[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Wednesday, December 11, 1996
[English]
The Chair: We're back. This is our last meeting before Christmas, folks.
We're doing Bill C-55, an act to amend the Criminal Code with respect to high-risk offenders and to amend certain other statutes as well. In addition, we're on Bill C-254, which is Ms Meredith's private member's bill, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Criminal Code.
Just before we start to welcome our witnesses, I'm giving you notice that I received a letter from the Hon. Herb Gray, the Solicitor General, requesting that we table research reports R-39 and R-45, dated January 1995 and July 1996 respectively, as well as the report on the study of the detention provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, dated October 1995.
The Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board, which are both represented here today, prepared the October 1995 report to assist us in establishing a framework for our review of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and the Correctional Service prepared R-39 and R-45 to provide other assistance to us. I have copies here, and we'll accept those as tabled.
Now I'm pleased to welcome Willie Gibbs, who is the chair of the National Parole Board, and also Ole Ingstrup, who is the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada.
I understand each of you has a brief, and then we'll have questions.
Mr. Ole Ingstrup (Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada): Thank you, Madam Chair. I do really appreciate being back here with you and the other members of the committee today to talk about Bill C-55. With your permission, Mr. Gibbs and I would like to make some brief presentations, following which we'd be happy to answer questions about Bill C-55.
With us is Lynn Cuddington from CSC. She will take note of the things to follow up after or during the meeting.
As Commissioner of Corrections, my objective today at this meeting is to examine the clauses of the bill that will have an impact on the work of the Correctional Service of Canada. I've limited my presentation to that area. The first thing I'd like to talk about is dangerous offenders.
The dangerous offender legislation was put in place way back in 1977, and it has remained virtually unchanged since. At that time it replaced the habitual offender and dangerous sexual offender legislation that existed prior to that time. It was the intention to use that new legislation as an extraordinary measure to deal with the most serious offenders.
In order to be found a dangerous offender, an individual must be convicted of a serious personal injury offence. The Crown may then apply for the offender to be designated a dangerous offender if certain tests are met. These tests include demonstrating that the offender has shown a failure to control sexual impulses or that he or she constitutes a threat to the life, safety or physical or mental well-being of other persons.
What do we know at this stage about dangerous offenders?
[Translation]
First of all, Madam Chair, they now constitute one half of one percent of the federal penitentiary population.
Between 1977 and 1995, 181 dangerous offenders came into the Correctional Service of Canada. Twelve of these people died in custody. One was parole for deportation and five reached their warrant expiry date.
Of the 163 dangerous offenders under federal correctional jurisdiction, 159 are incarcerated and four are on conditional release. The dangerous offender population has grown steadily over the last 15 years, with an average of ten new admissions per year.
The number of annual admissions has continued to grow, from an average of 7 a year from 1981 to 1995 to 13 a year from 1991 to 1995. This is an increase of almost 100%. The number of releases of dangerous offenders has remained constant at one a year. Because of revocations of their conditional release, a number of these offenders have been returned to custody. Hence, as I noted above, there are currently only four on conditional release.
The average age is 42 years old at time of sentencing - they are not early in their criminal careers. Only one of them is female. Ninety percent of dangerous offenders have sexual offences in their background. The other 10% list offences including various forms of assault, set fire, attempted murder and even break, enter and commit.
[English]
As the law is written at this point, a dangerous offender can receive either an indeterminate sentence or what we call a regular sentence. Bill C-55 will change that so only an indeterminate sentence can be given.
Also, the current law sets parole eligibility for dangerous offenders at three years, but in fact at this stage dangerous offenders serve an average of 14 years of imprisonment before they are released. Bill C-55 increases the parole eligibility period up to seven years.
The legislation changes the dangerous offender process so only one psychiatrist is needed to testify instead of two. It also provides a six-month period to bring forward a dangerous offender application after sentencing, if new evidence becomes available.
None of these changes is likely to make a huge increase in the number of dangerous offenders. They are a small group and will likely remain that way, but they are one of the most challenging groups of individuals in our federal institutions. Bill C-55 certainly has caused us to rethink how we deal with these kinds of people and how we will deal with them in the future.
The second point I'd like touch upon is long-term offenders and long-term supervision.
This legislation will require CSC to supervise designated offenders for up to 10 years after they have completed their sentence of incarceration, including parole following incarceration. This is a new model for the Correctional Service of Canada and a new tool for the criminal justice system. It intends to enhance our ability to deal with certain high-risk sex offenders to better protect the public.
Under this legislation the National Parole Board will be able to set conditions based on the offender's risk at the time of release. This could be on parole, on statutory release or at warrant expiry when the long-term supervision order commences.
Where possible, the use of existing release programs will be important, in our view, so offenders are not released directly from, for instance, a maximum security institution onto the streets.
Ten years is a long time to supervise somebody, but we're not without experience in that area. We will build on the experience we have in managing long-term periods of supervision, such as with lifers and some of the habitual offenders at this stage.
I know the issue of cost has been raised on several occasions, and my contribution is to mention that the current average cost of supervision is about $9,000 on an annual basis. We have more sophisticated sex offender treatment programs at the other end, particularly one in Vancouver, and out there it costs about $17,000 a year to supervise.
But these are the extremes of the cost. We expect the cost of supervising these people, since they are sex offenders, will be probably somewhere between the two, depending on the profile of the offender and the supervision needed.
[Translation]
I would like to turn now to the issue of earlier day parole for accelerated parole review cases.
During Mr. Rock's appearance before you last week, he said that we need to conserve scarce correction resources for those cases which require incarceration, while dealing with low risk offenders in the community.
This proposal helps us move in that direction. When the current Corrections and Conditional Release Act was enacted in November 1992, it introduced a provision for ``accelerated full parole'' in order to ensure that good candidates for parole were reviewed and released without delay.
To be eligible for accelerated parole, at one third of sentence, the offender must be: serving his or her first federal term of imprisonment; serving for a non-violent offence; and the National Parole Board must be satisfied that the offender is not likely to commit a violent offence before the end of his sentence.
About 1700 offenders in the current incarcerated population are eligible for accelerated parole review. This makes up about 12% of the incarcerated population.
