'll allow some time for questions.

Mr. Brian Saunders (Executive Director, John Howard Society of New Brunswick): Thank you very much.

First of all, I have an apology. I didn't prepare extra copies of my brief—which is brief, by the way, but it is my first presentation before a parliamentary committee, so I'll do better next time.

The Chairman: Well, that's fine. You could just leave us the copy that you have when you're finished.

Mr. Brian Saunders: Okay.

I appreciate very much the opportunity to come and discuss this legislation with you and the impact it has.

The John Howard Society of New Brunswick is a voluntary charitable organization that nationwide has a presence in 55 communities. I'm here on behalf of the John Howard Society of New Brunswick, which is a member society for the John Howard Society of Canada.

The John Howard Society of New Brunswick is a group of people who promote just, peaceful, and safe communities by understanding and responding to the problems of the criminal justice system. In New Brunswick, my organization is comprised of five local branches serving about 5,000 clients a year. We have a vast array of community corrections programs and services for both adults and youth at risk. We have a 50-year history of service in the province of New Brunswick and at present we have about 200 volunteers and about 80 staff and employees throughout our province.

Legislation such as the CCRA is very important to us. Every day we work, through our network of services and partnerships, with people who are affected by this legislation and the justice system as a whole.

I have reviewed all the material presented to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights by the John Howard Society of Canada on February 15, their briefs to this committee on detention and the CCRA review, and the CCRA consultation paper put together by Correctional Services Canada. My purpose today in the short time we have is to emphasize one or two key points from this material, as well as to add a bit of perspective from our vantage point here in the Maritimes.

First of all, I want to say we are in general agreement with the purpose and the principles of the act. The act is substantially sound legislation, although there are some problems.

We're very much in favour of the purpose of corrections, as set out in the act, which focuses on safe and humane custody and supervision, as well as of the rehabilitation of offenders and their controlled reintegration into communities as law-abiding citizens being the primary method through which public safety is achieved.

We're also of the opinion that many of the problems with corrections in Canada today are as much a matter of practice as legislation, and that not all issues can be addressed through legislation. As you've heard previously, it is our position through the John Howard Society of Canada that the issue of overuse of detention is one of these problem areas.

It would be our recommendation that with regard to detention, the purpose and the principles of the act be affirmed and the provisions that support safer communities through effective community reintegration be promoted and upheld.

In terms of implementation issues, the act is premised on the need for controlled community reintegration, but in practice the role of the voluntary sector, of which we are a part, in the provision of service is often misunderstood by government. The relationship with the not-for-profit community to the various government departments, federal and provincial, such as Correctional Services Canada, is complicated by the common use of contracts and tendering for the provision of direct after-care services and programs. There's often conflict between these two parties over the best means to provide the services needed. There are also differing interpretations around accountability. Ongoing discussion on these issues is essential to the best functioning of the system and of the act, we believe.

I'd like to uphold New Brunswick to you as an example of what can be accomplished when a spirit of partnership and collective accountability is brought into play in the justice and correctional system. Over the last five years there have been a series of provincial reforms introduced that have shifted the focus of our provincial corrections system away from the institutional response toward more of a community focus. Incarceration rates have fallen. Crime rates have fallen. Recidivism rates have fallen. Capacity is being built at the local level for community corrections, and communities are being better equipped to deal with the crime and conflict themselves at the local level. Also, jails have been closed permanently in the provincial system and they have not been replaced—something that is not happening in very many jurisdictions around North America.

In the last five years in New Brunswick we've been able to reduce the number of adults in provincial jails by 50%, as well as reduce the numbers of young offenders in closed custody by 40%, while at the same time reducing crime rates.

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It's our experience that offenders come from our communities and that almost all will return there at some point. Because of this fact, we believe the best long-term protection for our communities lies in the gradual release of offenders under appropriate control, support, and supervision, not simply holding offenders in prison until their warrant expiry date and then sending them out into the world completely on their own, with no support.

From our perspective, gradual reintegration for all offenders coming back to the community is real crime prevention. It's our community, and if we do not have a gradual reintegration process with appropriate support and supervision, as laid out in the CCRA, for all offenders who are coming out of prison, especially the ones with the highest needs, where it's most appropriate, then the only other choice is to head toward some version of the American system of punishment and essentially human disposal, which we would find ultimately quite terrifying in the Canadian situation.

Put another way, it is our position that public protection is improved with crime prevention through social development and enhanced community engagement, which is a primary focus of our organization.

The only way to really reduce crime is to have healthy communities. The only way to have healthy communities is to have healthy families. The only way to have healthy families is to have healthy kids. Everything is interconnected and dependent upon the other. We need to understand there is no clear evidence that putting more people in jail for longer periods of time leads to safer communities in the long term. This is why we must distinguish between those few offenders who need to be separated from the community, from society, and those who can be safely and more effectively managed in the community. This is consistent with the CCRA, and it's also consistent with our John Howard Society mission.

Therefore, we encourage you to seek a better balance in the federal system between incarceration and community programming and supervision, because we need a system that works. That is to say we need a system that as much as it can repairs the damage that crime and conflict creates in our communities, not one that simply adds to the misery and the carnage, either now or in the future. It is our belief and experience that this is what our citizens are ultimately asking for.

In conclusion, I want to say there is ample evidence of what works in corrections. Recidivism can be reduced in significant ways and it is quantifiable. Some of the best researchers in the field, anywhere in the world, as well as some of the leading practitioners in the field of corrections and community corrections, are Canadians working right here. And I'm proud to say that some of them are maritimers. There is a great deal of knowledge and expertise right here, right now.

As a final point, I want to quote a prominent politician from our past on this general topic.

The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of a country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even of convicted criminals against the State, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in a world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.

That was Winston Churchill of the British House of Commons in July 1910.

We know it can be done. We are proceeding on this assumption in our home province of New Brunswick. There are positive results. The CCRA is important legislation to us all. Let's fix the things that need to be fixed and move forward.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Saunders.

[Translation]

Let's go on to the questions.

[English]

Mr. Gouk.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When I started, at the very beginning of this process, I was probably one of the people who looked upon the idea of incarceration as something you did to protect the public, and I was concerned on behalf of the public about over-lenient sentences and early releases. Having gone through this study thus far, I have somewhat amended that position. I do think there is a place to keep dangerous people away from the public when you are not able to effect the behavioural changes. And I do think there is need for others to have that integrated return.

One of the problems seems to be that it does no good to simply open the door to an offender on a temporary absence or try to get them into a work release program if there's nothing in the communities for them. What often happens is that you have a prison in an area that has a limited number of jobs, even for their own people.

Given the nature of your society, I would ask what actions you're taking to help facilitate some of these work releases and temporary releases so that people can be integrated into the public safely.

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Mr. Brian Saunders: We have a real advantage in New Brunswick. It's going to sound odd when I say it, but we're a small place, physically and in terms of our population. In New Brunswick our makeup is somewhat different. We're primarily a rural, small-town kind of place. And regarding the solutions that are being created in terms of the infrastructure, we've had a long history of being able to do that around the province of New Brunswick.

There's no single solution to it; it's really a collection of bits and pieces that are dependent upon a whole bunch of people getting together and communicating well.

The example I'd use is back in Miramichi they realized they had a problem around crime and fear of crime in the community, so they created a community corrections council that was very typical in terms of its makeup. They had people from the education system, the health care system, HRD Canada, and HRD New Brunswick. They found that a lot of the people they were working with, who they thought were different, were actually the same kinds of people, and they brought a lot of community resources to bear on those needs and those individuals.

The other thing that's going on is that we're getting a lot better in terms of determining what the needs are of people coming out of the system. You can do a much better job of targeting programs to meet those needs that can be identified, and there's a whole body of research out there that makes a strong case for being able to deal with those needs and reduce the risk as you go through that process.

Mr. Jim Gouk: As I'm sure you're aware, our mandate with this legislation is to look at what changes and amendments are necessary to the act, specifically to the act, in order to make the system work better. So if through your organization you have any specific amendments you could actually target the legislation with that would facilitate what you're trying to do, that would be beneficial for us to be able to look at.

Mr. Brian Saunders: Yes. Our focus has primarily been on the creation of infrastructure around trying to make this legislation and other pieces of legislation work, somewhere in the YOA. Our experience has been that sometimes there's a gap between the legislation and the ability of communities to respond to that legislation in a positive way, which creates a lot of frustration and puts the community and the society in a position of not being able to succeed, which is what we don't want. We want the thing to work.

I guess I would say that we support the briefs that were put together. We don't think the legislation has major flaws; it's really about how we can translate those principles into action at the community level. We struggle with it every day.

Funding is a very major problem—we don't lack for ideas, it's really resourcing—on the non-governmental side, for sure.

Mr. Jim Gouk: That's a common comment.

Mr. Brian Saunders: Yes.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Gouk.

Mr. Marceau.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Let me first thank you for your presentation and for taking the trouble to come from Halifax to meet with us.

A little while ago, I asked Ms. Ryan a question on federal- provincial agreements. As I told her, some things I found quite striking in the Maritimes, including New Brunswick's federal- provincial agreements. On paper, they seem excellent. You cannot be against virtue. However, when you go there, you see that there are a number of problems with the inmates. There is a certain antagonism among them. There are problems with management and with the employees. Almost everyone who is involved in the system has problems.

I would like to know what you think. Are these agreements a good thing or a bad thing? If they are good but should be improved, how can they be? I would like to get your comments on this.

[English]

Mr. Brian Saunders: We weren't a party to the negotiation of the Canada and New Brunswick initiative that was announced just about a year ago, if I recall correctly, although I am familiar with the results.

We would support the goal, which, the way it was expressed to us at the time, was that each level, federal and provincial, would focus on the things they do best. The idea was that the feds did institutions really well—in particular, programming around sex offenders—and the province did community programs or community infrastructure development better, so they were going to move more into the community side.

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My opinion would be that they're still really in a start-up phase. The reason we supported it was because the idea was that the province would be able to save some money, and there was an intent to invest those resources into creating infrastructure on the ground. So we thought that was a terrific idea.

The other thing was we also realized that on the provincial side, offenders weren't spending very long in the institutions anyway, so the quicker we could cycle them into community-based programs the better it would be in terms of creating a program link to the community and supporting them in their reintegration.

On the federal side, I hadn't heard that there were any conflicts between the sources of offenders. I anticipated that there would be all kinds of organizational situations that would have to be dealt with in terms of the federal and provincial relationship. I would think that's not uncommon in any sort of realm, but overall, we haven't seen the whole game played out yet either. We haven't seen any serious evidence of reinvesting in the system. I'm not surprised by that, because they haven't finished their first fiscal year yet. We'll see that process played out over time.

So I guess “guardedly optimistic” would be the way to respond.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Marceau.

[English]

Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Saunders, I'm very familiar with your philosophy and your work. I have a very active John Howard Society in my community, in my riding, which is Oshawa.

Mr. Brian Saunders: Excellent.

Mr. Ivan Grose: As a matter of fact, many years ago I was a customer of your parole supervision service. So I'm familiar, from that point of view, on just exactly what you do.

How about giving us a little hands-on of exactly what you're doing in New Brunswick? We found the whole system, even the federal system, is a little bit unique in many ways in New Brunswick—in a good way, incidentally. Do you have halfway houses? Do you provide training and upgrading for offenders, some of which is done in federal programs?

You did mention that you are taking into account that young offenders are getting relatively short sentences, and quite frankly, other agencies are ignoring them. If you catch these young people after maybe one sentence, that may be the last sentence.

Mr. Brian Saunders: Sure.

Mr. Ivan Grose: So could you give us an idea of what you're doing hands-on?

Mr. Brian Saunders: In the province of New Brunswick, we operate through our five local branches. We have a halfway house in Saint John. We have a young offender group home in Saint John and a similar facility in Fredericton.

We have literacy programs. Some of the first literacy programs ever put together in the province of New Brunswick were John Howard-sponsored, in partnership with the Province of New Brunswick, about 12 years ago.

We have employment development programs for people who have severe employment barriers, and we've been doing that in Saint John and Fredericton for about 15 years. We've survived the devolution in terms of manpower training dollars from the federal to the provincial level, and we continue with our work. We do a lot of work with special populations around their employment needs and life skills, which is a major part of our work as well.

We run street schools. We have restorative justice programs. We have visitation programs for inside the institutions. We do a lot of advocacy work, a lot of media work. We run major conferences. We've had a series of public forums and community engagement around the province of New Brunswick on this very topic, in a general sense, around corrections both on the adult and young offender side.

I think I mentioned we have something like 5,000 clients a year. Through our partnerships, if you want to be quantifiable in terms of dollars, we do about $2.5 million a year worth of business in the province of New Brunswick, and we have nearly a 50-year history.

It's controlled by volunteer boards, and our primary focus is responding to community-based needs. So communities decide what they need, and then we go out and try to find ways to patch together networks to support those activities and create the resources that need to be created to get the work done.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you very much.

You took away my last question when you said you have a literacy group.

Mr. Brian Saunders: Yes. In fact I'm a founding member of the New Brunswick Literacy Circle, which is a collective, working on literacy.

Mr. Ivan Grose: I know it very well. My wife is involved in it, and I'm under instructions to ask every training group if they have a literacy program.

Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Mr. Saunders, in your brief you mentioned detention.

Mr. Brian Saunders: Yes.

The Chairman: I wonder if you could tell us what your suggestion is for the provisions of the CCRA on detention. Should it be retained or repealed?

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Mr. Brian Saunders: The issue around detention is that controlled reintegration into the community is most effective for those who have the highest needs. That's where it's most appropriate. The people who have the highest needs are the ones who need to be supported and supervised in the most intensive way. If you detain a person to warrant expiry, of course, mechanically we have no way to do that. So what you're really doing is putting a person in a situation where they won't fail while they're part of the system and that failure will not be sort of pinned on the system when they come out at warrant expiry, but it isn't doing anything necessarily in terms of reducing the risk of that person reoffending when they do come out at warrant expiry.

We're very concerned about the principle that's applicable throughout the rest of the CCRA around rehabilitation and controlled reintegration, which is very important. We have to see if anybody coming out actually can survive in the community.

The Chairman: So the $64 million question is how do you handle the people who are the risk but who refuse to participate in any of the programs in the institution? How do you handle those people?

Mr. Brian Saunders: Our feeling is that's not everybody who's being detained. We are getting people being detained who have been willing participants in the programs and who may be high profile. I think our position in our brief was that those who refuse to participate in programs and who have not been part of their own reintegration plan are the ones you could target for detention. But there wouldn't be very many people. There is a positive self-motivation mechanism built in.

The Chairman: So you're not suggesting that we repeal the detention provisions altogether. You're just saying examine—

Mr. Brian Saunders: It shouldn't be any more than what was originally designed when the CCRA was put in place five years ago. It has been used much more than was ever designed or planned for at the time—I think four or five times the level that was expected—and even though it has flattened out and has come down a wee bit since, we're still very concerned about broadening that kind of application. Controlled reintegration works.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Saunders. We appreciate your attendance here.

Mr. Brian Saunders: Thank you.

The Chairman: We'd appreciate it if you would leave us a copy of that written brief.

Mr. Brian Saunders: I will do that. Thank you very much for your time, and welcome to the Maritimes.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Next is the Mi'kmaq Justice Institute. I understand Heidi Marshall is now with us, receiving instructions as we speak. Welcome, Ms. Marshall. Perhaps you could give us a presentation of between five and ten minutes, and then the members of the committee might have some questions for you.

Ms. Heidi Marshall (Mi'kmaq Justice Institute): Okay, great. I have to say that I was called on very short notice. It's March break, and I'm on holidays this week. I got a call from my chairman telling me that I'm supposed to be at this meeting. I know it's with regard to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, so I'm going to discuss how the act would affect aboriginal people and what I think the Mi'kmaq community of Nova Scotia would expect from conditional releases for the aboriginal community.