[English]
Since 1992, when this came into force, over 80% of eligible offenders were actually released under the so-called accelerated parole system. In 1995-96 only 1.1% of these offenders had a new offence that included violence, and about 13.4% committed non-violent offences. That means over 85% of that group was successful in that year. That includes the people who were returned to prison for technical violations, or a breach of conditions, as we often call it.
We call these successes because through that re-incarceration and with the Parole Board, we think we have prevented them from committing new crimes.
The accelerated parole provisions in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, however, applied only to full parole. Bill C-55 will allow the offenders who meet the criteria to also be eligible for accelerated day parole.
The bill also returns day parole eligibility to one-sixth of the sentence or six months, whichever is longer. This is what all day parole eligibilities were before 1992. But the change in the law back to what it was before is only applicable to those low-risk, non-violent cases I mentioned before. So it's a limited return, but not at all a full-scale return.
Madam Chair, this concludes my remarks. I'd be pleased to respond to your questions once my colleague, Mr. Gibbs, has concluded his presentation.
Thank you very much.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Thank you, Mr. Ingstrup.
Now we'll hear from Mr. Gibbs.
[Translation]
Mr. Willie Gibbs (Chair, National Parole Board): I too appreciate the opportunity to make a brief statement before responding to your questions.
Bill C-55 contains provisions which will affect the Board's role by adding a new facet in the decision-making process. The provisions give us added tools to deal with both high and low risk offenders at points during and after the period of incarceration.
The impact on the Board will be in two major areas. The first, as a result of the proposed Long Term Offender category.
This new designation will require the Board to be involved in decisions both before and after the warrant expiry date. As it is now, conditional release may be granted at some time during the sentence, to offenders who are considered to be a manageable risk to the community. At warrant expiry, our role currently ends.
However, with the new provisions, the Board may impose additional conditions for the period of long term supervision. The Board will be able to conduct reviews during the period of long term supervision upon referral by the Correctional Service of Canada to determine whether the offender should be allowed to remain in the community following a violation of conditions.
If an offender breaches the Long Term Supervision conditions, the Board will have an option to recommend that an information be laid, charging the offender with the offence of breach of the Long Term Supervision order.
[English]
As with CSC, the impact on resources will depend on the extent to which the courts use these new provisions. It is our estimation, however, that for the National Parole Board there will not be a significant impact, and there will be no impact for several years, at least until the offenders in this category reach warrant expiry.
The second area of impact, as has been mentioned by my colleague, involves the proposed low-risk offender provisions. These will affect the timing of the board's decision-making for day parole in some cases. For the offenders in this category, day parole reviews will be conducted at one-sixth of the sentence or six months, whichever is longer. In some cases this is earlier than the current provision of six months before full parole eligibility.
I believe these provisions will help to reinforce the value of day parole. In recent years, with the implementation of the CCRA, for a variety of reasons we have seen a significant decrease in the number of offenders on day parole. I am hopeful that these new provisions will change that, since day parole, in my view, is a valuable tool in the reintegration of federal offenders.
The provisions of Bill C-55 are consistent with the need to focus resources for incarceration on the highest-risk offenders and also with the need to deal safely with low-risk offenders in the community, under supervision and control. I can assure you we will implement any legislative provision in close cooperation with our partners in CSC and in a manner consistent with our role in contributing to public safety.
Thank you. We are now prepared to respond to your questions.
[Translation]
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Thank you very much. Mr. Langlois, you have ten minutes.
Mr. Langlois (Bellechasse): You have just said that you were going to take the necessary steps to enforce the act. My question pertains to the Auditor General's comments about the Correctional Services' lack of funding.
I have been told that, in Quebec fewer and fewer dangerous offenders requiring treatment, such as high risk sexual offenders, are being transferred to the Pinel Institute, where they can receive adequate treatment, and that they are simply being incarcerated for the duration of their sentence. Have you any figures, any statistics or comments with respect to this statement that we hear from time to time about the situation in Quebec?
Mr. Ingstrup: A group of experts from the Pinel Institute together with employees from the Correctional Service of Canada are currently discussing the situation of offenders with mental problems in the Quebec region.
I personally met with the executive of the Pinel Institute and was told that more services were required. These people are, of course, experts. We are currently discussing their requirements in order to come up with a solution that is acceptable to both parties.
Mr. Langlois: Hence I was telling you that the Pinel Institute perhaps had fewer resources than it did in the past and you have told me that you are working on the problem, but half the people working in the field observed a decrease in resources at Pinel?
Mr. Ingstrup: Mr. Langlois, the services provided by the Pinel Institute are paid for on a per inmate, per month or per day basis. We identify the inmates requiring these services, and if they are sent to the Philippe-Pinel Institute, we pay for these services. Obviously, if no inmates are sent, we don't pay.
Mr. Langlois: Let's talk about high risk sexual offenders. Let's take the case of pedophiles who are sexually excited at seeing or touching a child. If we isolate them for three, four or five years, they will still have the same sexual impulse upon release; they will still be attracted by a child if they have not received any treatment.
Are you able to send all of these pedophiles to treatment centres such as the Pinel Institute after their sentence?
Mr .Ingstrup: I cannot tell you that all pedophiles will be sent to the Pinel Institute, because we have just decided that offenders with mental problems who are under the care of the Correctional Service of Canada will be referred to the Archambault Institute. I cannot tell you whether we will be able to treat certain groups of pedophiles at the Archambault Institute.
However, we are working closely with experts at the Philippe-Pinel Institute and we have also established community-based programs to help us deal with parole.
We also have resources in the community. Very often, as a condition of parole, the Board makes it mandatory that the offender participate in the sexual offender treatment programs.
Mr. Langlois: Disregarding quite radical treatments such as chemical or natural castration, what types of treatment are given to pedophiles at a place such as Pinel or Archambault? What is done in practical terms? Is there a standard method of treatment or is treatment tailor-made to suit the inmates, and if so, how is this done?
Mr. Ingstrup: Personally, I'm no expert in treatment programs for sexual offenders, but over the past few years, a lot of progress has been made in this field. We now have nearly 100 different programs in Canada and we are trying to identify those programs that are best suited for certain individuals. Therefore, the standards are not the same everywhere, for all sexual offenders. We are in the process of establishing standards for pedophiles and for various other groups.
If you wish, we can provide you with the services of our experts in the field of sexual offender treatment.
Mr. Langlois: I would really appreciate it if you would follow up on this matter with our clerk, Mr. Dupuis.
I am getting one message from what you were saying. Basically, I do not want to hear an alarmist message. However, dangerous sexual offenders, particularly those who commit offences against children, are likely to serve their full sentence and avoid detection in the system. Upon release, such offenders almost automatically reoffend.
Mr. Ingstrup: No, that is not the case at all. I cannot say that that will never happen, because I am not familiar with all the cases, but, generally speaking, the treatment requirements are established very soon after the sentence begins and these offenders are placed in adequate programs.
Mr. Langlois: I will have further questions during the second round, Madam Chair.
Mr. Ingstrup: We have had an absolutely phenomenal increase in the number of places for sexual offenders. In 1985, we had about 200 places for sexual inmates. Today, we have more than 2,000. This is therefore an extraordinary increase, exceeding by far the increases noted in the other treatment fields.
Mr. Langlois: Would you say that this is because the people have been identified and we now have the means to treat them, or is it because, back in 1985, these people were not detected but existed all the same in society? Do you think that today's society is at greater risk or more conscious of the problem?
Mr. Ingstrup: We have had a significant increase in the number of inmates in this category, but our knowledge of this problem is much more developed than it was 10 or 12 years ago.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Gibbs, you have nothing to add?
Mr. Gibbs: The question was for the Correctional Service. When there is a question for the Board, I will answer. Thank you.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Hanger.
[English]
Mr. Hanger (Calgary Northeast): Thank you, Madam Chair.
My first question is to the commissioner on a point of clarification, if I might. You pointed out on page 4 that 90% of dangerous offenders have sexual offences in their background. Are you referring to the present classification of dangerous offender?
Mr. Ingstrup: Yes, the population we have today - the 159.
Mr. Hanger: Referring to the changes in Bill C-55, will the classification as it sits today include the same kinds of offences in the dangerous offender legislation?
Mr. Ingstrup: I believe so.
Mr. Hanger: You believe so? The reason I ask is that it doesn't seem to point to that.
You point out serious personal injury offences as a classification under which a dangerous offender must be convicted of any one of those particular offences, and yet the reference to long-term offenders seems to deal more with sexual offenders.
Mr. Ingstrup: That's right, but that's a different thing. I believe the dangerous offender legislation is basically the same category of offenders that we're talking about, the number of changes to that. But the long-term offenders are those who are going under long-term supervision. It's intended to deal exclusively with sex offenders.
Mr. Hanger: Would you consider sexual offenders, like predators or the like, dangerous offenders?
Mr. Ingstrup: There is a detailed schedule in the act that -
Mr. Hanger: I know there's a personal -
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Because it makes it hard for translation, could we letMr. Ingstrup finish, and then you could start? It would be easier.
Mr. Hanger: I realize there's a list for personal injury offences that are classified as dangerous offender, but they do not make any reference really to the offences that many sexual predators commit.
Mr. Ingstrup: The serious personal injury offences do include sex offences.
Mr. Hanger: Well, I might point out a series of sexual offences that really are not included under the designation ``personal injury offence.''
Mr. Ingstrup: I think that is really, Madame Chair, a technical question for the Department of Justice. I would be a little hesitant to make the interpretation of those provisions.
Mr. Hanger: That's fair enough. I think there is quite a difference there, but the list does not include many sexual offences for predators, I might point out.
The Auditor General, in his November 1996 report, says that the public safety is in jeopardy because of a serious flaw in federal prison programs for releasing offenders into the community. He goes on to state that one of the contributing factors to the poor quality release decisions is inadequate, inaccurate, incomplete and out-of-date information on the offender population. Certainly there are critics who point out that it's the offender management system that really is behind this condition, if you will.
My understanding of the OMS, or the offender manager system, is that it is used to track the whereabouts and the situations of offenders designated as dangerous or long-term under Bill C-55. Is that not the case?
Mr. Ingstrup: OMS will track all our offenders, and obviously as soon as these offenders get into our system, they will be there too.
Mr. Hanger: Okay, so I would ask you this: Given that there's been a $100-million expenditure and 11 years behind this OMS, the system, according to the Auditor General and others, is incapable of providing timely, accurate and reliable information. Now how is Corrections Canada prepared to manage the information on dangerous offenders and long-term offenders if they can't even manage a system under OMS right now?
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Ingstrup?
Mr. Ingstrup: Madame Chair, I would like through you to say to Mr. Hanger that the OMS system is a huge technical system. It does have some flaws; there's no doubt about that. But by and large, it is one of the finest programs to be found anywhere. We have people coming from all over the world to find out how they can copy the OMS system.
One of the problems is not so much OMS as it is the question of getting information into OMS. OMS is just a computer system; it's nothing more than that. So unless we put the information into the system, it won't show anything. It won't ask for information itself. One of the problems the Auditor General has pointed out, and accurately, is that we sometimes have difficulties - not all the time, but sometimes there are difficulties in getting police information, the judges' reasons for a decision, and sometimes crown briefs.
The interesting thing from a legislative point of view is that the corrections act requires the Correctional Service of Canada to go out and get that information, but it does not impose on the provinces or anybody else to provide the information. We have been in negotiation with provinces and police forces and crowns and judges to find a way of getting more information in those areas.
Madame Chair, I can tell you that my minister sees that as a very high priority item, and of course I do too. So we're working hard to improve that.
It is not such that we release people without information on them - obviously not. We have information on every offender that goes through the system. But there may be pieces of information and facts in documents that we don't have, and that is what the Auditor General has pointed to.
We take that observation very seriously, and we're working hard to improve it. I have a person at this point in time looking into the whole OMS system and the whole management of technology to make sure that if improvements can be made they will be made.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): You have three minutes.