I know that the act is broad and the act is to affect all—

The Chairman: For your information, we are a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and we are reviewing the CCRA, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. When it was passed in 1992, it had a section in it saying that it would be reviewed by Parliament after five years. So that's what we're reviewing now, which is the correctional system and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

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Ms. Heidi Marshall: Okay. I'm clear on that now.

I was speaking to my chairman just last night, and he informed me about this meeting. I was away in Regina. You'll have to pardon my questions and stuff like that. I was away on business for two weeks, and I took March break off. I wasn't even aware I was supposed to be here until the last couple of days.

With regard to any review of the act or how it affects aboriginal people, I would like to see a reintegration program for aboriginal communities in Nova Scotia and also in Canada. I'd also like to see an aboriginal healing program involved in any type of review or response if there is going to be any reform of any legislation.

I think we have to look at the number of aboriginal people who are incarcerated. In this area, especially federally, I know that it is not as high as it is out west, but I think it is quite high. I was looking at the statistics for federal penitentiaries here in the area, and I know that there is a quite high amount of aboriginal people incarcerated federally in the Atlantic area. I think the stats are pretty high here, higher than I expected, with regard to the aboriginal component that is in the institutions. I think there were over 100 in Springhill, Westmoreland, and Dorchester. Just taking all those institutions, it was between 80 and 100. I know that it has been quite high at times.

I think there has to be a stronger aboriginal liaison component program. I find that it's not meeting the needs of the aboriginal community. I know that the institute gets a lot of calls from inmates with regard to problems they are experiencing within the institutions. I think that's one thing that has to be looked at.

If we're going to have any type of reintegration program, I think it's very important that the aboriginal community designs its own, because we want to focus on healing and how to reintegrate these people into our communities. Those are things I'm concerned about, especially when you're looking at sex offenders or more serious offenders and how we reintegrate them into the community. We'd like to have justice circles for them when they come out and things like that. We need money to run that stuff. I think it's really important that we try to get involved in reintegration.

I think people are familiar with restorative justice in Nova Scotia and the trend Nova Scotia is setting. The aboriginal community supports the restorative justice initiatives here in Nova Scotia, and we're part of the restorative justice steering committee.

However, I think it's important that the aboriginal community take some control over programming. With regard to any type of reform in law or reviewing any of the legislation, whether it's conditional release or any other type of legislation in Canada and in Nova Scotia, the aboriginal people want to be consulted. I think consultation is very important with regard to any type of review.

As I said, I'm not familiar with the act from its inception five years ago. I'm very new at this job. It has been two years since the institute opened. As far as any legislation that is affecting our people is concerned, I think the major thing is consultation, as I've always said.

I also think we have to look at the penal system and how it affects aboriginal people and whether it's focused on healing. I know that in all of the penitentiaries and in the justice system in general, they are talking about restorative justice and how you heal offenders.

If there are going to be any programs put in place for inmates or for people who are being released on conditions or anything like that, I think any programs for aboriginal people should be from an aboriginal perspective.

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I also think the aboriginal community, as I said before, should be consulted and we should be able to design our own programs and be involved in the development of any programs for our people. For example, I'm talking about healing lodges, sweat lodges, and traditional practices being used in penitentiaries or upon any release for aboriginal inmates. I think that's also very important.

Those are things the institute is currently looking at right now. We are currently developing healing programs and justice models for our people—for both offenders and for people who are inmates within institutions. I think that's very important.

As I said, I really want to focus on the reintegration part. I'd also like to focus on getting some resources into the aboriginal community. For example, how do we integrate or implement aboriginal halfway houses? I know there's one in Montreal. I think it's pretty self-sufficient. I think they're getting their money on their own. They're basically charging people. It's a fee-for-service type of thing.

I'd like to know what the process is for getting Corrections or whoever the political players are involved in looking at aboriginal healing lodges or aboriginal halfway houses for people who are released from penitentiaries or prisons. I think it's very important for us to be able to be involved in program design and implementation.

Those are basically my concerns. As I said, I didn't really have anything prepared because I wasn't informed of this meeting until a few days ago, and I'm supposed to officially be on holidays.

The Chairman: That's fine.

I think we'll go to questions now from the members. Mr. Gouk.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank you for coming on such short notice and sharing your ideas with us.

We visited one particular institute in Edmonton. It was a Corrections Canada institute, but was essentially set up for aboriginal inmates to deal with programs specifically designed for them. From that I concluded there were two big problems we have to try to overcome.

First, it is not a healing process for any one particular aboriginal group; it is for aboriginal people. The beliefs and customs of the different aboriginal groups vary from band to band, so all of a sudden you may have an elder who has his own particular basic beliefs and you have all these different people. They either have to abandon their own personal specialized customs and procedures in order to integrate and be part of that, or they're sort of frozen out.

The other thing that concerns me, particularly at this institute, is this marginalizes aboriginal people. There was no direct evidence, but I almost got the feeling they were being taught by the aboriginal elder that a lot of their problems were because they had given up their aboriginal ways and gone more to the white side—the non-aboriginal side. They were seeking to bring them back to their roots, to be aboriginal, so when they left they would be all aboriginal, go back to their villages and communities and totally embrace the aboriginal lifestyle.

If there are opportunities in those villages, fine, but if there aren't we might be creating a bigger problem than we had to start with, if you first marginalize these people and then there's nothing for them.

Could you maybe touch on either of those two points?

Ms. Heidi Marshall: First of all, I'd like to correct some of your language, sir. We don't live in Indian villages. They're known as first nation communities across Canada now.

I understand where you're coming from and I understand exactly what you're talking about. I think a lot of these elders and the people who come into the communities are just trying to assist our people, like you say, with getting in touch with who they are and things like that. They're marginalized in prison and in the outside world anyway. It probably doesn't really affect them as much as you think it does, because they're being marginalized wherever they are. Marginalization exists within the prison system, within Canadian society, and within communities.

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As far as bringing people back to their customs and their roots, it's important for our people to be proud of who they are, as aboriginal people. They're just trying to instil those values in our people, to be proud of themselves and accept who they are.

Our people have been through many abuses. The residential school system robbed us of our culture, our language, and our heritage. The justice system has absolutely no respect for or knowledge of what it means to be aboriginal or where our people are coming from.

With all those problems, people have to be better informed. The justice system, the corrections system and the penal system have to be more informed about exactly where aboriginal people come from. I think it's very important to do some cross-cultural training of everybody and of people who work with aboriginal people in the penitentiaries.

We also have to look at exactly what happens to women in this system. That's very important, and I forgot to touch on that.

As far as elders coming in and trying to shove their beliefs down people's throats, I really don't think that's true. It's up to people to make their own choices.

I see the problem with respect to different aboriginal nations having different belief systems. We have to try to develop models, and I think that is where we need to do some work ourselves. The prison community also needs to develop some programs. How do you develop a model that's going to assist all aboriginal inmates? That's what we have to focus on, rather than saying it's not really going to help people and it's forcing people to abide by these types of traditions; it will force people to move to the communities. I think we need to develop some type of policy or reform on that.

Maybe the prison system can develop a policy on what they will do and how they will develop some aboriginal programs within the penitentiaries. Those are things that both the aboriginal community and the system can work on together.

The Chairman: Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Marceau, you have the floor.

Mr. Richard Marceau: Ms. Marshall, I would like to thank you for being here today.

I would like to say that while the proceedings of this committee are unfolding, I am discovering the wealth of Canada's various aboriginal nations. It's a shame to discover them in prison, but there is nonetheless a tremendous richness there. It's one of the things I will remember from this visit.

I would like to go back to what Mr. Gouk was talking about, namely the problem of the elders. When I began that visit, I thought it was fantastic. I felt that it was good. We could count on the assistance of certain people, certain prisoners and also on the management team of the various prisons. I thought that until we had some similar hearings in Vancouver, where we met with Aboriginals who said, "It's not all that great. There are problems. For example, the sweat lodges that they have in British Columbia now are not a part of the tradition followed by the peoples of that province." Some people from British Columbia said, "It's not a part of our tradition at all. People from another nation are coming and teaching us their beliefs." To draw a parallel, it would be like saying to a francophone Quebecker in prison that you were going to give him a Scottish or Italian teacher to help him find his roots.

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These people also told me that the system for selecting elders was not as good as claimed. There were even cases of people who had been expelled from their community in Eastern Canada who found themselves in British Columbia and are now acting as elders, even though they have no training to do so.

I would like to get your opinion on this. Is the elder idea working well? Should it work differently? Should there be more of them? It's not all that great. I would like to hear your opinion.

[English]

Ms. Heidi Marshall: I have to agree with you on certain points you made. Yes, I do agree with certain points. I also want to let you know that I do agree all aboriginal groups aren't the same.

I know that in B.C. they use the potlatch and the longhouse more than they do the sweatlodge, and there are some aboriginal communities where they also just believe in total Christianity. Those are things we have to address.

I think that Correctional Services and the aboriginal community have to take responsibility for screening elders more, going to the communities and asking whether these people are credible elders, whether these people have been selected as elders for their communities.

Those are things I think both the system and the aboriginal people have to take full responsibility for, with respect to who they are sending to the prisons. I think what happens with justice, and I know from working in the justice area for the last couple of years, justice kind of.... People don't want to get involved in justice at the community level. The politicians within the aboriginal communities are saying leave justice on its own, let the justice institutes run justice programs for aboriginal people. It's a really grey area. I mean, you're talking about healing offenders, you're talking about assisting people, and then what about victims?

Things like that always happen within our communities. And we have very, very small communities. So I think the aboriginal community also has to take a lot of responsibility for who they're sending to the prisons. As far as screening is concerned, I think that's up to both Correctional Services Canada and the aboriginal people. I think we have to develop some type of protocol or policy with respect to how you do this.

It's really worth it, I think, for the committee, or for the justice system or Correctional Services, whoever has the responsibility, to begin developing some type of protocol with respect to elders coming in what type of aboriginal programs you are going to be running in the institutions. Maybe it should be more individual, rather than saying, well, here are all these aboriginal people, when maybe there are some people in a prison in B.C. who are from eastern Canada, or the Yukon, or an Inuit community. Why do they have to take this one aboriginal-specific program? And I know it's going to be very costly, to get an elder in from some Inuit community. How do you resolve that problem?

As I said before, I think those are things we have to work on together, both the aboriginal community and Corrections. I hope that answers your question and clarifies some matters regarding my feelings on it.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Marshall.

[Translation]

Thank you, Mr. Marceau.

[English]

Welcome, Mr. MacKay. You've now been able to join us.

Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: We're trying to keep this to about three-minute rounds.

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Mr. Peter MacKay: I'll do my best to keep it under the limit.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Ms. Marshall, I want to thank you for your appearance here. Your testimony is very helpful in our deliberations.

I've been following your remarks and the questions of my colleagues. It seems that one of the concerns has to be the diversity that exists, not only in the justice system, but within the aboriginal community. Therefore, one of the challenges in programming inside institutions and out, the follow-up back in the community, has to be that we don't try to apply a cookie-cutter approach, but we try to take it out of cultural or racial terms and look for the best human approach to rehabilitation.

I think it's fair to say, and everyone would acknowledge this, that the justice system has benefited greatly quite recently because of some of the aboriginal models: the sentencing circles that we've been discussing, the rehabilitative models involving elders in the community. There have been other techniques that have been applied. One of them that comes to mind that I don't believe we're seeing much of in eastern Canada but they have used in the western provinces is the concept of banishment. Are you aware that this has ever been applied or attempted, or is there any movement toward this in terms of a sentencing technique in eastern Canada?

Ms. Heidi Marshall: It hasn't been applied yet as far as banishment. We just started to have sentencing circles. The justice system has been running for two years now, and we just started getting involved in adult sentencing this year. We were involved with young offenders and we were trying to get all our programs developed. We just recently had some very serious sentencing circles, like aggravated assault, sexual assault. So we've had some very serious adult sentencing circles.

I haven't really thought about banishment and what I think about it. I think there will be some problems there with respect to it. I know that one of the communities talked about banishing one of the youths from the community, and we were in discussions with that community for probably about three to four weeks with respect to our feelings about how we were going to do this. I wasn't really totally against it. However, if we're going to banish anyone from the community or banish a youth or whatever, then I think we have to assist them in rehabilitation, assist them in some healing. I think those are things that are very important.

I think banishment is a form of healing as long as proper programming and proper guidance are there for the individual. If you're banished from the community and you have to go to an island or whatever you have to do, I think there should be people there to help you, like an elder there to help you if you're going to be living off the land, an elder there to help you in accepting responsibility for your actions. I think that things like that have to be in place before we can even look at banishment or anything like that. I think that banishment has to come with some type of healing for an individual also.

Mr. Peter MacKay: It would be a fairly extreme step, I would think, and for certain types of crime it would obviously be inappropriate.

You've mentioned the funding; you've mentioned it several times in your remarks. Is it fair to say that in the aboriginal community there is a specific amount of funding earmarked for justice issues, or is that decision ultimately made on a community level as to what degree of funding will be set aside for programs such as sentencing circles or specifically with offenders coming back and reintegrating into the community?

Ms. Heidi Marshall: I'll tell you how our system works here in Nova Scotia. That is the only one I can speak to, because I only work for the Nova Scotia community with respect to aboriginal justice.

The problem we're facing right now is lack of resources. What happens is a community has no funding source in place for justice. We totally rely on government funding. We're funded through the federal justice department and through provincial aboriginal affairs. It's a fifty-fifty cost-share for any programs we do. Our communities aren't financially stable enough to assist us in any type of program funding, so we have to rely totally on government funding. So right now we're doing sentencing circles and we're doing adult sentencing with no funding.

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We do get funding for the young offender project. The young offender project is the alternative measures program, community service, order program, sentencing circle program, and a justice model program for aboriginal youth in Nova Scotia.

We've just expanded to the mainland. We've done over 120 circles in the last two years, and now we're moving to adults. We are going to need extra resources to do adults. It's costing us a lot on travel to do these circles, because pre-circle consultation takes at least four weeks.

Once the crown and the defence agree that something should go to a circle, then it's up to the institute to do the pre-circle consultation with the offender, with the victims, choose who's going to be involved in the circle, exactly what the circle protocol is going to be all about, and things like that.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Can I just interrupt you for one second on that point?

Ms. Heidi Marshall: Yes.

Mr. Peter MacKay: On sentencing circles, how often do you actually have, for lack of a better word, recognized justice officials presiding over a sentencing circle—that is, a judge, crown prosecutor, defence lawyer? My understanding is that oftentimes they may be there in an observer status, but there are actually elders administering it.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: Sometimes they don't come. We've just started our circles, really. This is our first year ever doing a lot of trial and error things like that. There was one time in our circle when there was a defence lawyer there, and it created all kinds of problems. I'm a lawyer myself, and I know exactly what types of things it can create.

The Chairman: This committee hears that an awful lot, that lawyers create problems.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: Yes.

So what happened was that we had to continually remind the defence lawyer that this was a sentencing circle, not a trial. He kept interrupting and trying to take control of the circle and trying to influence the elders and influence the people in the circle for the type of sentence that he wanted to see imposed. I found that it really disrupted the circle.

To answer that question, no, there has not been a judge involved. However, what happens is that we do meet with the judge. Right now we have a fishing case going on, quite a controversial fishing case with DFO. It's a really big case, so the judge ordered a stay on the proceedings so the institute can have a full justice circle rather than a sentencing circle. I've met with the judge three times, and we've been trying to organize this since December. Now it's March and we're having the circle next week. The judge is going to be involved in this one.

Usually what happens in the circles is we come up with these recommendations and we set up the circle and the judge sets up a day for sentence.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Marshall. We're going to have to move on to Mr. Grose, who is not a lawyer and causes this committee no trouble.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: That's good.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

He was being facetious, believe me.

I would first of all like to compliment you. You're doing very well for someone who is pinch-hitting. But then I found out you're a lawyer, and lawyers—

Ms. Heidi Marshall: I shouldn't have said that, probably.

Mr. Ivan Grose: No, I'm just going to give you a big compliment.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: Yes.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Incidentally, you bear a name that's well known in Canada for justice gone wrong. It's an example I will never forget.

My attitude on funding for programs is that you get the program up and running and then I will push all I can to get you funding for it. That's true of any cultural group I hear of. Apparently you have the program up and running. Well, you say staggering, because of your lack of funding.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: Yes.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Good. That's the point at which I think you deserve funding. If it's working, fine.

On our travels across Canada—we've done both coasts, and now we have to do the middle of the sandwich—we've found that there is a movement afoot about native people in the justice system. Thank goodness something is moving. Now, some of it is in the wrong direction, we're finding, but at least there's movement. It's better than nothing.

Let's keep working on it and get the thing almost right. Government never gets anything absolutely right, so that's the best we can expect. But keep working on it.

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I'm especially interested in your work with young people, with the young offenders. I would like to catch them before they offend, but if we miss them there, let's catch them the first time around. If we can do that, I think we can cut down this proportion of any population that we have in prison.

What are you doing specifically for young people who've run afoul with the law?

Ms. Heidi Marshall: Who are in conflict with the law, or pre-young offenders?

Mr. Ivan Grose: No, post-young offenders.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: Right now we have a really great program in Nova Scotia called the Mi'kmaq young offender project. We have a program director, a family justice youth worker, a youth justice liaison worker for Cape Breton, and another youth worker in the mainland area. The young offender project was developed prior to the institute being developed. It was one of the works of the Union of Nova Scotia Indians and the Alternative Measures Society of Nova Scotia-Cape Breton.

What happened was they found that Mi'kmaq youth weren't being diverted to that system, they were just going through the regular court system. So they developed this program called the Mi'kmaq young offender project, which looked after alternative measures in the community service order. Once the institute took it over.... This is our third year now. We're just going into our third year; we took it over in July. I think it's three years in July, or two. We've always had circles for the youth, but we had to stick within the confines of Alternative Measures Society and what they were doing. But rather than have a panel, we were able to have a circle, and things like that. Now we're taking our more serious youth offenders, not just first-time offenders. We're able to work with the program now and make some changes ourselves.

I think it's really important to just do it, rather than waiting for government policy or any legislated reform.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Goodness gracious.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: I've been just doing it. What's been happening is that we do run into problems, but we nip them in the bud right away. If the justice department has a problem, we meet with them. I ask, how can we make this work, and how can we make everyone happy here? If communities aren't happy with us, then I meet with the chief and council and find out exactly what their problems are.

We're always doing some crime prevention with youth. I just got some money from mobilization to do some preventive work. As far as the youth are concerned, we do have circles. We also have a 50% cultural component within the community service orders, where they have to go and work with the elders, whether it's making baskets or collecting ash for an elder to make their baskets. We have a cultural component within our program that they have to adhere to, whether it's helping an elder skin moose, or things like that. So we do have a program like that in place.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you. That's the kind of thing I wanted to know and didn't include.

And incidentally, in defence of Mr. Gouk, for a great part of my life I lived in a village. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Thank you very much, Ms. Marshall. You've credited yourself very well on short notice.

I had one brief question. Is there any experience here in Nova Scotia with elder-assisted parole hearings? Have you had any experience in that?

Ms. Heidi Marshall: I haven't been involved in the parole system at all. I know they do have people on the National Parole Board from Nova Scotia. I think it's just one person. I'm not sure if he's still on there, but it was Dale Sylliboy. He was part-time.

The Chairman: Okay.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: I'm not sure if he is, but I think there are elders. I feel the elders should be involved in any type of parole system when people are going on parole. But I also think it's important for the community to be involved. I think the aboriginal community has been involved in the National Parole Board by being members. I know there were a couple from this area.

The Chairman: Good. Thank you very much.

Ms. Heidi Marshall: Thank you very much for this time and opportunity.

The Chairman: Next we have Rhonda Crawford, from the mainland Nova Scotia Elizabeth Fry Society.

Ms. Crawford, if you could give us a presentation of between five and ten minutes, that would leave us time for questioning from the members.

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Ms. Rhonda Crawford (Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia): Okay.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: The Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia works with and on behalf of women in conflict with the law and also women at risk. Our society was established in 1982 and became associated with the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies in 1984. The work we do at our local society consists of advocacy, information, and referral programs and also prison visitation. We visit Springhill Institution, the segregated unit at Springhill that houses a very few women, and also Nova Institution for Women in Truro.

There are several areas I'd like to discuss in regard to the CCRA. I'd like to start off with penitentiary placement.

Section 11 of the CCRA gives CSC the absolute discretion to decide the placement of prisoners in any penitentiary. Section 11 should be amended to prohibit the incarceration of women in federal penitentiaries for men.

The history of women's corrections federally began with the incarceration of women at Kingston Penitentiary. Until 1934 they were kept in the most oppressive and restrictive conditions of confinement. The recognition of those intolerable conditions led to the construction of the Prison for Women in 1934, and because of its own inadequacies, the 1990 task force on federally sentenced women recommended its closure and the construction of regional prisons for federally sentenced women.

The task force concluded that the new regional prisons were required to provide programs and access to their communities required by federally sentenced women. It was never contemplated that certain categories of women would be excluded from the new prisons.

Prior to the opening of the new prisons, a step backwards in women's corrections occurred when in 1994 six women were transferred to a segregated range at Kingston Penitentiary, shortly after an incident at the Prison for Women.

Upon application to the Ontario Court general division, the court ordered that the women be transferred out of Kingston Penitentiary, holding that the confinement of women in men's prisons would require a legislative amendment. That transfer was part of the subject of inquiry of the Arbour commission. In reviewing the 1994 transfer to Kingston Penitentiary, the reporting of the Arbour commission concluded that:

The placement of women in male prisons, as was done in this case, is fraught with difficulties. For one thing, there is, if nothing more, an appearance of oppression in confining women in an institution which will inevitably contain a large number of sexual offenders. This was particularly true of the Regional Treatment Centre. More troublesome, in my opinion, is the fact that the placement of a small group of women in a male prison inevitably precludes their interaction with the general population of that institution. If transfer inevitably means segregation, the decision to transfer should take into account the limitations on the permissible use of administrative segregation.

In spite of the conclusions of the Arbour commission, the decision of the Ontario Court general division, and the history of deprivation imposed on women in men's prisons, federally sentenced women are now being housed, confined, in four federal prisons across the country that are for men.

A proposed transfer of a group of women in 1997 to Kingston Penitentiary was stopped only after a court action was initiated by the prisoners who were affected, in which the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies intervened. CSC decided not to pursue the transfer in light of the court action.

The living conditions to which women are subjected in men's prisons are harsh, punitive, and restrictive. At Springhill Institution, federally sentenced women are confined in a very restrictive area and have very limited access to recreation areas and work areas because of the necessity to keep men and women separate. They are offered little programming of any kind, no access to meaningful employment or acquisition of skills.

I don't know if you've had the opportunity to visit the female unit of—

The Chairman: Yes.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: You did visit the female unit. Great.

Because of the historical and current practice of confining women in oppressive conditions in men's prisons, we believe it is essential that a provision be included in the CCRA that specifically prohibits the incarceration of women in penitentiaries for men.

The second area I'd like to talk about is federally sentenced women with mental health care needs. Section 87 of the CCRA provides that a prisoner's state of health and health care needs, which includes mental health care, must be taken into consideration in all decisions that affect the prisoner, including transfer, placement in administrative segregation, delivery of programs, and preparation for release.

That section has been applied to federally sentenced women who are identified as having mental health needs, and in a manner that further disadvantages them. CSC's approach to those women identified as having mental health needs has been to isolate them from the general population of women prisoners and confine them in oppressive and dehumanizing conditions in men's prisons. Their freedom within those institutions is severely restricted, and few programs, if any, are available.

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We believe that the proper institutional response for these women is to permit them to serve their sentences in the regional prisons for women while providing them with the therapeutic support they need.

In a 1996 study prepared for CSC by Dr. Margo Rivera, she assessed the women identified by CSC as having the greatest mental health care needs. She concluded that of the entire population of federally sentenced women in federal prisons, only eight required extra supervision, support, and treatment in order to reintegrate into the general population of the regional prisons. A living unit in the regional prisons could be set aside with more structured supervision and counsellors qualified to deliver therapeutic programs.

Such an approach, which could address mental health care needs while at the same time maximizing women's access to the entitlements of the rest of the prison population, is the kind of response the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies believes is mandated by section 87. It should be interpreted as a remedial section rather than a justification to subject the most vulnerable of federally sentenced women to the harshest treatment. The isolation of women with mental health needs in men's prisons, or in segregated conditions at the Prison for Women in Kingston, is contrary to the scheme of the CCRA, which promotes rehabilitation and integration into the community and sensitivity to special needs.

We believe section 87 should be amended to prohibit the application of section 87 in a way that disadvantages prisoners with mental health disabilities.

The next area is accelerated parole review. Subsection 125(3) of the CCRA provides that prisoners serving their first penitentiary sentence, other than those excluded by virtue of the offence of which they were convicted, must be released on full parole unless the National Parole Board is satisfied that she or he will commit an offence involving violence prior to the expiration of the sentence. Subsection 125(3) requires the National Parole Board to base its decision on a number of factors, including the social history of the prisoner.

“Social history” is a term that includes poverty, education level, work record, cultural background, and race. A prisoner's social history can not be rationally linked to the likelihood of the commission of violence. However, stereotypical assumptions about the propensity of persons that depend upon their background can be improperly made. The inclusion of social history as a factor that somehow indicates a propensity for violence is of particular concern for federally sentenced women, who as a group have experienced greater social disadvantages than even men prisoners. In order to avoid exacerbating the disadvantage, we believe that subsection 125(3) should be amended by deleting “social history” from the factors to be considered by the National Parole Board.

The last area I would like to discuss is the recommendations of the correctional investigator. Section 178 of the CCRA authorizes the correctional investigator, after conducting an investigation, to make a recommendation to the commissioner of corrections or the chairperson of the National Parole Board. A recommendation can be based on a CSC or National Parole Board breach of law or policy, a decision based on an unreasonable, unjust, oppressive, or improperly discriminatory law, or a decision that is based on a mistake of fact or law. Subsection 179(2) provides that CSC and the parole board are not bound to follow any recommendations of the correctional investigator. We believe that, at the minimum, those recommendations that identify a breach of law should be binding on CSC and the National Parole Board.

The Arbour commission found that a culture of disregard for its legal obligations pervades CSC. Breaches of law by CSC are almost impossible for prisoners to redress on their own. Legal aid plans in most areas of the country do not provide legal aid for any prison-related matters. The grievance system is an internal process that has not proven effective to address this issue, either because CSC does not recognize a breach of its statutory obligations or feels that the breaches are somehow justified. The Arbour commission found that grievances with respect to clearly illegal conditions of confinement were routinely dismissed.

In order to protect the rights of prisoners and ensure compliance with the law, subsection 179(3) should be amended to require the commissioner of corrections and the chairperson of the National Parole Board to act on a finding or recommendation by the correctional investigator with respect to a breach of law. We recommend that the CCRA be amended to direct the correctional investigator to report directly to Parliament.

Those are the areas I wanted to cover.

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The Chairman: Thank you very much, Ms. Crawford.

Could you leave us a copy of that written brief?

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Actually, this is included in the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies' submission, which is going to be submitted by the Canadian association.

The Chairman: All right. Thank you.

[Translation]

Since Mr. Gouk is not here, you have the floor, Mr. Marceau.

Mr. Richard Marceau: I would first like to thank you.

I'm a bit surprised with your presentation, for this reason. Unless I am mistaken, you did not mention the Truro institution, where women are housed. You do not seem to have mentioned the institution that we visited yesterday, namely the Nova institution, which is an hour's drive from here.

The Chairman: Yes, in Truro.

Mr. Richard Marceau: In Truro. I would like to know what you think of this institution. I was rather impressed with the way in which it is run. Is this the way of the future? Is that how women's penitentiaries should be designed and constructed? In addition, do you think—I know that I'm going beyond the framework of your study a bit—that this type of institution could also work for men?

[English]

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: I did mention at the beginning that our society does visit Nova Institution. Nova Institution was officially opened in 1985, and when the first women arrived from Prison for Women there were many difficulties in Nova Institution, which also was happening with Edmonton Institution, difficulties with standing orders not being in order and also staff not fully trained and things like that. Nova Institution has come a long way since its original opening, but it still does have some difficulties.

The Chairman: On a point of correction, you said 1985; I think it opened in 1995.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: In 1995, I'm sorry.

I visit Nova Institution at least twice a month. The Elizabeth Fry Societies in the Atlantic region are there on the alternating week, so there is always an Elizabeth Fry Society in the institution once a month to meet with women to assist with pre-release planning and also if the women are having any difficulty. We've also assisted with the establishment of the inmate committee at Nova Institution. In Nova, the new warden, Mary Ennis—she's still considered new—has made the atmosphere in the institution much better. In speaking to the women, I believe more work still needs to be done.

The whole premise of what Creating Choices talked about and what these prisons were established about, talking about empowerment, talking about respect and dignity, talking about meaningful decision-making, all those are playing a role in Nova. And we hope that it continues so that there are no more difficulties, because during the last difficulties in Nova Institution the women were transferred out and sent to Springhill Institution.

Some of the difficulties with Nova Institution happen because still, unlike male prisons, where you have differences in maximum security, minimum and medium security prisons, minimum security women are still being housed under the same conditions as medium security women. They're looking at building a new building in Nova Institution, and our recommendation was that they don't build inside the prison, that they build a minimum house outside of the prison so that women who are classified as minimum who have worked to have their classification lowered have more incentive in that aspect. And we also recommended having the women who are classified as maximum security being housed back in the regional prisons, and also having more structured living for those with mental health needs.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: You haven't answered my question. Do you think that this concept could work for men?

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[English]

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: I think that CSC needs to get all the bugs out of it. When we're talking about a little over three hundred women and there are still problems, I think they need to get the bugs out of the system so that when you're bringing in larger numbers it works much better. I don't think there is any reason why it couldn't work for male prisoners.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Crawford.

Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you very much, Ms. Crawford, for your testimony here. It's very insightful.

I have a couple of quick statistical questions, if you have the information. You mentioned four prisons in Canada right now that are being used to house female offenders who were transferred from a female institution, Springhill being one of them. What are the other three?

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Saskatchewan Penitentiary, the Regional Psychiatric Centre, and the one in Quebec. I think it might be Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines or something.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Joliette?

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: No, Joliette is the female prison. I think it might be Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines.

Mr. Peter MacKay: The Regional Psychiatric Centre—where is that?

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: That's in Saskatoon.

Mr. Peter MacKay: When you were speaking in response to Mr. Marceau's questions and during your evidence, you talked about the need in particular for a focus on mental health concerns for females who are incarcerated. The difficulty, I suppose, one would face is that there isn't sufficient programming outside the institution for those with mental health problems. In fact, many would suggest that for some at least of the inmates who are currently incarcerated with mental health problems, this isn't where they should be at all; they should be in some form of hospital. How do you counterbalance that argument? I'm sure you've been faced with that situation before.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: At one point the Atlantic region had the highest percentage of women with mental health needs. It seemed that we had a rash of women coming from Newfoundland, and it was because of closures in mental health care in hospitals and things like that. Women were falling through the cracks and ending up in our criminal justice system and eventually being incarcerated in our federal system.

Nova tried at one time to have a structured living unit at the facility where they had an occupational therapist to work with the women, because some of the women were functioning at such a low level that they had to be told to brush their teeth and how to make a bed.