Mr. Hanger: I've noticed, again in the Auditor General's report, that dealing with the caseload, the activities of the case managers and the responsibility for preparing reports that go to the parole board have been cited as somewhat of a serious concern. Given the fact that a lot of the case managers or those evaluating the inmates have to spend their time doing other things that really the Correctional Services people, the guards and the like, should be doing, is there a shortage of manpower within the prison system that would take away the research time required by the case managers to evaluate inmates?
Mr. Ingstrup: No. Actually it may sound strange for a manager in today's society, but I'm not complaining about too few resources.
The question is are we using our resources as well as we could. The Auditor General is really raising the issue of should we be looking at a better way of utilizing the resources we have. Obviously we could use more resources - any organization could do that - but it's not the issue here.
What we have done, Madame Chair and Mr. Hanger, is establish about two or three months ago a task force within the Correctional Service of Canada to look into the whole reintegration process. If you look at the Auditor General's latest report and see that in the context of his three previous reports, it seems to me there is a question of a good flow of the whole reintegration process that ought to be looked at. That is what the minister and I have established a task force to look at.
We will look at it in a very systematic way, from the time people get into our system and right to warrant expiry, and ask ourselves at every point if we have the right process, the right resources and the right documentation in place, and if we are doing it in a timely fashion. That report will come out, Madame Chair, in January of next year. We're working with the National Parole Board, because if they're not happy not much will happen.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Hanger, you have about 30 seconds. Do you want to use it now or add it to your next round?
Mr. Hanger: I'll add it to the next round.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Maloney.
Mr. Maloney (Erie): Thank you.
On page 5 of your presentation you acknowledge that the legislation will require you to supervise designated offenders for up to ten years, that this is a new role, and that you will take steps to enhance your ability to do so.
I refer again to the Auditor General's report, where it refers to a recurring theme. I can quote it here:
- In the November 1994 Report, the chapter on community corrections noted that no accepted,
standardized, professional practices existed for managing released offenders. For example,
``sex offenders would be seen three times per week in one region, but only once a month in
another.'' There were ``no district-wide or region-wide measures to determine the success of
different practices in managing groups of high-risk offenders...or of reliably assessing trends
of such groups over time.'' The audit found that Correctional Service had problems
implementing improvements on operational performance. Finally, we found that while there
were ``many good management practices for ensuring high-quality supervision'', the Service
was ``not effective at identifying good practices and implementing them nationally where
appropriate.'' The audit concluded that Correctional Service had ``an institutional mindset'',
which caused the management of reintegration activities to ``take second place.''
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In light of those comments in the Auditor General's report, how can I have confidence that you will properly prepare and supervise these sex offenders? What measures do you intend to take to deal with these high-risk offenders, to better protect the public?
Mr. Ingstrup: Madame Chair, I think what the Auditor General is pointing to is that there are differences from one region to the other. Both the minister and I are of the view that these differences are too significant. You'll never get the same from coast to coast to coast, but you need to have certain standards.
The reintegration task force I mentioned to Mr. Hanger is also going to look into standards for supervision. I do believe, though, that although the standards and the amount of supervision is not always the same across the country, you can be pretty assured that the minimum supervision of what is going on is at a pretty high level of quality.
It doesn't mean we can't improve. I really think we can, and the task forces that have been established are aiming at finding ways of improving. We also need to share more information across the land. But I think it's important to bear in mind that the general level of supervision within the Correctional Service of Canada is very, very high.
I know one of your witnesses the other day was talking about us having 50 to 60 people under supervision. I have to say, Madame Chair, that in the Correctional Service of Canada we probably have the lowest caseload for supervision in the community of anywhere in the world. On average, it is less than 20 offenders per supervisor. I started that process when I was here last time, and it has continued with the help of ministers and the commissioner who was here in between.
Although there are differences, although there are weaknesses in the system, which we take seriously and are going to do something about, I think you can be pretty assured that the general level is of high quality.
Mr. Maloney: I'm more interested in knowing what these... You're talking about a reintegration task force. Are you relying or waiting everything on what this task force is going to bring forward, or do you have anything now that can give me a little more confidence in your ability to supervise?
Mr. Ingstrup: We have supervision standards that set out minimum standards for contact when people are high-risk high-need, or low-risk low-need, and any combination of needs and risks. I believe in the vast majority of cases you can count on this happening. We are reviewing offenders on a regular basis according to the case management system, and I think we are matching offender supervision to the offender's risk to a level where I can say in general CSC is delivering good supervision to the offenders we have.
You'll also see from the relationship we have with the parole board and reports we write to them that these cannot be written by people who are not in touch with the offenders.
Mr. Maloney: Can you tell us how CSC does assess a high-risk offender from a low-risk offender?
Mr. Ingstrup: As a matter of fact, until a few years ago it was seen as almost impossible to do that. But the Correctional Service of Canada and some of our colleagues in the academic community have worked very hard together to find ways of at least helping us identify high-risk offenders from lower-risk offenders.
We have a number of systems in place, and they are basically all built on one fundamental model. It's almost too primitive for me to say it this way, but it's the best way of explaining it, Madame Chair. We are really talking about two sets of risk factors. There are those we can't do much about, the stable, unchangeable risk factors: the person's childhood, previous incarcerations, previous criminal patterns, and a number of others. Then there's a whole series of variables we can do something about, such as breaking patterns, educational programs, cognitive skills, and all the rest of it.
Every time the Correctional Service of Canada makes a risk assessment, it takes all these factors into consideration. It identifies those areas where we can do something about inmates' program needs and we then try to address those so that we eliminate the risk that is dependent on the variable factors. Obviously, the stable factors we can't do anything about.
This is the information that is being given to the National Parole Board. That's the information we also use when we assess inmates for our own supervision purposes.
Mr. Maloney: You're saying you can't do anything about the stable factors. There's nothing that can be done to counter them?
Mr. Ingstrup: No; we have defined them that way. The stable ones are those you can't do anything about, such as poor schooling, poor childhood education, criminal history, and these kinds of things. You can't do much about that.
Mr. Maloney: You refer to the low-risk offender aspect in your report too. Can you elaborate on these measures or on the low-risk offenders in more detail? What is being done or what do you propose to do with those?
Mr. Ingstrup: The low-risk offenders in Bill C-55 are those who are in a penitentiary for the first time for an offence that is non-violent and where the Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board agree that these people can be released without the risk of them committing a violent offence before warrant expiry. That is the way the act defines it.