Unfortunately, everything else was going wrong in the regional prisons. It was the timing, because the structured living unit seemed to be working but women with mental health needs were lumped in with the women classified as maximum security and were transferred out to Springhill. They didn't give a good opportunity for the unit to be looked at, to see what's working and what's not working.

I do agree that many of the services are not available in the community, but one of the things is that if the women are being incarcerated, CSC's role is to provide the women with programs and services so they will be able to reintegrate effectively back into the community. At the beginning stages they had one therapist on staff at Nova, one psychologist, and they had a psychiatrist. Now they have two psychologists, which allows a psychologist to spend more time with the women and also allows for more structured programming. But resources need to be put into the facilities. We look at the money it costs Correctional Service Canada to develop all those segregated units. That money could have been used more effectively in adding resources in the regional prisons.

Mr. Peter MacKay. I'd like to ask one more brief question if I could, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Brief question, brief answer.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I take it that your overall tenor is that the Arbour report has not been followed to any large degree.

Secondly, just for clarification, as it currently exists in the women's prison system, is there not specific segregation from maximum down through the various levels of medium to minimum? Are all maximum classified prisoners serving time in men's prisons?

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Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Yes.

Mr. Peter MacKay: They are? All maximum classifications?

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Yes, and minimum and medium are held in the regional prisons. And then there's the possibility of a woman, classified as medium, being transferred. If she does something in the regional prison, she's bumped up to maximum.

We've also had difficulty with women who had a maximum security classification, working their way down to medium, and then the big task is getting them transferred back into the regional prison.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Is that designation made firstly by the sentencing judge, based on the period of incarceration, or is it classified within CSC?

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Yes, it's done by their penitentiary selection placement.

The Chairman: We're going to have to move on now.

Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let's confine ourselves to one subject: halfway houses.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Yes.

Mr. Ivan Grose: We've heard three negative reports.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Yes. Do you want me to go from there?

Mr. Ivan Grose: Yes, please.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: In the Atlantic region, right now, there are no all-women's halfway houses, and women have not been doing very well in coed facilities.

Women have talked about programs in the halfway houses not being geared towards women, and presently the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia and the other Atlantic regions are trying to alleviate that. We're looking at opening an all-women's halfway house in Halifax, and the other regions—Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and New Brunswick—are looking at satellites to assist in the transition of women. Money needs to be put into the halfway houses. We're also looking at smaller numbers, because right across the country, women make up a much smaller percentage of the prison population.

The need is there. We have conducted research with the prisoners at Nova and the Springhill Institution and the Halifax Correctional Centre, which is our provincial institution, talking about the need for an all-women's halfway house. Our questionnaire was just done in December, so it's very recent, and there is overwhelming support for us to open an all-women's halfway house and to provide enhanced programming for the women, looking at, specifically, trauma and abuse and addiction, and looking at networking with other community agencies so that other programs that are needed by the women can also be accessed.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you.

It is obviously a pressing need. As in real estate, where they say it's location, location, location, I have heard that the location of the one that the women are sharing now is not good.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: It's a very bad location.

Mr. Ivan Grose: So you're aware of that, and you're trying to get a better location.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Definitely, and that's a priority for us.

We are looking at having the halfway house in Halifax, where the women would have access to bus routes and close access to community resources, and also in an area where women have the opportunity to have a fighting chance when they walk outside the door, and not be confronted so quickly with some of the temptations that have brought them into conflict with the law.

Mr. Ivan Grose: I think that's a high priority, so if we can be of any help, let us know.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Okay.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Ms. Crawford, I have one brief question. When we were at Nova yesterday, we met with the inmate committee. I think the committee generally was impressed with the institution and thought it was progressive, and so on, but one of the inmate committee members made a comment to us that shocked us a little bit. She said she would rather be at Kingston Prison for Women. She was almost wishing a return to that, where she had been previously, in that she felt there was more programming, better rules for personal effects, and so on. Do you have any comment on those kinds...?

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: That kind of ebbs and flows when some of the women who have spent time at the Prison for Women will say that. Part of it comes about when there seems to be a lot of inconsistency in the prison. Women have stated that they knew what was expected of them in the Prison for Women—not that the conditions were much better, but they knew what was expected so they didn't have to try to second-guess themselves on what was expected of them in the prison. I think that's what happens when....

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The inmate chair right now at Nova is new in that position, so she's going through a learning experience for her. But also, when the inmate committee feels sometimes that they're not effective, they're not getting answers, they're trying to bring the issues that are affecting the prison population to the administration and there are delays, or if something is passed by the prison administration and the staff are not implementing it and there's inconsistency, that's when you'll hear comments such as “I wish I were back at P4W. At least I knew what was expected of me.”

The Chairman: Okay. Again, thank you very much. We appreciate your attendance here today.

Ms. Rhonda Crawford: Okay, thank you.

The Chairman: Next on our list we have Mr. Phil MacNeil, who is categorized as an individual, but I'm now told he's with Nova Scotia Legal Aid. Is that correct, Mr. MacNeil?

Mr. Phil MacNeil (Nova Scotia Legal Aid): That's correct. You can't go wrong being categorized as an individual.

The Chairman: That's right. That's where we all start out, right?

Mr. MacNeil, if you could—

Mr. Phil MacNeil: Unfurl my banner?

The Chairman: —keep your comments to approximately five to ten minutes, that will allow time for the committee members to ask some questions.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: Just as a preface to my presentation, I do work for Nova Scotia Legal Aid. I've been working with them since 1978. I am not a lawyer. I'm not sure if that is good or bad. At times it is good, at times it is bad.

The Chairman: It's quite a subject of debate on this committee.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: At present I manage legal aid for Cumberland County of Nova Scotia. I also provide legal aid services to prisoners at the Springhill Institution. I've been involved in the delivery of legal aid services to prison inmates since 1973.

My presentation today is with respect to one aspect of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Part II of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act provides authority for the conditional release, detention, and long-term supervision of offenders and for the termination or revocation of conditional release. The purpose of conditional release is set out in section 100 as follows:

The purpose of conditional release is to contribute to the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by means of decisions on the timing and conditions of release that will best facilitate the rehabilitation of offenders and their integration into the community of law-abiding citizens.

To achieve the purpose of conditional release, releasing authorities are guided by the principles set out in section 101 of the act, which provides in paragraph 101.(a) “that the protection of society be the paramount consideration in the determination of any case”.

Although protection of society is the paramount consideration, the act balances this principle with the principles set out in paragraph 101.(d), “that parole boards make the least restrictive determination consistent with the protection of society”, and paragraph 101.(f), “that offenders be provided with relevant information, reasons for decisions and access to the review of decisions in order to ensure a fair and understandable conditional release process”.

There are, unfortunately, provisions in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act where the guiding principles are not applied. Subsection 135(9.1) of the act provides for the automatic revocation of parole or statutory release where the offender is sentenced to an additional sentence. The specific wording is as follows:

Where an offender whose parole or statutory release has not been terminated or revoked is incarcerated as a result of an additional sentence for an offence under an Act of Parliament, the parole or statutory release, as the case may be, is revoked on the day on which the offender is incarcerated as a result of the additional sentence.

When a parole or statutory release is automatically revoked, no determination is made as to whether the protection of the public necessitates the revocation of conditional release. No determination is made as to whether the revocation of release is the least restrictive decision consistent with the protection of society. No provision is made for the review of the revocation to ensure a fair and understandable process. The offender goes directly to jail. The offender is not entitled to statutory release until having served two-thirds of the unexpired portion of the sentence. The offender is not entitled to a review for parole within one year after the revocation of parole or statutory release.

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Although one might quickly conclude that any offender who receives an additional sentence while on parole or statutory release must pose an unacceptable risk to the public, that is only an assumption. Given the very serious consequences of the revocation of release, only a careful examination of the facts of each case can determine whether the continued presence of the offender in the community poses an unacceptable risk.

An attempt is made in subsection 135(9.2) to prevent the automatic revocation of parole or statutory release, where the offender is sentenced to a concurrent term of imprisonment for an offence that occurred prior to the commencement of the sentence:

Subsection (9.1) does not apply where the additional sentence is to be served concurrently with, and is in respect of an offence committed before the commencement of, the sentence to which the parole of statutory release applies.

Few courts, prosecutors, or lawyers practising criminal law are familiar with either the automatic revocation provision of the act or the exception found in subsection 135(9.2). If a court is not aware of these provisions, the court cannot make an informed decision on whether to impose a sentence that would automatically trigger a revocation or exempt the offender from such a penalty.

Even where a court is aware of the provisions of subsection 135(9.2) and attempts to impose a term of imprisonment that would not result in the automatic revocation, imprecise wording on warrants of committal can still result in a revocation.

An example occurred of this in the past two years. An inmate of the Springhill Institution transferred several charges from Ontario to Nova Scotia. He appeared before the provincial court in Springhill and pleaded guilty. Sentencing was adjourned for two months for the completion of a pre-sentence report. Prior to the date of sentencing, he was released on a directed day parole to Halifax under the accelerated release provisions of the act. At his sentencing hearing, the court became aware of the automatic revocation provisions of the act and the exception to these provisions. His parole officer informed the court the offender had obtained full-time employment, and also provided information regarding other aspects of his release plan.

In sentencing the offender to a global concurrent sentence, the court made some of the sentences consecutive to other sentences imposed that day, but clearly indicated that all sentences were to be served concurrently to the term of imprisonment previously imposed.

Correctional Service Canada took a strict approach to the interpretation of the warrants of committal. They concluded that any reference in the warrants of committal to a consecutive term of imprisonment precluded the offender's entitlement to the exception set out in subsection 135(9.2), even though Correctional Service Canada was satisfied that the court imposed a global concurrent sentence. The offender's release on parole was revoked automatically, not by the clear intentions of the court or by a determination that he was a risk to society, but because of an interpretation of his warrant of committal.

Although the offender could seek a review of the interpretation of the warrants of committal in the Federal Court, a review of CSC's interpretation of the warrants of committal in the Federal Court, the length of time required to seek such a review would not help him keep his job or continue with the programs in the community.

The strong support of his parole officer and the unique facts of the case resulted in the warden of the Springhill Institution granting the offender a work release so he could keep his job and submit a new application for parole. The National Parole Board subsequently granted his application for day parole.

This offender was lucky. The strong support and interest of his parole officer, the warden of the Springhill Institution, and the National Parole Board saved him from the serious effects of the automatic revocation of his parole.

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Neither good luck nor bad luck should play any part in determining whether a release should be revoked. Such a determination should only be made after a careful review of the facts of each case. There should be no automatic revocation of parole or mandatory supervision. Such revocations may occur inadvertently, as described previously, and are contrary to the purpose and guiding principles set out in section 100 and section 101 of the act. I submit this provision should be removed from the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. MacNeil, for your very clear and precise submission on this point. That's something we will certainly be able to examine in depth with our researchers.

In light of that, I will ask the members to be as precise as they can in their questioning in this round.

Mr. Gouk.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to try to clarify one thing, notwithstanding the remarks on clarity from the chair. Unless I'm misunderstanding how you presented this, your main argument was about someone on parole or on some form of release who commits a crime while on this release or parole and subsequently gets sentenced and has his parole revoked.

But the example you then went into was one where someone had charges brought forward from before, where there is an exception clearly laid out in the act, and it wasn't followed to the intent of law, if not the letter. I'm having a real problem with this, I have to tell you, unless I'm misunderstanding this. Are you suggesting someone who robbed a store, served his sentence and took his programs and is now on some form of release, who then goes out and robs a store should not have his parole revoked?

Mr. Phil MacNeil: I'm not suggesting anyone should not have his parole revoked. I'm suggesting no one should have his parole revoked automatically without the National Parole Board assessing the case. My example dealt with a person who was dealing with offences committed prior to his release, prior to his—

Mr. Jim Gouk: I understand that, and I accept that's separate. But the main drive of the first part of your presentation, as I understand it, is you're saying because someone commits an offence while they're out on parole, it should not automatically lead to revocation of their parole.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: Yes, that is my strong submission. That should not automatically release them. It's very easy to think of an example of someone who commits a robbery, a serious offence. I anticipate the person would get a serious consecutive term of imprisonment. But what about a person who commits a very minor offence? What about a person who gets a one-day consecutive term of imprisonment for a minor offence? That would result in the automatic revocation of the release, the person returning to prison and not being entitled to being released until he served two-thirds of what was left of his term of imprisonment.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Under that explanation, I accept more of what you say. We've had that specific thing brought up before. The recommendation there was that charges not under schedule 1 or 2 should not result in automatic revocation; it was more clearly defined. Frankly, until you said that, I didn't relate the two, but we'll be able to take a look at it in that context.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: Yes. Even charges under schedules 1 and 2 can be very minor in nature. An assault charge—there's a whole range of facts or seriousness for assaults. I suppose a 266 has to be indictable under the schedule. Given that, one would surmise the offence is more serious, but that's not always the case.

An offence like section 266, which is common assault, can be prosecuted summarily or by indictment. There's a limitation period for prosecuting summarily, and if the charge is laid more than six months after the offence occurred, the crown will have to proceed by indictment. So it's not always the case that because you're dealing with an indictable common assault, you can conclude that it must be more serious. Even I started to think, well, those events must be serious, because they have to be by indictment. They can be by indictment by default, just because the information is sworn more than six months after the events occurred.

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Mr. Jim Gouk: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Gouk.

Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Peter MacKay: To follow up on the line of questioning, Mr. MacNeil, I did have a problem with your original submission. But even in the context in which you've explained it, I have to say that when we're dealing with somebody who is released and on parole, the automatic assumption is they're doing less time than that to which they were originally sentenced. So in essence they are receiving a break. They're not completely unencumbered in their community. They are given conditions they would comply with, presumably one of which is not to commit any more criminal offences.

I take some issue with what you say when you refer to it as a minor offence. A minor offence is not likely to result in incarceration, which would trigger this section of automatic parole revocation. Even with an assault, to use your example, which is a bit of an anomaly where a crown would lay a charge for an indictable assault because of the expiration of the time, and a judge would certainly recognize that, any offence that was minor, to use that word, not the legal interpretation, but minor in its gravity, is not likely to result in a criminal offence unless the individual offender has a lengthy criminal record, which is obviously going to be given judicial interpretation at that sentencing hearing.

To leave the impression that somehow automatically revoking a person's parole because while on parole they have gone out and committed another criminal offence that has resulted in incarceration because of their past record or because of the seriousness of the offence—and you know all the criteria that would result in somebody being incarcerated—I find that a bit of an affront to our sensibilities, that this is something that shouldn't happen. We're talking about somebody who has already found themselves in a federal institution and then been given early release. I fail to see the wisdom why they shouldn't automatically be revoked.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: May I respond?

The Chairman: Absolutely.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: I don't believe they should be revoked automatically, because of a number of things. The court has dealt with the appropriate penalty for that offence, but by automatic operation of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, a further penalty—and I'll use the word “penalty” in a broad sense—is imposed. The penalty is that not only must they serve the term of imprisonment for their offence, but they must also serve two-thirds of what was left of their sentence as of the time they were revoked automatically. That can result overall in a penalty that's really much harsher than the precipitating offence calls for.

Mr. Peter MacKay: How so? How is it a harsher penalty? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm trying to follow your argument here. We're not talking about a first-time offender, obviously.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: No, we're not.

Mr. Peter MacKay: It's somebody on parole, who has due process, received a sentence for which, for whatever reason, the parole board, in conjunction with CSC, has granted parole. Now they go out and commit a further criminal offence of such gravity that they receive further incarceration.

I guess it's a philosophic difference that we have, but to my mind, somebody on parole does not have the same right to presume that they are not going to have to pay for their previous sins, because they've been given a break in the first instance to be out on the street to commit that further offence.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: Of course I'm not suggesting that they not be revoked; I'm suggesting that this is a determination that's left to the National Parole Board.