These people will normally be released under a variety of conditions depending on their needs and finally on the decision made by the parole board. In the community we will supervise these people. We will give them access to programs to the extent that the programs are there, and they are in more and more locations now in the community. What we call relapse prevention programs will make sure that they stay crime free in the community.
What is happening in Bill C-55 is that the assumption that this kind of offender can be managed more easily and risk-free in the society is being extended to what Mr. Gibbs called an important conditional release program, namely the day parole program. Instead of limiting them to full parole, we would like to have them included in the day parole area. That is exactly what Bill C-55 is doing.
Once they are in the community, they will be treated like any of the other offenders. If their risk changes in the process, we will of course do something about it.
Mr. Maloney: Thank you.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Langlois.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois: We were told, and the media made a big deal about this, that in the murder case of young Isabelle Bolduc in the Sherbrooke region, her killer, who was a former inmate, was allegedly released because the Correctional Service of Canada officer who was to prepare a file on his evaluation as an inmate apparently altered this file to his advantage because he had had sexual relations with the murderer. Have you investigated this matter?
Mr. Ingstrup: We are currently conducting an investigation which has almost been completed. Obviously, this is a case that we are taking very very seriously.
Very experienced people from the Correctional Service are conducting an investigation. The report will be submitted to me shortly, and it will also be submitted to the Chair of the National Parole Board. We are expecting the report towards the end of December or early in January. I cannot comment on the details at this time, because I have not yet read the report.
Mr. Langlois: Could you at least reassure us, at this point, since the investigation is in progress, that Correctional Service officers are not investigating their own colleagues, since this would be contrary to ethical standards? Could you tell whether or not these people are outside of the Service and can you affirm that, should their opinion be unfavourable, that they will not have to fear for their physical safety or anything else?
Mr. Ingstrup: We try be as objective as possible. It is not the colleagues who are... The individual heading the investigation is currently a director general at the national headquarters. He has worked in the supervision field and he is currently director general of programs. In other words, this is an individual with a great deal of experience in this field.
If I recall correctly, someone outside of the Service is participating in this investigation, but I do not remember his name. If you wish, we could provide the information to you.
Mr. Langlois: Have you targeted any other cases similar to this one, where the reports that were to be submitted to the National Parole Board were altered because of the very privileged relations that the Correctional Service officers were enjoying with inmates applying for parole?
Mr. Ingstrup: I cannot comment on this because I am not aware of the facts.
Mr. Langlois: You say that you cannot comment on this. Is this because you do not know of any cases?
Mr. Ingstrup: I prefer to wait for the data provided by the group conducting the investigation. At this point, it would be irresponsible to enter into a discussion of this type.
Mr. Langlois: I understand that the task force you refer to is not investigating the Bolduc case alone, but other cases as well.
Mr. Ingstrup: The task force is only investigating the Bolduc case.
Mr. Langlois: To your knowledge, there are no other cases?
Mr. Ingstrup: No, not that I know of.
Mr. Langlois: Does the National Parole Board share the same opinion? Are there any investigations being conducted on files that were allegedly altered to make the Correctional Service officers' reports look better when inmates apply for parole?
Mr. Gibbs: I am not aware of that, Mr. Langlois.
Mr. Langlois: You are not aware of this. If this were happening, would you normally be aware of it?
Mr. Gibbs: If this were to come out in the investigation report, we would be aware of it, but, as my colleague said, the investigation is in progress. We have not been apprized of the data and recommendations.
Mr. Langlois: On another subject entirely, I would like you to tell me the number of inmates, in Quebec, for whom indeterminate sentence orders have been issued. Could you then tell me where such orders are issued in Canada? Is it possible that the figures for Quebec appear abnormally high, whereas in other areas of Canada, they appear to be low, simply because the place of incarceration varies and the origin of the offender is not taken into account at this time?
Mr. Ingstrup: If you want to make a comparison between the various regions of Canada, the figures are quite different. Historically speaking, it is very clear that the Quebec region has made very little use of dangerous offender provisions. On the other hand, the regions of Ontario and of the Pacific use these provisions more often.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Telegdi, five minutes.
[English]
Mr. Telegdi (Waterloo): Mr. Ingstrup, can you tell me what impact this is going to have on your budget?
Mr. Ingstrup: As I said, at this stage we don't expect a huge difference as a result of the dangerous offender provision. That has never been envisaged, so in that area we have not made any particular provision.
As far as the long-term supervision is concerned, we don't have exact numbers, and I don't believe, sir, that we need them at this stage. We will know at least two years in advance before it starts to kick in because the shortest sentence that can lead to long-term supervision is a two-year sentence.
Also, the way in which CSC is funded is dependent on the number of inmates we have in the community and the number of inmates we have in our institutions. We have an almost automatic funding of our inmate population. It would be almost impossible to estimate at this time how many we're going to have. It will depend completely on how the prosecutors and judges are going to use these provisions.
Mr. Telegdi: In the case of the low-risk offender, I imagine that you would be saving money by not having them in institutions and by having them supervised in the community. Would that not be the case?
Mr. Ingstrup: Yes, absolutely. And in that case obviously we're going to be funded on the basis of these people being in the community, with fewer in the institutions.
Mr. Telegdi: You mentioned that you have fewer than 20 clients per supervisor.
Mr. Ingstrup: In every jail.
Mr. Telegdi: Is that an average?
Mr. Ingstrup: Yes.
Mr. Telegdi: So some who are working with high-risk offenders have how low a number of clients?
Mr. Ingstrup: I could not say. As a matter of fact, in various places there is a type of supervision that we call intensive supervision, where we have two parole officers on a caseload of 24 offenders to make sure there is always a parole officer who is on duty for the caseload. Two people will share a caseload of 24 when we do particularly intensive supervision.
Mr. Telegdi: So there is one parole officer per 12 inmates.
Mr. Ingstrup: That's right. It's for those in intensive supervision. And there may be times when parole officers have such difficult cases that we will have significantly lower numbers. For some offenders we feel that we have to put a lot of energy into knowing what they're doing and how they're faring, and we will do that. We can do that.
Mr. Telegdi: Your average figure of 20 people under supervision per officer, given your average cost of $9,000, works out to $180,000 for every supervisor that you have.
Mr. Ingstrup: Yes.
Mr. Telegdi: That seems a little high.
Mr. Ingstrup: If that was a salary I would tend to agree with you, but it's not a salary. Administrative overhead of course has to be covered, along with a lot of programs. It's not based on the number of parole officers; it's based on what it costs to have a person in the community. They participate in programs like sex offender treatment programs and relapse prevention programs. It's the total of all of those costs that amounts to about $9,000.
Mr. Telegdi: The other thing I've noticed from your numbers is that you're talking about the average age of a dangerous offender being 42 -
Mr. Ingstrup: At the sentencing. Yes.
Mr. Telegdi: Yes. The average age is 42 at the time of sentencing, so if they're in custody for 14 years, they'll be 56 when they come out for supervision, and then you have 10 years of supervision after that, so there will be -
Mr. Ingstrup: No. This is different. When the dangerous offender gets released, and if it has been determined at sentencing that we will continue to supervise them, we will -
A voice: Forever.
Mr. Ingstrup: - forever. The 10 years, sir, comes into play with those sex offenders the judge has decided to put under long-term supervision after the expiry of their warrants. It's a different type from the dangerous offender. But there may be dangerous offenders we would be supervising for 10 years or more, depending on when they're being released. I put the number in to show that this is a tightening, but the system is not a very lenient system as it is now. People are actually spending a lot of time behind bars when they are dangerous offenders.
Mr. Telegdi: What's the drop of the risk factor as they get over 65?
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): I'm sorry, Mr. Telegdi, your time has run out. There will be a couple of more rounds. Ms Meredith is on now.
Ms Meredith (Surrey - White Rock - South Langley): Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Gibbs, in discussing another piece of legislation before the House in the first session of this Parliament, you and the former Commissioner of Corrections expressed a concern about being placed in a position of knowingly having to release individuals considered to be dangerous, considered to be a high risk to reoffend - causing personal injury or death to an individual upon release - but you had no legislative option to keep known high-risk offenders incarcerated. Will Bill C-55 make a difference with that aspect? Will you still end up having to release known high-risk offenders who may cause serious injury or death to an individual?
Mr. Gibbs: They will have to be released at warrant expiry. But I think the point we were making at the time was that we didn't have any further control - we the system, we the CSC, we the board - to put some appropriate conditions on people. I think Bill C-55 addresses this, because we will now have up to ten years of supervision, and conditions to be imposed on those cases.
Ms Meredith: Can those conditions be placed on individuals who have already been sentenced, who are already in the system, or do those conditions have to be placed around the time of sentencing?
Mr. Gibbs: First of all, the designation of the long-term offender will happen in the same way as the designation of the dangerous offender.
Ms Meredith: At the time of sentencing.
Mr. Gibbs: Or in a six-month window that we're talking about there.
Once they are identified, when the time comes for them to be released - on unconditional release or statutory release, for example - or at warrant expiry, the Correctional Service Canada will present or recommend to us, the board, what kinds of conditions would be appropriate to better control that person.
Ms Meredith: So for those inmates who have not been declared dangerous offenders, who are presently in the system, Bill C-55 will not allow the supervisory period to be extended after warrant expiry.
Mr. Gibbs: I think you are correct there. Unless the CSC does see them as being a threat to society at statutory release time - they will commit a serious offence, including causing death - those who are now in the system can ask us or the parole board for certain conditions. However, at that warrant expiry, those that are there now will not be affected.
Ms Meredith: The committee is also studying a private member's bill, Bill C-254, which in essence is the former government's reaction, if you will, to dangerous offenders. That legislation was developed with input from the Correctional Service and input from the parole board, as well as other government officials. Why have the department officials walked away from post-sentence detention, which would protect society from the release of known dangerous offenders who are not designated under the dangerous offender category, those individuals who are presently incarcerated, who are known to be a high risk? Why did you, in Bill C-55, walk away from that issue?
Mr. Gibbs: Madam Chair, I don't think I personally walked away from it. I'm not a lawyer, but I would like to point out that there's an issue of double jeopardy here. With a person who has already been convicted and sentenced, it would be extremely difficult to turn around and give him another ten years of incarceration because we think he's dangerous. I don't think the provisions of our Charter of Rights would allow that. Our legal advisers tell us that even the window of six months is pushing it far enough.
Ms Meredith: We had a witness here yesterday who testified he felt - and he was a lawyer - even C-55 would be challenged under the charter. But should we not try something because of a potential challenge under the charter, or should we try to solve a problem, an issue, before us, that known high-risk offenders are going to be out on the street at warrant expiry and there's nothing the system under Bill C-55 will do to prevent that from happening? You as the chairperson of the Parole Board will have to allow people you know are likely to hurt or to kill somebody back out onto the street at warrant expiry.
Mr. Gibbs: Maybe Mr. Ingstrup has some views on it too, but I believe the provisions being proposed in Bill C-55 are fairly stringent, in that the conditions and the length of time can be for up to ten years. The control we would put in, as Mr. Ingstrup has said, as far as supervision is concerned, is that generally they will be seen as needing intensive supervision. If they breach any of those conditions, then the case is returned to the board, where we have the opportunity to send that case to the court. Then the judge can impose a sentence of up to ten years of incarceration.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Wouldn't there also be the possibility of using the electronic monitoring provision, the third part of Bill C-55, for somebody you thought was still a risk?
Mr. Ingstrup: I think the electronic monitoring idea was associated mostly with the peace bond area of the law. There are some provinces in this country which experiment with electronic monitoring and they know much more about it than we do. In CSC, where we usually have long-term offenders that require a lot of personal contact and programs and stuff, we have not used electronic monitoring all that extensively, although we have a program of that nature out in B.C. At this point I think there are one or two offenders on it.
It's a very specialized group of people we have, the offenders we have. It's much more applicable to the groups the provinces usually look after. The provinces are also going to look after the peace bond cases.
There's nothing in the act that prevents us from using electronic monitoring. It's just that traditionally we have more used the direct personal supervision and have found that good for our clients.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Discepola.