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That was the case prior to these subsections being added, or prior to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the old Parole Act. Only the National Parole Board determined whether parole should be revoked or terminated, or whether the suspension should be cancelled and the person released to the community. The parole board still has that authority for much less serious breaches of release conditions—for example, curfew violations. Obviously we go through a very serious hearing for what could in the end be deemed to be very small breaches of a release. But when it comes to dealing with something that appears to be more serious, we do not provide the fairness of a hearing.

Mr. Peter MacKay: But that's a different process altogether you're talking about. A violation of a parole condition obviously follows a different process from what we're talking about here, which is automatic revocation for another criminal offence that results in incarceration. Just to put what I see to be a fairly large hole in your argument, you're saying the parole board should then make the determination. Isn't the parole board's judgment going to be brought into question immediately for having put that person back on the street if they've committed another criminal offence?

Mr. Phil MacNeil: Well, that's just 20/20 hindsight. No, the parole board makes their best decision at the time with the information they have, just as, if a person commits a new offence, they should make the best decision as to, ultimately, whether in addition to the penalty.... It can even be a concurrent sentence. We talked about that, an offence committed while on parole, where the court says that considering all this, they will give him a concurrent term of imprisonment. There will still be an automatic revocation.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. MacNeil.

We will go to Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Having once been on parole, I most strongly disagree with Mr. MacNeil. But due to our time limitations, I don't think this is the time or the place for me to argue my position. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Obviously, to some members of the committee, when I said clearer, I didn't mean acceptable. Maybe for the benefit of the committee, Mr. MacNeil, you could give us an indication of what the offences were in your example.

Mr. Phil MacNeil: To my recollection, they were a number of fraud offences committed by a person who was basically diagnosed as bipolar. When he goes through his bad periods, he commits fraud. I can't recall the age. They were probably a year to two years old. He transferred them to Nova Scotia and pleaded guilty. He got caught up in this automatic revocation of parole. Normally that wouldn't even be a consideration, because that would have been dealt with prior to any release on parole. That's certainly a case where he lost his parole automatically, even though the court never intended for that to happen and was specifically aware of these provisions. He lost it automatically.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. MacNeil. As I said, we will, with our researchers, study the issue carefully when we're reviewing our reports. Thank you very much.

The next witness is Terry Carlson, from the John Howard Society of Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Carlson, if you could keep your presentation to between five and ten minutes, that will afford us time for the members to ask questions.

Mr. Terry Carlson (John Howard Society of Newfoundland and Labrador): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I'm really pleased to have the opportunity to be here today to make this presentation. This is the 100th anniversary of conditional release in Canada and the 50th anniversary of Newfoundland's joining Confederation with Canada. It's both ironic and appropriate that this review of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act takes place at this time.

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When we joined Confederation in 1949, we had a very auspicious beginning with regard to the first piece of federal legislation governing offenders—the federal Ticket of Leave Act, the forerunner of the Parole Act. In October 1949 the act was used for the first time when the Governor General remitted eight months of a prisoner's two-year sentence for his gallant behaviour in saving the life of another inmate at Salmonier prison camp, a minimum security operation located just outside of St. John's. And since that time we feel the federal legislation that governs conditional release has generally continued to serve Newfoundland well.

I'd like to make just a few comments on selected aspects of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. I represent the John Howard Society of Newfoundland, which is a non-governmental community-based volunteer organization that works to reduce crime by providing opportunities for the rehabilitation of offenders and advocating reform through successful program interventions, public education, crime prevention strategies, and restorative justice principles. We have offices located in St. John's, Stephenville, and Corner Brook.

I'd like to begin by making a general statement. The John Howard Society of Newfoundland supports the concept of gradual conditional release as being the most effective tool for the successful reintegration of offenders into the community. We believe that appropriate follow-up in the community through sound programs of gradual release are essential for the long-term protection of society, particularly if the rehabilitation of high-risk offenders is to be achieved.

We note the high success rate—99% success for TAs, day paroles 96%, full paroles 92%—but note with some concern the decline in their usage. Even statutory release has a relatively high success rate of 87%.

We do have a concern with the residency condition of statutory release. It's become used more frequently and now represents about one in five SR cases. For the inmate it's sometimes unexpected. It's caused considerable resentment and hostility at times for those affected to have to go to a halfway house, without a parole hearing, and if a bed is unavailable, to have to sometimes go to other facilities. An embittered inmate resistant to programming is often disruptive in the residential setting and interferes at times with the progress of other residents.

We support the recommendation of the John Howard Society of Canada regarding statutory release with residency. It states:

If residence is to be maintained as a condition of Statutory Release, it should be imposed after a hearing with the National Parole Board that takes place at least six months prior to the warrant expiry date, be imposed only when specific criteria are met that demonstrate that the person poses a serious threat of violent offending, and once imposed, continue for no more than four months and be imposed only in the community of the person's planned destination.

With regard to programming, we believe it's important to build on the success of conditional release through effective programming based on the “what works” literature.

We have some grave concerns around detention. While the detention rate has risen steadily since its introduction in 1986, growing beyond all projections, research conducted by Correctional Services Canada has shown that those who have been detained are less likely to commit criminal offences than those released on full parole or on statutory release.

The detention of offenders doesn't prevent criminal activity; at best it delays it. It takes away the offender's incentive while on the inside and his support on the outside. His hostility and anxiety are heightened. Ironically, the detained offender who needs critical support and supervision upon release no longer has it available to him.

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It also contributes to public notification. In Newfoundland there have been instances where offenders have been run out of town. In one case a man was forced to move on three different occasions after acts of vandalism took place at his family home. While most provinces, including Newfoundland, now have community notification advisory committees, the release of information still occurs and causes havoc. Public warnings carry no known benefit in terms of reducing recidivism.

By detaining the person to warrant expiry, we give up the effective tool of gradual release with supervision, controls, and expectations of treatment, and we are left with community and church groups scrambling to gather resources to provide support to the offender and to liaise with neighbourhood people.

The John Howard Society believes that if the offender is provided with intensive supervision, controls, and support in the community prior to warrant expiry, the public interest is better served than having a person released without supervision, control, and support. Thus, we believe detention should be applied only to those inmates who refuse to participate in gradual conditional release programs.

I'd like to make a couple of quick comments, if I could, Mr. Chairman, on Newfoundlanders serving time in federal prisons. We have approximately 150 to 175 Newfoundlanders incarcerated at any given time. They're predominantly males, and they are incarcerated in the maritime mainland institutions of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the five prisons there. Being far from family and friends, Newfoundland inmates face peculiar difficulties and needs because of their geographic isolation. So our agency would like to recommend that programs such as the federal prison liaison family services program and the annual family prison visits program be continued and enhanced to maintain the vital link between the offender and his family, to aid in the preparation for release, and to help reduce the inequity of being incarcerated so far away from home.

Through an exchange-of-service agreement, up to 35 federal Newfoundland inmates are retained at the West Coast Correctional Centre in Stephenville. The facility houses lower-risk federal inmates on a per diem fee basis, with programming provided to meet federal standards. We have other inmates retained in other correctional facilities throughout the province. In all, about 65 to 75 federal inmates are retained in provincial penal institutions in Newfoundland. We'd like to recommend that resources be maintained and where necessary enhanced to ensure that the federal offenders retained in Newfoundland have full access to quality treatment programs in Newfoundland that are in full compliance with federal standards.

The number of provincial parole cases has dropped significantly in Newfoundland, and that's partially due to the time it takes for processing. Some offenders don't accept parole when it's granted late in their sentence, and sometimes they don't even bother to apply. So we recommend that efforts be undertaken to ensure that further streamlined administrative processes be employed to circumvent unnecessary paperwork and to facilitate the timely decision-making on lower-risk provincial parole cases.

Just to finish up, I'd like to make a general comment. Legislation is of course ultimately driven by the public, and there are many misconceptions about crime, criminals, and the justice system. By its very nature, the business of corrections is one of bad news and exceptional failures. Certainly the successes don't dominate the headlines. However, opinion surveys have found that when things are explained to the public, the public is receptive to alternatives to incarceration and to rehabilitation programs. There has been a lot of success, we feel, with gradual release, and the success of conditional release and other aspects of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act should be portrayed to the public at every opportunity.

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We reiterate our support for gradual conditional release. We agree with the purpose of the correctional system as outlined in section 3 of the CCRA. With regard to offenders, while the capacity to predict future criminal activity is limited and the behaviour of individuals cannot be guaranteed, we do know that a gradual release to the community along with necessary controls and effective programming that targets individual offender needs offers the most realistic, long-term protection to the community.

We hope that the door to conditional release, with its controls, supervision, and support, will be open to federal offenders who are prepared to participate when re-entering the community. We think it offers the best long-term protection. We're quite concerned about offenders coming out with no support, no supervision, no controls, this type of thing.

We know the difficulties involved in a comprehensive, substantial piece of legislation like the CCRA, but we want to make the point, if nothing else here today, that we support the gradual conditional release with controls, with supervision, with supports, with programming. We're always concerned when we see somebody coming out into the community without that.

Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Carlson.

Mr. Gouk.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to clarify one point. We've had one or more submissions in the past in Ottawa from groups who advocate that even if someone has been convicted of a violent offence and even if we strongly believe that person will commit another violent offence when released, sometimes to the point where they state they will, we should still have a graduated release for this person under the belief that by not giving it to them, we would only be delaying the inevitable. Do you follow that general philosophy?

Mr. Terry Carlson: We believe, and we think the evidence supports it, it's better to have a person gradually released into the community with effective support and supervision than to have him coming out a few months later without that type of support, supervision, and controls, which we believe can only be helpful to his reintegration. We have no illusions that there are people in the system who will have a lot of difficulty coming out or show a resistance and all the rest. We just think that wherever conditional release can be employed, it's in the community's long-term and short-term interest for that conditional release with the supervision and controls to be in place.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Since becoming a part of this subcommittee and since starting this tour, my position has changed quite a bit with regard to conditional release, and all the things that go with it, as a rehabilitative tool. In fact it changed from a privilege for the prisoner to an actual tool for Correctional Services Canada, and I am quite adapting to that idea.

But for those who have committed violent offences and where evidence exists of one type or another that they likely would commit another offence, which sometimes is as blatant as an admission from the inmate himself, then I don't support releasing that person into society any earlier than we have to. In fact I would like to find a way to retain that person if there is clear evidence they are likely to recommit and they are refusing programs that would lead toward better rehabilitation.

I'm an elected politician. I'm responsible to Canada generally, but to 100,000 people directly. I would like you to tell me how I would answer them if I were part of a system that knowingly released a violent offender before he had completed his sentence, with an expectation that they were a high risk to reoffend and they then did. How would I answer those 100,000 people?

Mr. Terry Carlson: I think the main point we always emphasize is that with support, with supervision, with controls, it's much better in the long-term interests of society. Now, at times there will be people who will fail. This whole corrections endeavour always involves some calculated risks. We've always felt that it's in the best long-term interests of society to have people gradually conditionally released. We know that creates dilemmas, but we just feel that it's the most effective method we have.

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The Chairman: Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Marceau.

Mr. Richard Marceau: When you started your presentation, you said that you strongly believed in the parole system. That seems to be the premise on which your argument was based. I read an article in the National Post this morning, and I wonder if you read it too.

[English]

Mr. Terry Carlson: No, I haven't.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I will read it:

[English]

...the Centre for Justice Statistics found that the average prisoner in a federal prison was a man in his early 30s, and that women made up only 5% of inmates. The majority of inmates (83%) were repeat offenders, and about half were considered at high risk to reoffend.

[Translation]

If 83 percent of the inmates are repeat offenders, and it is known that they might commit other crimes, should we not be more critical toward the parole system?

[English]

Mr. Terry Carlson: I think we always have to take precautions and we always have to look at the public interest as the bottom line in terms of the safety and protection of the community. I think we have to remember that all offenders who are incarcerated are coming out some day, and the planning for their release and the programs targeting their specific needs and the supervision and support have to be a part of their eventual release to the community, which is inevitable. The vast majority will be coming out one day, and I think we have to be prudent and plan for that release and put in place as many programs and services as possible that have been shown to be effective in the rehabilitation of the offender, because it's the rehabilitation of the offender that reduces victimization and it ultimately makes the community a better place and a safer place to live.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: It's too bad that we have only three minutes. I will go on quickly to my next question.

The witness who preceded you, Mr. MacNeil, said that if a person on parole committed a crime, he or she should not automatically lose the privilege of being on parole. This statement understandably gave rise to some questions and objections by my colleagues on either side. Do you agree with Mr. MacNeil's viewpoint?

[English]

Mr. Terry Carlson: With regard to an offender, could you just repeat that key aspect again?

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Mr. MacNeil said that a person on parole who commits another crime should not, as the current Act states, lose the privilege of being on parole for a good length of time. He maintains that the National Parole Board should have the option of keeping the person in prison or putting them on parole again. Do you agree with Mr. MacNeil?

[English]

Mr. Terry Carlson: Yes, I do.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: That's all. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Marceau.

[English]

Mr. MacKay.

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Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Carlson, we appreciate your testimony and the fact that you've travelled to be with us. You've given some thought-provoking statements.

You have said in your evidence before us, and I think it's quite fair to say, that it's legislated that in CSC and the parole board the public interest is ultimately at the bottom line. I take it from your remarks—it seems implicit—that much of the concern about gradual release and eventual unconditional release is based on the availability of resources and monitoring. I forget the terms you used in your presentation, but the emphasis seems to be on the idea that, at least at the front end, when a person is first released from an institution there has to be very consistent and intensive monitoring and contact, particularly, as often is the intended case, they're released back into the same community from which they've left. There is tremendous pressure, I would assume, in the first instance, to fall back into the old way, with the old crowd, if that was what led them to being incarcerated.

But how do we mesh the reality that there are insufficient resources for this type of monitoring...? I keep in mind the good work that is done by the John Howard Society, but the system itself seems to be severely lacking, both for male and female prisoners, in halfway houses and sufficient programming on the outside.

So when we're talking about bottom lines and coming down to the end of the day, and all of this with the backdrop of public interest and protection of the public, is it better to release a person, knowing that those resources aren't there, before the expiration of...not necessarily their full sentence? Is it better to have accelerated release programs, knowing? I would suggest it's almost negligent for officials to release prisoners, knowing that these resources and support systems don't exist.

Mr. Terry Carlson: First of all, if we look at the support systems and the resources in the community and we look at the costs of incarceration, I don't think there's any question that more resources should be put into the community. The research is very clear that while there are good programs in prison, community-based programs can be even more effective.

First of all, regarding the first part of your question, I think we have to put more resources into the community and go with what's proven to be most effective in reintegrating offenders, and we have to come up with every creative way we can to try to help facilitate the reintegration of offenders.

My main concern is that those offenders are coming out without anything, maybe a few months later than they would come out ordinarily but coming out without anything, without any support, any supervision, any controls. That's my concern, and I think society is better served to have appropriate gradual release programs, to target offender needs, to go with the literature of what works. It can be done cost-effectively and it can be done in a manner that serves the community's interests well.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Carlson. We'll have to move on.

Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This particular submission again emphasizes my point that I wish we had these before the day of the hearing. Again, I repeat, we call this bedtime reading, and I would have read it at bedtime last night and done some thinking about it. If I'd read it before that, I'd have done some research on it.

But generally speaking, off the top of my head, I have to say I disagree with it. Again, this is neither the time nor the place to get into that, but there's one point I'd like to point out to you.

Under “Detention”—and I'll read this back to you and I would suggest you listen carefully—the second sentence in the paragraph, you say:

While the detention rate has risen steadily since its introduction in 1986, growing beyond all projections, research conducted by CSC (Grant, 1996) has shown that those who have been detained are less likely to commit criminal offences than those released on full parole or on statutory release. Only 16% of detainees compared to 18% of those on full parole committed a crime within a two year follow-up period.