Mr. Discepola (Vaudreuil): I want to question on two aspects. One is the long-term supervision category.
I understand very well, and you've clarified it now, because your brief wasn't very clear, it's only going to kick in - and the National Parole Board has responsibility - in essence after the person has fully served their sentence. When somebody is on parole, for example, do you provide special programming or counselling, or is it just something supervisory in nature that the National Parole Board requires, plus maybe some residency restrictions?
Mr. Gibbs: The supervision is provided by the Correctional Service of Canada. We're a quasi-judicial body. We make the decision to supervise.
Mr. Discepola: But during that period are you providing counselling services, are you providing programming services, or is it strictly supervisory in nature?
Mr. Ingstrup: No, we would provide supervision in the same fashion as we would for any other offenders. It's not just knowing where the offender is at what time. If we identify needs that these offenders have and if we have programs or can develop programs that can reduce the risk of these offenders re-offending, that's what we will do and those are the programs we will get.
Mr. Discepola: My concern is between statutory release and the time when the person is on full parole. An awful lot of case managers have told me they can pretty well tell whether an offender is going to reoffend when we let him out.
It seems to me the statutory release provisions are very generous in favour of the offender. They don't give you enough leeway to be able to keep somebody in when you know darn well they're going to reoffend once we let them out. So even though you might impose residency, even though you might say they are going to have to follow treatments, are you comfortable the C-55 statutory release conditions will give you the flexibility you need to be able to detect those who are going to reoffend?
Mr. Ingstrup: Mr. Discepola, I don't want to downgrade my people's ability to forecast future behaviour, but sometimes future behaviour is easier to forecast when things have happened. Sometimes they will say ``we knew this offender was going to reoffend''; but there are many situations where people have said that and where offenders have not reoffended. It is, as a matter of fact, quite astonishing and wonderful to me that, I believe, five out of six offenders released on statutory release - not normal parole but statutory release - are actually not reoffending during their supervision.
Mr. Discepola: It's the one out of six we always hear about.
Mr. Ingstrup: That's right. That's exactly it.
If you are asking me whether this is enough, I think it's a political decision to decide what is enough. But what I can say is that I find that the Correctional Service of Canada, in combination with the National Parole Board, has a lot of tools to use in the control of risk from offenders.
Statutory release can be limited by the detention provisions. We should never forget that on an annual basis we actually have about 400 people who are being detained to much closer to the end of their sentences, particularly because the detention provisions were expanded at one point. They are actually quite broad now and can be used for all kinds of serious matters.
I don't think from a purely professional correctional point of view I would say we're short of instruments. Prediction is always a very delicate thing and never a 100% sure kind of science, but the instruments are there as well as we can get them.
Mr. Discepola: But you stated during your presentation, and I think I'm quoting you correctly, we need to share more information across the land. I've heard this from many jurisdictions.
In your response to Mr. Maloney's question about risk assessment and profile, you state that you use previous incarceration history, and more important, the childhood behaviour. If takes you a year and a half to get responses from the Attorneys General of the provinces on the previous history of these people, when they were serving under the provincial institutions, what are we doing with the provinces to hammer them over the head to say look, we have to share information more rapidly so we can better serve the public?
Mr. Ingstrup: Let me say two things, sir. One is that it is of concern to us. We are working on it and it is working in many places. Many police forces have been very helpful. Many jurisdictions are extremely forthcoming. But there are areas where it doesn't work all that well.
I can tell you that my minister is very determined to have these things fixed. We are working on it. The minister himself is working on it. I don't think it is ill-will, but there are always complications when you have to work across jurisdictions.
One of the things we are exploring at the officials level is whether we can, in the computer age we live in, combine access to the information bank so that we don't have to ask people for information; we would just take it from there. I think progress is being made.
When you read the Auditor General's report, you may get the impression that this is representing a huge thing. I don't think that is the case and it wasn't intended that way. In many cases we have the information; in some cases where we don't have the information, it wouldn't have made a difference, but then there is this nagging question of whether we would have reacted if we had just had a little more. The work we are doing is to get that last bit of information.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Thank you, Mr. Ingstrup. Thank you, Mr. Discepola.
Mr. Langlois, pour cinq minutes.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois: Mr. Gibbs, when I questioned you earlier about young Isabelle Bolduc's murderer, you clearly answered that only one case was under investigation. According to my information, at the Cowansville penitentiary, there are at least two other cases where Correction Service officers were dismissed on these grounds. Officers from the Service allegedly had very privileged relations, especially sexual relations, with the inmates. Could you tell me whether your earlier statement needs to be qualified a bit, or do you maintain that there are no other cases aside from the one involving the murderer of young Isabelle Bolduc?
Mr. Gibbs: The Correctional Service is responsible for the management of case management officers at Cowansville. If I understood your question pertaining to the Bolduc or Blanchette case correctly, you were asking me whether there was any information pertaining to other people.
The report has not yet been completed. I do not have this information. I am not responsible for what occurs at Cowansville.
Mr. Langlois: Could the Correctional Service answer this question?
Mr. Ingstrup: This is the first time I have heard of this, but if you have any information that indicates that there may be some problems, I would like to know about it so that I can look into the situation. This is the first time I've heard of this.
Mr. Langlois: Thank you. That is all.
[English]
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Ms Cohen.
Ms Cohen (Windsor - St. Clair): With respect to the electronic monitoring, I appreciate that under section 810 this will be a provincial concern. The provincial Attorneys General will use it. But is there any likelihood that electronic monitoring itself could be used by the parole board or would be used by either the parole board or Corrections Canada generally, in terms of monitoring day parole? I know you talked about it in the Pacific region, but is there any other plan for any general application of it?
Mr. Gibbs: In day parole the return is nightly to a facility, whether it's an institution or a community residential centre. If I understand electronic monitoring, which is from a distance because we've never applied it even when I was in CSC or at this date, it is specially for leisure time. You know where the person is during leisure time. When a person has day parole leisure time, he's at the prison or he's at the CRC. So it's already taken care of much more assertively than electronic monitoring.