• 1230

I think that proves exactly the opposite of what you're trying to prove.

Mr. Terry Carlson: I think that points more to the lack of precision in predictability regarding serious offenders. It's not a pure science, and to me it points to that fact, because on the other side we have reams of evidence that show that by keeping people in prison longer, whatever else prison might do, it doesn't serve as an effective rehabilitative tool.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Quite frankly, I tend to agree with you, but for heaven's sake, don't use that sentence to prove the point, because I'll tell you, we will never be able to sell it to the great unwashed masses out there. It just won't fly. As much as I say that I agree with you and I know what you've just said is true, don't use that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Thank you, Mr. Carlson. We appreciated your attendance here today and your submission and the time you took to put it together.

Mr. Terry Carlson: Thank you. I appreciated the opportunity.

The Chairman: The next witness would be Mr. Mike Newman.

Mr. Mike Newman (Individual Presentation): Good day, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Please keep your submission to between five and ten minutes, and then we'll have time for questions.

Mr. Mike Newman: Sure.

Basically, I picked out three of the four points you had. I want to touch base on the first one: How effectively does the Correctional Service Canada administer sentences and prepare inmates for their eventual return into the community?

Although the assessment process of the prisoner's record, crime, and needs is done fairly well, the system fails after this point. What I mean there is that when you first go in and they do the calculation of your sentence and figure out what your needs and everything are, they start to prepare a plan. The prisoner is compelled to take part in programs that should address his needs and problems, even if he is in denial and at this time unwilling to recognize his needs.

That has certainly been a problem in the system in reference to a guy really wanting to get his life together. What I mean by that is if a guy is in denial and he really doesn't want to work on the issues in his life, then the classification officer, or parole officer, as they're called today, will tell him he has to take this in order to cascade down through the system, whether it be from maximum to medium to minimum. And that's for all the wrong reasons, because the guy basically is going to jump through the hoops to get to where he has to go to his eventual release back into society.

I think at the time the parole officer at the institution says if you take this.... Any prisoner who takes a program for all the wrong reasons will get all the wrong results. Thus the prisoner is not as prepared for release as the paperwork indicates.

I listened to one of your colleagues speak on that earlier, about violent offenders. What I'm saying is not against the prisoner himself; it's just basically the way the system works. I believe the Corrections and Conditional Release Act is not being followed. Correctional Service Canada has to become accountable to the Solicitor General in these areas, and that's not being done. Basically they're following their own agenda, and it's not successful.

The second point is how effectively does Correctional Service Canada supervise conditionally released offenders living in the community?

In a halfway house, good programs are delivered to the offender, such as integration back into the community, and those types of things. I recommend that the client be referred to community agencies such as Community Chaplaincy and John Howard Societies that are available in the communities, because basically when you're released on parole and you go to a halfway house and you're released on full parole to the street, Correctional Service Canada then basically loses control of the individual themselves. He has to report only once a week, or once a month, or whatever the stipulation may be on the parole at the time. Really, no programs are set up. Basically, the guy will try to go out in society and try to find a job and just take it from there, and just keep reporting, and it really doesn't mean anything. So you lose control of the individual himself.

• 1235

Personally, I think the agencies I mentioned, which are directly involved in prisoners' releases, should be allotted certainly more funding in the area of helping the guy reintegrate back into society.

The third point is the correctional investigator: how effectively are the functions of the correctional investigator carried out?

Because of their position of employment with Correctional Service Canada, it is impossible for the correctional investigator to make impartial judgments regarding prisoners' grievance procedures. For example, when a prisoner makes a grievance and it goes to the correctional investigator, the prisoner will automatically become alienated from the staff and the administration of the institution. In fact in most cases the correctional investigator merely reinforces the administration's action against the prisoner without really looking at the problem.

Those are the three points I wanted to touch on this morning. I'll be glad to answer any questions.

The Chairman: Mr. Newman, are you willing to share, for the benefit of the committee, your involvement in the system, where you fit in the system and what work you're doing?

Mr. Mike Newman: Certainly. I've spent the last thirty years of my life in prison, and I was designated as a dangerous offender eight years ago and sentenced to an indefinite sentence.

Presently I'm working as a chaplain for long-term offenders and lifers. I go back into the institutions and work with prisoners, and set up release planning, and so on, with prisoners. I work with them when they come back out on the street, trying to get them involved in programs. We have a 12-step program that Cons for Christ puts on. It's called the Overcomers Program.

Basically, I take them around the city and help them to get into banking and that type of thing, dropping off résumés and helping them to get set up in apartments, and just stand with the guy when he gets out, because it's very difficult when you're released from prison. Basically, there's nobody out there. Many years I was just released from the institution to the street, and there was no support or anything out there. Really, the only thing I knew how to do, because I had lived in prison for so long, was to fall back into the same old thing I've always fallen back into with my criminal activities and criminal friends.

It basically comes down to a decision whether you want to change your life or not. When that point comes, to want to make that decision to change your life, then you set out the resources, look for the resources that are available to you.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Gouk, have you any questions?

Mr. Jim Gouk: I have no questions at this time.

The Chairman: Mr. Marceau?

Mr. Richard Marceau: No.

The Chairman: Mr. MacKay?

Mr. Peter MacKay: I have a question that doesn't relate specifically to your presentation. What made you change your life? What was the pivotal point when you decided you didn't want to be back inside? Was it a result of programming? Was it a personal choice?

Mr. Mike Newman: It was a personal decision. Basically, when I was sentenced to an indefinite sentence as a dangerous offender, I think that kind of woke me up and I really had to assess my life. The personal decision, too, is that I gave my heart to the Lord, and it was a spiritual awakening for me.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I hope you don't mind me asking you this question.

Mr. Mike Newman: No, not whatsoever.

Mr. Peter MacKay: When were you classified as a dangerous offender?

Mr. Mike Newman: I was classified as a dangerous offender in 1989.

Mr. Peter MacKay: When were you given full release?

Mr. Mike Newman: I was given full release in July 1996.

Mr. Peter MacKay: All right. You're currently on full release, and you're working for Correctional Service Canada. Is that correct?

Mr. Mike Newman: No, I work with Cons for Christ prison ministry, in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Okay. This is a privately run organization.

Mr. Mike Newman: Yes, it is a non-denominational organization.

I'd like to say that the programs they had at the institution were very helpful in my situation, because I had made a personal decision that I wanted to change and that I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. The programs certainly helped me to get in touch with a lot of things in my own life, so that was a personal decision as well.

The outside groups I got involved with, such as Cons for Christ and the John Howard Society, helped me in preparing for release and preparing me for the street. And having the support out on the street was certainly helpful to me making that reintegration.

• 1240

I've been out now approximately three years, but it's still a battle in the adjustment stages of my release. I'm still going through it, but I'm making it.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I take it, having served time and having worked within the system, you would immediately have at least a certain level of connection and respect from the individuals you are working with.

Mr. Mike Newman: That's correct. I do. Basically I think that's why I fit in there. I go back in and I know those guys, and if I'm out here making it, they can see they can do it too. It comes down to personalization again.

Mr. Peter MacKay: When you talk about personal decisions, in either your current capacity working with Cons for Christ or your experience on the inside, would you say none of the rehabilitation and release programs will work until that person decides they want to abandon that life of crime?

Mr. Mike Newman: Because of the type work I'm in, I don't really give up on anyone, because I know all things are possible. Certainly there were a lot of people who gave up on me. So we continue to work with the ones who are not interested in doing programs. Hopefully one day the seed will be planted and they'll see a change must be made. That's our hope in working with guys not on the inside—they will make that change and we will be able to work with them when they come back out into society.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I appreciate what you're saying about not giving up, but are there some who appear to be completely reluctant? To use the overused phrase, you can lead them to water but you can't make them drink.

Mr. Mike Newman: There are some prisoners in jail who will probably stay there the rest of their lives because they won't conform to programs, don't want anything to do with programs, and don't want to change. There certainly are a number of them, but they're a very small number. I think everybody wants to change, but they have to know how to change, get set to change and have the courage to change.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Given the cost of releasing somebody who hasn't made that change or hasn't reached that point, is it appropriate then to keep somebody in jail indefinitely?

Mr. Mike Newman: No, I don't think it's appropriate to keep someone in jail indefinitely. If a guy gives up, really doesn't want to do anything and has become institutionalized, there's no hope for the individual. There's nothing you can do. It's up to the individual himself, as I said. There are a number who probably will give up, and you'll probably never be able to release them.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you, Mr. Newman.

The Chairman: Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Newman, there's no way I can argue with this. This is the voice of experience. This is what we hear too little of in this committee—the other side. It's all one side. Some days we think we have the answers because we understand the situation, but we don't understand the situation, not having been there—well, I had some experience with it. But this is the kind of thing we need.

I must compliment you. After what some people would consider society has done to you, you obviously don't think that way. But I think most people would say “To heck with those guys. I'm not going to help them at all. They can find out for themselves.” That is, people like this in a committee. For coming here to tell us this, I think you deserve our admiration. You have mine, anyway. I thank you very much. This will be helpful to us when we have to make the final report. Believe me, this will be on top of my pile of recommendations.

Mr. Mike Newman: Thank you.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Mr. Newman, in your item one under programs, you outline the difficulties of people playing along. I think you say they'll jump through hoops to work their way through from maximum to medium to minimum, without really benefiting from the programming. We've been told before that this occurs, and we understand this occurs, but do you have a concrete suggestion for us that we could recommend to try to deal with this problem?

• 1245

Mr. Mike Newman: I was always a firm believer. Nobody really had to set out a plan for me. When I was in prison I took up my own plan myself and started getting involved in the programs. Of course I had to go to the coordinators.

I believe an individual makes the decision to take the program he wants to take. Correctional Service Canada can certainly assess what his needs may be, but if the individual is not willing to look at his needs at that time, that's his decision. He shouldn't be forced to jump through the hoops.

The Chairman: Yes, but what's the alternative? You're saying if an individual says he doesn't want to get into the living without violence program, or whatever program is being suggested to them, the alternative is they just do the hard time.

Mr. Mike Newman: The point is they're all men and they all have minds of their own and they know what their situations are. They know how much time they're doing. I think they have to sit down and ask themselves, “Do I really need this? Do I really need to assess this? Do I really have an anger problem? Do I need to get involved in that?”

I think it's up to the individual. He's sentenced by the courts to a period of incarceration and it's up to him what he wants to do with his own life. Some just jump through the hoops for all the wrong reasons. They get back out into society, but some have just jumped the hoops and haven't really dealt with anything. That's why there's such a revolving door today.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Newman.

I'll allow Mr. MacKay one short supplementary.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you. I just want to follow up on a very insightful question that was posed by the chair.

Mr. Newman, I'd like to take a moment also to compliment you on what you're doing and the contribution you're making.

How easy is it for a prisoner in a federal institution to feign rehabilitation; that is, to use your words, jump through the hoops and go through the motions? Based on your experience, what percentage is doing this? They're not ready to rehabilitate themselves, but they know that's the quickest route to release.

Mr. Mike Newman: I'm not saying there's a big number factor there by any means. A lot of guys just come to a point in their lives where they're really serious about really wanting to get out and they want to do it, but there are too....

My point in all of this is not the fact that people are being released because they're jumping through the hoops. I know that's an issue, but I don't really want to get into that issue. The point is that when a classification officer sits down and says you have to jump through the hoops in order to cascade down through the system, then obviously the Corrections and Conditional Release Act is really not working.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I know we don't have time for you to get into that issue, but I wish we did, because you've raised a very serious point. Who is watching the programs and who is actually making these calls as to the success rate of this rehabilitative scheme, if a person can go through the motions?

Mr. Mike Newman: It's very easy. Just put yourself in that situation for a second and imagine you are in prison. You don't really feel you have an anger problem and your classification officer says you need to go to anger management in order to cascade down to a medium security. You very quickly want to get into that anger management program, get it over with quickly, and get down to a medium security because you know your next level is a step down. That speaks for itself, I think.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Sure.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Newman. The committee appreciates your attendance here today.

Mr. Mike Newman: Thank you very much for inviting me.

The Chairman: Thank you.

The next witness is Mr. Tim Hoban.

Just before starting, the clerk has asked me to inform the committee members that the check-out time has been extended to 2.45. There won't be any problem; they will be making the arrangements.

I'm sorry, Mr. Hoban. Before you make your submission or as part of it—I don't know if it's in it or not—just give us some of your background and tell us what your involvement is, because it's shown here you're appearing as an individual. Please just inform us and keep your submission to between five and ten minutes.

Mr. Tim Hoban (Individual Presentation): Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

• 1250

My name is Thomas, or Tim, Hoban. I'm from the Miramichi. I'm president of the Miramichi Community Corrections Council Inc.; president of the Miramichi wards three and four community-based police committee; president of the New Brunswick Security Association Inc.; and program presenter with Alternative Measures Society for young offenders and adults for the last 15 years.

I've been retired from the RCMP for 24 years. I'm a retired community college instructor and department head, and I'm now CEO and co-owner of a private training institute.

I'm coming from the community side. I don't represent any specific committee or any group. I've been very active in my communities, no matter where I lived in Newfoundland and New Brunswick, even when I was a police officer.

I want to raise some basic concerns. I went through the issues you wanted to discuss, and I have no insight into a lot of that, as a community person. I don't know what information is given to the parole board and what have you, so I couldn't judge those responses that were at the end of the letter I received.

I put together some items the committees I've been involved in have had some concerns with over the past number of years. One of the basic concerns is disproportionate programming. There's a gross imbalance between institutional programming and the community. There is ample or considerable programming within the institutions; however, there is none within the community. A person who goes into an institution has lots of programming available there; once they're released, there's nothing in the community for them to come to.

In the urban areas, it's no problem. We do have John Howard Societies and other groups that are within the larger cities. But New Brunswick is basically rural Canada and has a lot of rural areas within it, and there's nothing in those regions whatsoever. So my suggestion here is that there's a process needed to make sure that persons who need programming get it within the community after release.

Regarding community activities and committees, actively support the community committees attempting to make their communities a safer place by doing a lot more than just talking about it. Communities have heard enough talking, but have had almost no support in achieving these goals. The utilization of local expertise when offering programs, rather than bringing strangers into a community, would assist greatly in diminishing community resistance to offender releases, etc.

Listening and acting upon community-based recommendations and providing support for their initiatives will also improve the system. The community can accomplish amazing feats when supported and allowed to do so. For example, programming costs could easily be split between government and the community, as there are persons out there who are willing to provide programs on a one-to-one basis—for example, pay for one, give one free.

My recommendation here is to actively support community-based committees.

In regard to bureaucracy and bean-counting—that's just the word I put into place—we need to provide room, for example, for parole officers to become involved in community-based committees and prevention programs, making it a compulsory part of their jobs in a true effort to prevent recidivism and provide programs that are community-based. The emphasis at present is solely on the parole officer having a quota of files, and I believe 25 right now is the number, at least up in our region. They are told that unless they carry this number of files, their jobs could be in danger. Would it not be better to have the officer be responsible for a smaller number of files and concentrate on working in his or her community to assist in making it a safer place to live and reduce recidivism, etc.?

A prime example of this is the offender employment program started by the Miramichi Community Corrections Council two years ago. A study of crime was completed for the Miramichi region, and it was learned that one of the main reasons for recidivism was the inability of released persons to get jobs. A pilot project involving six persons proved to be extremely successful and resulted in a second-year project wherein twenty persons were involved. This was a project brought about by the community, and demonstrates what can be accomplished when the community support is there.

My suggestion is to make community prevention work a part of parole officers' jobs.

Regarding standards—I've heard some reference to this just in the last submission—what standards are in place for trainers and programs, both within and outside the institution? The overall support of organizations such as John Howard, for example, is not too difficult to understand when there's absolutely no support for community-based organizations to become involved or even be considered.