Ms Cohen: I guess this doesn't apply to you, but what I was thinking was that electronic monitoring or any of the provisions in proposed section 810.2 could be used to capture people who are in prison now, who haven't had any special designation, and who couldn't be designated as long-term offenders because of double jeopardy rules and that sort of thing. I appreciate that I was out with my dry, hacking cough there for a while, so I may have missed part of this, but it seems to me that this is going to be really helpful. We're now going to be able to capture that part of the prison population which we should be very nervous about releasing, but which we're bound to release because they're coming to the end of their sentences. So proposed section 810.2 - the electronic monitoring, all of those conditions - is going to be very helpful in terms of managing that risk, is it not? I think the answer is yes.
Mr. Gibbs: I would think so. The experience they had in Newfoundland, or that they're having in Newfoundland, is very positive. In fact it is the John Howard Society that has a contract with the province to run its electronic monitoring. But instead of applying it to people who are going to prison, you apply it to avoid using prison and you monitor them in a different way. And these are very basically lower-risk offenders than what we're talking about.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Of course in this legislation we're talking about those people for whom the possibility is that they haven't committed another crime, but we want them to have monitoring because there's a likelihood given past behaviours or certain conditions or whatever.
Mr. Ingstrup: Madam Chair, I think the kind of people we would be supervising under the ten-year provision will need to have a personal contact. We'll need to look after them in a personal way as well. It's possible that a combination of electronic monitoring and the personal contact would be okay, but I would be reluctant to rely only on electronic monitoring for this particular group of people.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): But for those people who are currently in prison, who are not DOs, who are not long-term offenders, who we don't have anything more on, who have reached the end of their sentence, who we're very concerned about, we could apply under the provisions of 810.2 in order to have them monitored for up to a year.
Mr. Ingstrup: That's right.
Madam, if I may just add something, if that is the case, if we're talking about the kind of people you have identified, then I think keeping a good human eye on it on top of or besides or in addition to electronic monitoring would make me feel better about it. But it depends on the individual and the combination of tools we have. Electronic monitoring is one.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Ms Meredith, do you have additional questions?
Ms Meredith: Mr. Hanger does.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Oh, sorry, Mr. Hanger.
Mr. Hanger: Just going through this discussion this afternoon has revealed a few other things to me. Apart from the provisions of the judicial restraint and maybe something dealing with the aboriginal side, where there's some communication into the community - which I think should apply right across the country to every community, as opposed to just the aboriginal community - the only thing that really is added to this particular bill is that there is an opportunity up front for an argument possibly to be extended for long-term and dangerous offenders, and that is it: that six-month window. Apart from that, the parole board will operate in the same fashion for any other designation, regardless of what the offence may be, if they are not declared dangerous or otherwise. Is that correct?
Mr. Gibbs: Well, not quite.
Mr. Hanger: What is the difference?
Mr. Gibbs: The dangerous offenders.
Mr. Hanger: That's what I'm saying. Apart from this argument, it will now be permissible in court for a declaration of dangerous or long-term offender.
Mr. Gibbs: That's right.
Mr. Hanger: You will be operating in the same fashion as you were before on any other offence or any other conviction.
Mr. Gibbs: Yes, I think so.
Mr. Hanger: So the matter - again dealing with the argument up front - is really not changed a whole lot. In fact it does provide the legal minds, I suppose, with more opportunities to argue a case that may not even go anywhere, because there are no guarantees. Even after the second offence is committed and even after the individual is released on either one of those, the person is still not automatically declared a dangerous offender or a long-term offender if he commits another offence. That will have to be argued in court again.
Mr. Gibbs: Yes. That's right.
Mr. Hanger: That's the only very narrow aspect this bill has introduced. Dangerous people are still going to be let out onto the streets.
Mr. Gibbs: Hopefully not by the National Parole Board. We are not in the business of releasing violent and dangerous offenders. And I think I -
Mr. Hanger: I appreciate that, but -
Mr. Gibbs: - showed you statistics last spring indicating that the number of people who are on conditional release, including statutory release, is down by over one-third from last year. The trend this year is very much the same. At the end of the fiscal year we'll show you the statistics again. I don't think this is just good luck. We're not in that kind of business.
Here's what I think we're looking at: yes, under the current system there will always be people we are very leery of, who have arrived at their warrant expiry and have been detained. And we can't do much more about it than that. But I think this provision in an act of Parliament will give us the opportunity to do things differently in the future.
It's like Mr. Ingstrup talking about the static risk factors. You can't do much about the legislation that was on the books in the past, just like you can't do much about someone who has committed five armed robberies and has spent three terms in an institution. It's happened. But you can do something for the future.
Mr. Hanger: But there's no guarantee that even if that individual has committed five armed robberies he is going to end up on the dangerous offender list or on the long-term offender list. He might not, but the chances are there that... And these are uncertainties you can't answer - nor can I - with this piece of legislation, because it does not guarantee that anyone going out and committing a series of violent acts, one after the other, and serving the time for them, will ever be placed on that list...no more than they are right now.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Mr. Ingstrup also wants to comment.
Mr. Ingstrup: I have just two things to say to supplement what Mr. Gibbs was saying. First, as I think we have mentioned, the serious offender flagging system has been put in place now so that we see it on our screens whenever people who are on release have done something very serious.
But the more general thing I'd like to say - I can't help saying this - is that whenever human beings are involved, there is a risk. We can never manage the human enterprise in an absolutely 100% certain way. No country in the world does it.
We have been looking at all kinds of countries to see how we can improve our system, and I don't think I'd like to leave this room, Madam Chair, without saying that the situation we have today is that people are coming from all over the world to look at what we're doing in Canada because they think it's the best that can be done. It is not as if safety in all the other countries is at a much higher level than it is in this country.
What we're talking about here is a constant desire on the part of the government and certainly on the part of the officials to improve a system that is, after all, dealing with human beings.
The Vice-Chair (Ms Torsney): Thank you very much, Mr. Ingstrup and Mr. Gibbs. That was almost a full minute over our time, so I gave you all the time I could. Thank you very much for your full presentations. This meeting is now at end.
I do have to comment here, however, that we really let you off easy there, Mr. Gibbs.
The meeting is adjourned.