• 1255

We have one example here. For example, at Renous I'm well aware of the fact that a secretary does training within the institution for specific programs. What training did the secretary get to become the person to do that training?

So there should be established standards for all trainers and programs. In other words, is the program being effective? Is it the best program that's out there? Who should be doing the training, or what are the standards for the people doing the training? What are their qualifications?

With regard to parole board appointments, it was my understanding and the communities' understanding that there are not supposed to be any more political appointments to the parole board. However, it's understood that the politicians are given a list and they still select them. I don't know if that's true or not. This is coming from the community, from their thinking and their belief. If it's not true, then maybe there should be some public announcement or something to make the community aware that it's not happening any more.

So our recommendation from the community is to eliminate all political involvement.

Regarding granting, denial, termination, and revocation of release, the pressure to reduce the number of persons in our jails has resulted in political and CSC pressure upon employees not to suspend as a means of keeping persons out of jail. This is complicated by the fact that there are too many special conditions placed upon a released person—for example, no alcohol. There are all kinds of other conditions that go there, making it close to impossible for them to comply. To provide conditions and then not enforce them is probably worse than not putting in any conditions at all. The concern here is that somebody is number-counting rather than looking at public safety. This creates quite a problem for the person supervising the released person as well, as they should really be more concerned with their rehabilitation rather than their not going back to jail.

So make conditions realistic when a person is released. Do not undermine the system.

Concerning release beyond end of sentence, the prime consideration here is the seriousness of the offence committed—for example, murder. Will he or she commit the crime again, or is it likely? Case file review should include all persons involved in the case. The problem as I see it is that when released, there is no supervision whatsoever. This means the most dangerous persons we have in our system get released without any accountability. This sends shock waves throughout the community and is totally unacceptable. The system must go the extra mile herein and ensure community follow-up.

So the recommendation is that there be no release without accountability and community follow-up.

That's basically my presentation, gentlemen and Mr. Chairman. I can answer any questions.

The Chairman: Thank you very much for that very clear and precise submission. Let's see if it washes this time.

Mr. Gouk.

Mr. Tim Hoban: The last guy took quite a riding.

The Chairman: I know.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Actually, there is just one thing I'd like to clarify. It was right at the end, where you're talking in terms of people getting out without any supervision. This would be at the end of the warrant. Certainly it's a problem for a lot of people. We know there have been instances where people have refused any kind of corrective action, such as programming or rehabilitation programs, or not even applied for parole. So we know there's a lot of concern within the public. What do you propose is actually done with that person who was sentenced to eight years and serves every day of that eight-year sentence and then is released? How do we deal with it?

Mr. Tim Hoban: The suggestion is that there should be something brought in, within the system, under act or whatever, that will enable the public to be assured that this person is not going to be, in some way, shape, or form, a predator on that society again. Just because he's finished the eight years.... What if the problem hasn't gone away? That person has refused any kind of rehabilitation. He served his straight eight years. After that eight years, is he still a threat to society? I suggest he probably is. If he is, then there should be something. If he's refused treatment, I feel the system should have some way of either holding him in incarceration or at least making sure that his release into the public....

This is a tough line, but a lot of the people I talk to feel that way. I'm coming from the public; I'm not coming from the view of a person who is a parole officer, or what have you. I'm telling you what the people on my community corrections council feel. Their feeling is that the person should be in some way or another supervised and not allowed to walk back out into society. Because we've had cases in this country where people have been out at the termination, and it has been fought by the police and other people to say that this guy is still a threat, this person is still there. He's a pedophile, he's received no treatment, he's done this, that, and the other thing, and the prediction is that he's going to commit within a short period of time. Is it right that he be released? That's the other question.

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Mr. Jim Gouk: There are a lot of people who would agree with you. The problem for us, as legislators, is what do we put into the act? If you put in something that says even after eight years we're still going to retain them, you can't prove that they're going to reoffend. I agree with you, but the problem we have is you can't prove that someone is going to reoffend. So do you incarcerate them on the basis that you think they might do something, on the grounds of suspicion to actually keep someone in jail? That's the argument proposed by the other side. And as much as I agree with the position you're taking, it's a very hard one to answer.

Mr. Tim Hoban: It's a hard one to even deal with, not only answer. But the issue is that there are sufficient people within our society today, I would suspect, who could do a fair evaluation of this person by looking at his whole life, background, and what have you, and considering the fact of should he be released or should he not. There should be some way the public.... What we're dealing with here is public safety and whether that person is going to be considered a threat to society or not.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Gouk.

Monsieur Marceau.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Mr. Hoban, I'm going to speak French.

[English]

Mr. Tim Hoban: I don't speak much French.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: I would first like to thank you for testifying here today and congratulate you on the work you are doing in your community. The mini-c.v. that you presented to us at the beginning is quite impressive. In committees like this, I would like to see a larger number of people coming to express their own views rather than that of an organization, although I do recognize that it is important for groups to appear.

Having said this, my question is quite short. My notes show that you said:

[English]

“There is no support for community-based programs”.

[Translation]

This statement seems to contradict the words of those who believe that the parole system is working well and who even recommend having a larger number of paroles. But we must also realize that there does not seem to be enough money to have a kind of net to enable the parole system to work well. I would like to hear what you think of this.

[English]

Mr. Tim Hoban: We organized and set up a community corrections council within our region. I want to give you some prime examples. We had on our board a parole officer and a probation officer provincially. Both were to go back and report to the federal agencies and the provincial agencies, the Solicitor General, etc. They were there for approximately a year. Both of them were called back by their supervisors and told—and that's where this comes from—that they had to carry a certain number of files, that those files were the justification for their jobs, and that the community work that was going on had to take a second seat. Actually, it ended up taking no seat at all, because I know the one probation officer had the hundred-and-some-odd files and both parole officers dropped out of our community project altogether.

So we had no representation from either side. When we developed our committee we did it with a real structure in a real, structured manner. Every time you make presentations to government or to other bodies, the first thing they will say to you is why do you need a certain program? We did a study of 89 parolees and people on probation. We did that study using a format called LSI. Once that format was developed and put together, it was to determine the reasons why a person committed a crime, why they were in jail, why they recommitted a crime, and what were the economic and the social factors that caused them to recommit the crimes.

We did this complete study over a period of a year. It opened up the whole Miramichi region as to the reasons why we were having recidivism within our area. And from that we would, as a committee, make recommendations as to the type of programming we required to counteract problems these people saw they were having causing them to recommit crimes and what have you.

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That's why we came up with the employment project. The employment project was to combat the fact that almost every one of them told us that their major problem was trying to get a job after they got out of prison and once they were on parole and on of course probation. So we set up this program, which is presently in place and working very effectively.

In setting that up, we looked for funding from the province and funding from the federal CSC. And I understand where you're going with programming. There are some costs there, there's no question about that. But there are a lot of costs to what they're doing within the federal system, at least to me and my impression.

For example, let's take a look at the CSC and what they do in relation to their training programs. When they bring a person into Correctional Service Canada as a correctional officer, they will take that person, hire them, put them on six weeks full training as a part of their full training, and pay that up front with any person coming into the system right off the bat. There are all kinds of community colleges out there right now, and training facilities that train correctional officers and give them all of these basics.

My argument was then.... I was in contact of course with the previous commissioner for Correctional Service Canada a few years ago, and he quit on me for some reason or other a little while back. Anyway, I had some discussions with him and he saw the light. He was going to come across and say yes, we'll do a pilot on the Miramichi; what we will do is we'll take people out of the training programs who are retrained, do them an orientation within the institution only, which is about four days or five days, and put them to work.

They spend almost all of their training dollars up front on these new people. I bet you anybody in there—from the information I have—after five or six years in an institution barely gets any training because of the fact that all of their money is being spent up front. There needs to be a looking at where their money is being spent.

The other problem within the system is that.... And I was involved because I was working with the New Brunswick community colleges as a department head there, and we were doing the training within Renous and we were doing the upgrading, training and what have you, life skills and the carpentry programs and all that stuff. But one of the things that happened was when they had a cutback in their overall budget, the training programs were the first things that were cut.

Here's the rehabilitation that's supposed to be going on. I'm sorry to say this, but neither guards nor anybody else took any cuts in pay, but the programs took an awful beating up there. And that's the first thing they seem to think they can throw out the window, so the rehabilitation is not the primary consideration in a lot of cases. What they say and what they do, and that's why I comment here, are two different things. That's why I'm saying stop talking and start doing.

If they're going to support community and want community-based projects and people in the community to come out.... Everybody has to be released in the community. And if they're going to be released, the community has to accept that person. If you work with the community through programming and what have you, it's going to make it much easier to bring the person back into the community, because the community is aware of it already and they're working with it and they're a part of it.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Hoban.

Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you. I'll be brief, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hoban, we thank you very much for your comments. I commend you as well for your commitment to the administration of justice. It's been a life's work for you, obviously, and you have a great deal of practical knowledge that you're sharing with us today.

I want to refer you to page 2 of your submission: under the paragraph “Granting, Denial, Termination, Revocation of Release”, that opening sentence encapsulates the problem that we became aware of recently. You say:

The pressure to reduce the number of persons in our Gaols has resulted in political and CSC pressure upon employees not to suspend as a means of keeping people out of jail.

This, coupled with pressure I understand is being placed on wardens as well to accelerate or simply get the numbers down of people who are in jails, I believe is extremely dangerous and almost like a virus that's been released now within our corrections system.

• 1310

As I understand it, these conditions are put in place for a very special reason. They're there as an early warning system to let us know if that person who has been released is following their old ways. The types of conditions that are most often in place include non-association, abstaining from alcohol or drugs, maintaining employment, reporting regularly. All of these things are there and have a specific purpose. If those are being overridden—or being overlooked, more appropriately—the chance that the person is going to fall back into their old ways is accelerated.

You describe the pressure—and the way you describe it is intriguing—to reduce the number of persons going back and to overlook these breaches as political in CSC. Can you elaborate on that? I've seen documentation that verifies this.

Mr. Tim Hoban: I'm in contact with a considerable number of people because of the groups I work with, who are involved with probation services and with parole services and whatever have you. The comments that are coming from these people, who are baseline workers, is that they are strictly under the gun.

Mr. Peter MacKay: From whom?

Mr. Tim Hoban: From their supervisors and from CSC. Of course, my understanding is that this is based solely on budget, on dollars and cents. If they keep a person out of jail, then it's going to cost that much less money for the system. Putting a person in jail is quite expensive, as you know and I know because we've dealt with it. The whole concept of this is based strictly on budgets. The public safety is irrelevant, and they're being told they are not to suspend.

Mr. Peter MacKay: The obvious question is what's the human cost?

Mr. Tim Hoban: The human cost is the fact that we're putting people out there who are a risk to the community, and the community now becomes the one that's in danger. That person is more than likely, without the proper programming, without the proper community support, going to reoffend and be back in jail again. So really all it's doing is more harm than good.

Mr. Peter MacKay: So this is only part of the problem. If there are more prisoners being released, but those who are entrusted to monitor them are being told not to be so quick to send them back—

Mr. Tim Hoban: It becomes an ethical thing for them in their job.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Sure. That's shocking.

Mr. Tim Hoban: It's happening. I'm sorry, but it's happening.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I would very much like to speak to you further about this before you leave, if you have time, because I would like to be in touch with some of these people and find out where these directions are coming from.

Mr. Tim Hoban: I may have a problem with that. I would have to talk to them. This was given to me in confidence.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I understand. There's a level of accountability, of course, and they have to protect their jobs.

Mr. Tim Hoban: Exactly.

Mr. Peter MacKay: We're being told the opposite. The political bosses are saying no, that's not happening; there are no quotas, there are no numbers, there are no implicit attempts to keep those numbers at a certain level. That's all being denied at the top level.

Mr. Tim Hoban: I know it for a fact, because I was dealing with CSC in relation to the community correction program and I was told outright that the parole officer had to carry so many files. That was his justification.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Would you describe that as a quota?

Mr. Tim Hoban: Yes.

The Chairman: Excuse me, Mr. MacKay. Just for information on this point as well, the committee has been travelling and we've been meeting at the institutions with all levels of staff. When we meet with the front-line workers, we meet with them alone. We have no one from the institution, from management, no one from the Solicitor General's office, no one from Corrections Canada's office, and we've been asking some of these questions. As a committee, we can discuss this at a later date. It might have some relevance to your concerns then, Mr. MacKay.

But it's time now to move on to Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Hoban, I hope you realize that your ancient Anglo-Saxon spelling of “gaol” dates you and me. I don't think these young fellows know what we're talking about—

Mr. Tim Hoban: I like to think I'm 29. It doesn't work any more.

Mr. Ivan Grose: I would like to address parole board appointments. It's no big secret that MPs are canvassed: “Is there anyone in your community who has the qualifications?” Well, I've looked at the qualifications for parole board involvement and I've never found anyone. Maybe I'm travelling in the wrong circles, but I've never found anyone in my community who had all those assets who wasn't already very gainfully employed. I thought I had one one time. He was a retired college professor with all the appropriate degrees and so on. He said “No, I can't afford to do it. I make far more money than that doing the odd consulting job.”

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So I've never made a recommendation for an appointment, and I don't care what party the person belongs to, how he votes. If I cared about that, I'd have a very restricted list of people who voted for me.

There's another point here that I think we should be careful about. Your last paragraph here says: “...this means that the most dangerous persons we have in our system get released without any accountability”. Now, I agree with you, but if we take serial murderers and serial sex offenders out of this mix, your ordinary garden variety murderer, as we call him, who has committed a murder is our best parole risk. Most murders are committed in families and by people you know, as you well know. They do it once and say “Why in the world did I ever do that?” and they don't do it again. But generally speaking, if you include all of them in there, then yes, some of them who are released are most dangerous and get the least treatment, get the least anything.

I'm interested in what you say about the treatment of people. It's true that we are getting towards doing a pretty good job in prison, and then the day they go out the door, especially in the area you described, there is nothing.

Mr. Tim Hoban: Absolutely nothing.

Mr. Ivan Grose: It sounds to me like a great project for service clubs to take on, to keep an eye on this guy and help him. In the service clubs, of course, are all the community leaders who have the odd job and this kind of thing.

But you're absolutely right in that regard. In urban centres now...I represent the city of Oshawa and we have a fine John Howard Society that does a wonderful job. But when you get out in the boondocks, no, there's absolutely nothing.

Mr. Tim Hoban: Not there.

Mr. Ivan Grose: So you're absolutely right in that.

Incidentally, this is another thing that brings us a point of view that's a little different from what we're used to with the people we're interviewing. I appreciate your taking the time and trouble, which you obviously have been taking all your life, and I thank you very much for giving us this, because this is something from a little different angle. That's what we need.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Tim Hoban: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

I reiterate the congratulations that most of the committee members have provided to you, Mr. Hoban, for your community involvement. It's very important, and we appreciate your taking the time to come and meet with us today.

Mr. Tim Hoban: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Our next, and I believe last, witness of the day would be Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin, who is shown here as associate professor and director of criminology at St. Thomas University. I think you've been with us this morning, so you know the drill.

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin (Associate Professor and Director of Criminology, St. Thomas University): Actually, it's been delightful to sit through the previous presentations. I'm also quite delighted to be here this afternoon to share my two cents' worth.

I guess I'm here from a constituency. I would hate to say that I'm representing all academics, though; they're pretty much loose cannons. So I speak on behalf of myself in that regard.

But I also wanted to raise a point that was quite striking earlier in a comment about getting some real-world experience, because I very much pride myself on the fact that I may have some academic knowledge but I'm also very actively involved in grassroots organizations, and have been for most of my academic career. I'm a past president of the John Howard Society of Ontario—that was before I relocated to the maritimes—and in that capacity I was involved as a vice-president for John Howard Canada. Now I've been finagled onto the board, quite happily, in New Brunswick for the John Howard Society. I'm also involved with the Canadian Training Institute, the Vanier Institute of the Family, and the Crime Prevention Association of New Brunswick.

What this does for me is allow me to understand what kinds of struggles are happening among non-government organizations, to lend an ear, I suppose, to add some expertise, but also to understand what it's like by touring various facilities. What we read in books may not actually happen in practice. So it's within that spirit that I want to make some comments.

I must say that I still strongly believe in the purposes that are outlined in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act: that we do want to move towards a just, safe and peaceful society, that we need to constantly be aware of humane custody, and that we need to really focus on rehabilitation and reintegration.

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I might also add that I'm quite impressed with the work that's gone into the development of mission statements for both Correctional Services Canada, with their core values, and the National Parole Board. When we look at this critically, I'm not sure everything that happens in print happens in practice, but they are certainly laudable objectives to work towards and they've given some substance to the kind of work that goes on in the institutions and through gradual release mechanisms.

As for where I've taken my comments from, I went back to the legislative mandate of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act when it was passed in 1992. There were four themes presented at that time: public safety and reintegration, openness and accountability, fair processes and equitable decisions, and special groups with special needs. I tried to reflect on how far we've come and to measure the successes against those quite disparate elements. We have to be very mindful of the substantial changes in the practice of corrections since 1992 and think about, as someone said this morning, the wealth of experience that we have among our academics and our clinicians in the development of risk assessment tools that have made it much easier to try to match individual offenders to appropriate treatments.

One of the points that seemed to be missing in some of the comments earlier today was that there's more to the literature than just risk and needs assessment. There's also the responsivity principle and therapeutic integrity, and we're not far along the path yet in terms of our understanding of an individual offender's responsiveness to treatment. We're working very hard in that area to ensure that we're matching criminogenic needs to offenders.

The area of therapeutic integrity is one that I take a personal interest in—in the training of future correctional officers in some cases, but criminal justice practitioners in particular. St. Thomas University has three credentials in criminology: a diploma program, a certificate program, and a double major program at the undergraduate level in criminology and another subject. The most recent one is a Bachelor of Applied Arts in criminal justice done in conjunction with the Miramichi Community College. We're working currently on trying to develop a mechanism to deliver that program by distance to assist correctional officers and other criminal justice practitioners to seek a degree that would be seen as necessary to move through the ranks as a parole officer/case management officer. I'm delighted to see the cooperation of many members from CSC and the National Parole Board in our quest to try to provide a lifelong learning opportunity for their correctional staff and managers, and I encourage continued effort in that area.

In the area of special programming and special needs, I'm pleased with the continuing commitment to alternatives to incarceration—I was involved in the development and implementation last year of a summer institute on restorative justice, which was well attended by many community members—and some of the commitment that's coming out of the new legislation that's to be tabled around victims. However, I feel that the scope of some special groups is still missing, in particular my own area of particular academic interest, which is the area of youth crime. I'm quite concerned about young offenders sentenced to adult time, their transitional adjustment to a federal penitentiary and what it means to go from the youth justice system into the adult side.

Further, I believe there's a growing population of older offenders who pose particular social and medical problems for the correctional system that have not been adequately addressed. This was brought to my attention as I toured Dorchester Penitentiary with the warden of that facility. I saw a 76-year-old man on oxygen in a hospital in that pretty pristine environment. It's not the picture you normally put on a poster for what you think of in corrections. I and a colleague at St. Thomas University are currently trying to design a piece of research to look at the needs of aging offenders, which I feel is very important.

In conclusion, I believe in the importance of a carefully constructed system of correctional services that focuses on a fair and equitable process of decision-making. I feel that's essential for the long-term protection of society. We mustn't create a harsher and more punitive system of correctional practice, because we know that in order to create safe communities, we must think about them coming back.

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It's essential that offenders are involved in gradual release programs. It's important that we debunk the myth that surrounds parole and gradual release. I commend Correctional Service Canada on their most recent publication of a summary of what the myths are around parole. I feel that's a step in the right direction.

The positive presumption of release, which has been raised, I know, by the John Howard Society of Canada, involves the idea that if we can use that as a household word as opposed to longer sentences and harsher penalties, we'd go a long way in changing people's understanding of the idea around corrections. If we view offenders from the time they enter the system with the notion in a positive way that they're going to be released, it will enhance the positive outcomes for the offender, the correctional service, the parole system, and ultimately the larger community.

Thank you. That's a brief overview. I'd be quite happy to answer questions.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Reid-MacNevin.

We will go to questions. Mr. Gouk.

Mr. Jim Gouk: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I do thank you for your presentation. I apologize, because I had to go out to take a call for a portion of it, but it is now a matter of record, so I can follow up on that.

The Chairman: Do you mean the call is the record, or the testimony?

Mr. Jim Gouk: The call is recorded, but that's a conversation.

What you've said I quite agree with. I think one of the biggest problems we have, though—and I have mentioned this before, certainly, in meetings in my own riding dealing with concerns the public has—is that in all facets of society we always work to promote equality. I sometimes think the correctional system is one place where perhaps it isn't as appropriate a word, because there are a lot of people in there who could be helped and a few who are very difficult to help. Because they're all lumped together, first of all, I think it takes away from those who are working to rehabilitate themselves, and it also colours the public image. The public focuses on the Clifford Olsons, and they ignore a hundred success stories of people who have come out and turned their lives around.

I think we need to find some way to educate the public as to how the program works when it works well and to make sure that we stop lumping everybody together and saying everybody's equal. I'm sorry, they're not—certainly not in prison. We've seen some graphic examples of that. That's one of the things we'll have to focus on in our deliberations.

Thank you for your presentation today.

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin: Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Marceau.

Mr. Richard Marceau: I will be very brief. I would first like to thank you for your presentation, which was very interesting and very succinct.

You were there a moment ago when I read something from The National Post, my colleague Ivan Grose's favourite newspaper, indicating that the majority of inmates, namely 83 percent, were already repeat offenders, and nearly half of them were highly likely to commit another crime. In recent weeks, we have learned that the Correctional Service of Canada's objective was to release about half of its inmates. How can this objective be justified when half of them are dangerous and 83 percent are repeat offenders?

[English]

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin: I have two responses to that. Part of my response is that we're probably using prison in the right way, because the way it used to be is that a lot of the people who were in jail didn't need to be there. They were low risk, they were first-time offenders, and so on. So when I hear that 83% of them are medium- to high-risk offenders, that's a good thing. That means we are now able to pick tools that match the person who needs to go to jail, which is not a bad statistic.

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In terms of repeat offenders, we haven't figured out exactly how to fix everybody. It's also a good thing that they're the ones who are in prison. In terms of release, they're ultimately going to come out, and we still need to think about what is going to make society the safest. The safest notion of society, in terms of long-term protection, is to ensure we have good community-based programs. I'm not sure we're there yet. I'm not sure the training is there for people in community-based programs. When we start looking at issues around matching training needs for people who are out in the community to be able to do the risk assessments and to write good case management plans, then we probably will come up with an even stronger system.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Is there not a contradiction when you say that it is important to grant parole to inmates but it is reported that communities are not necessarily being trained well enough or prepared and do not have the subsidization required to properly administer the local programs? Is this not blatantly illogical?

[English]

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin: There's no more of a contradiction in that than in putting persons in jail when you know it doesn't work. The context of that is that we don't have any problem putting bars up and security, because in an institution they aren't harming anybody but themselves or each other.

What we need to do is take some money and put it into community resources to ensure that's there.

[Translation]

Mr. Richard Marceau: Okay. I agree with you, except when you say that it is no more logical to put someone behind bars. An inmate does not represent a danger or a risk, at least an immediate one, to the community. On the other hand, there's a difference when you release an inmate without surrounding him with the safety net afforded by a community that is trained, prepared and has the necessary funds. I totally agree with you when you say that the communities must have more money. Thank you.

[English]

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin: May I say one more thing?

The Chairman: Certainly.

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin: In the context of the prison environment, it depends on who you feel can be damaged, I suppose. In the community you're worried about the well-being of everyone and that the offender who's released without appropriate support and resources may harm some other person. In an institution they're only harming another offender, and that seems to be more acceptable to the larger society, that we have fourteen times the national suicide rate and eight times the national homicide rate in our federal penitentiaries, because that's away from the general public. It's okay for them to harm one another inside an institution, but it's not okay for them to harm one another outside. I think both situations are intolerable.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Marceau.

[English]

Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Reid-MacNevin. You've given us some very interesting things to mull over. I wish we had more time, because I think you have a great deal of knowledge you could bestow on us, both practical and academic knowledge, by the way.

I'd like to speak of two specific things you touched upon. I think one fit in very nicely with the suggestion of our previous witness, Mr. Hoban, and that had to do with the educational training that's available for corrections officers. Apparently a number of academic institutions are providing sufficient training to meet the demand for jobs within our corrections services, but do you agree with this submission that to some degree they are duplicating the training that is now being provided by CSC?

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin: I've been doing some work with CSC on the whole notion of training and so on. There is a desire on the part of CSC for people who have gone through their recruit training to receive as part of a prior learning assessment some credit for community college courses and so on, and equally to have an exchange agreement so that some courses that were part of the recruit training would be given credit in a program at the community college level, such as Mr. Hoban was talking about There's a desire on the part of the commissioner of corrections to look at the notion of having a degree for people who are working at a parole level, a case management level. In fact it has been legislated in their terms of their contract.

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Mr. Peter MacKay: You talked generally about the need for positive presumptions of release and perhaps a difference in thinking towards the way we're approaching incarceration and the levels of incarceration that exist. The statistics that were quoted by my colleague from the Bloc with respect to the percentage of violent offenders who are now being held—and you quite rightly acknowledge that it's a good thing that the percentage of those who are not deemed to be violent are perhaps going by different programming methodology.

Just as an aside, that is an ingredient of this new youth criminal justice act as well; there's greater emphasis on sorting out early on who is a violent and a non-violent threat to society.

I guess the obvious question that emerges from that is if that determination has been made, and I think it's fair to say that the last step that can be taken is to remove that person from society and say, look, you're broken, you're not able to function without harming somebody, or you have harmed somebody and there's a price to pay for that.... There's no easy answer to this. This is a very difficult question we're all dealing with. There isn't a phone booth you can march a person into and change them. If this percentage is still so high, at 83%—that's an inmate deemed to be violent or a threat—how can we talk about releasing them, particularly given the knowledge we have that the infrastructure and the support in the community is not there, is not sufficient, that resources don't exist to meet the demands of releasing a dangerous person who has been deemed a threat to society?

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin: I'm not sure the statistics that are quoted are—I'd have to see those, first of all. I'm not sure 83% are violent offenders. I think it's more likely that 83% are in for medium to high risk to reoffend. It doesn't mean they are going to be violent offences. It means they might go out and do the same offence they did previously. That doesn't mean they're all violent offences. So you have to be pretty clear when you read numbers. Numbers have to be interpreted.

How do I feel about them still being released? I still believe you have to have some incentive for an individual to want to change. Earlier we heard Mr. Newman talking about personal choice. Well, personal choices are also tied to incentives. If there is no hope of getting out on some good behaviour, on some involvement in programs, on some planning on your part in terms of what's going to make a difference on the outside, then why would you make that personal choice? You might as well sit in your cell and rot.

So we have to have that for that personal change in responsivity to happen. We also equally have to have the community understand what that means. I teach an undergraduate course in corrections and I'm still constantly trying to explain the difference between probation and parole, and these are students in criminology. God help us in terms of trying to explain it to the community if I can't get my third and fourth year students to get the difference between warrant filing expiry and statutory release and all that. We have a long way to go in terms of public understanding.

The comment I made was that if we can change the ideology, where everyone starts to understand the importance of release, then that's going to be a big change.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Grose.

Mr. Ivan Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Doctor, I have bad news and good news. I'll give you the bad news first. We toured Dorchester and I saw at least three very senior citizens, who are not in the hospital, who are sitting in their cells looking like they are waiting to die. There's a notion out there—in fact there's a notion in here at times—that no one serves any more than 25 years in our system, which of course is not true.

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The good news is that when we were out in British Columbia and Alberta, we saw a brand-new facility where they had taken very old people out of prisons—I think we had forgotten what they were in there for, and they probably had too—and we're trying to reintegrate them into the community. They were in a beautiful facility. It was a house. Actually, it is a minimum security facility, and they were in one house by themselves.

The beautiful part of it is that they were being looked after by inmates, who of course were also under minimum security. I've never seen a more dedicated group of people. It was great training for them to go out and reintegrate into society.

There's no hope of integrating these old men. They had medical problems. No old persons' home wants to take them on, plus they're old convicts. My goodness, you wouldn't want them in with our nice, gentile people. I think they're going to stay in that facility forever, but it's a heck of a lot better than what I saw in Dorchester. That was absolutely appalling. I'll tell you, I almost cried because it was so sad. The doors were open. They could go anywhere they wanted to out of the cell, but so what? It was disgusting. I was ashamed for myself and my country.

What the ultimate answer to it is, I don't know, but at least they're taking a step out west. It's a pilot program. I think they're going to find that they can't reintegrate them; they're just going to have to keep them, but boy, in a lot better surroundings for their last few days.

You mentioned academics in many cases being loose cannons. That's something we need. Loose cannons tend to go off, and when the explosion dies down things are rearranged. That's what we need. Quite frankly, I think it's part of our mandate not to look at this act and see if it's perfect, which it won't be when we're finished with it either, but see if we can make it a little better than it was, and in some cases drastically better.

In my lifetime I've seen the penal system and the justice system change markedly. The reason there's so much publicity in the papers about crime now is...it never used to be printed. We fixed those people. We put them away and never saw them again. And don't put the prison in my area; put it way off up north somewhere.

I think we're on the right road. I don't think I'll ever live to see the end of the road, where everything is perfect, but we're going somewhere. Believe me, we need people like you, people like the ex-RCMP officer, people like the ex-inmate, to give us their perspective on the thing. We'll try to get it a little more right than it is.

Thank you very much for coming.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Grose.

Just one question, Dr. Reid-MacNevin, and that is on Mr. Hoban's last point—the no release without accountability and community follow-up for the cases where people do go to warrant expiry, they refuse any programming and when they walk out CSC knows they're very likely going to see them again. What can you suggest to us to deal with that problem? Obviously we have, as Mr. MacKay likes to say, charter constipation, which we'll be encountering if we attempt to try to do anything by extending sentence, etc. You just can't do that. As a criminologist, what can you suggest to us to deal with that problem?

Dr. Susan Reid-MacNevin: I wish I had that phone booth you were talking about a minute ago.

I don't agree with the idea that you would extend sentences. Probably that legal side of me is in there. I also know that you can't force treatment on anyone. Ultimately some people do go through the system and just want to be left alone to do their time and leave. They are going to have a heck of a time dealing with the outside world, but so be it. They still need to be released.

What would be better, in my estimation, is if we were able to not detain those individuals who don't pose a very serious risk, for a very violent offence, and make them go out on statutory release. I would feel much more satisfied that they were getting some sort of treatment.

I have some experience with the Ontario board of parole, and as you know, provincial sentences are pretty darn short. The guys would say: “I don't need to go to this parole hearing and have these guys ask me all these questions. Why would I bother doing that? I have to sit for another three weeks and I'm out, without any supervision whatsoever.” That has really held true in terms of my thinking around this, that you're much better to have somebody released on full parole with lots of conditions and supervision than you ever are to let somebody go to the date of final warrant of expiry.

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The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Reid-MacNevin. Thank you for coming.

Thank you to all the other witnesses, who I see are still among us. I think we've had a very productive morning.

I thank the committee members. I don't need to worry about them; they don't have an MPs' union. But I do thank our staff, who have been here for almost four and a half hours, our interpreters, our console operators, our research people, and our clerk. Thank you very much. I think we've done a good half-day's work.

Mr. Ivan Grose: We served our sentence; we get to go home now.

The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned.