Justice Committee on Nov. 8th, 2006

[Ian McCowan]

The costing projections we have been asked to put together have focused purely on what the operational costs would be of additional cell space. I take your point that there are some other competing costs that get factored into the equation when you look at it at a higher level. That's not something we've costed, but it's something for this committee to consider in the course of deliberating on this bill.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you.

I might deliver that information to you when I finish my work with those authorities. I found it very interesting to see that you could actually save money by putting people in jail, in terms of protecting society. It was very effective.

Out of the 8,285 people who are on house arrest, community service, or whatever, do you have any information on how many break their commitments, parole, or conditional sentencing and end up back in jail?

[Ross Toller]

As you noted, on conditional release they could be released on a number of types of avenues. For those on day parole, 99% did not reoffend violently; 3.3% ended up with non-violent offences; and 0.6% ended up with violent offences while under supervision. For those on full parole, approximately 99% did not reoffend violently; 3.2% ended with non-violent offences; and 0.7% ended up with violent offences.

For those who were released on statutory release at the two-thirds point of their sentences, approximately 97% did not reoffend violently; 7.6% ended with non-violent offences; but 2.4% ended with violent offences.

It's important to note that these numbers are based on flow-through populations of offenders and include only offenders found guilty of new charges. They do not account for outstanding charges.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Do you have figures on how many of the 8,285 who made day parole, or whatever, committed violent offences versus non-violent offences, or something of that nature?

[Ross Toller]

For those on day parole, the reconviction rate is 0.6%.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

No. Do you have any information on what portion of the 8,285 were convicted in the first place—?

[Ross Toller]

Oh, I'm sorry. Of the whole incarcerated population, I don't have the figure with me on those serving time for violent offences.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay, thank you.

I want to move to something I call solitary confinement. They have a new word for it now in corrections, I believe.

[Ian McCowan]

Administrative segregation.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Yes, administrative segregation; I'll call it solitary confinement.

I've been to several prisons in the last year, as I was ten years prior, so I've been renewing my visits. The increased amount of gang activity in the penitentiaries is phenomenal, just amazing.

When checking on the solitary confinement areas, or administrative whatever-you-call-it, they're full almost all of the time. And most of them are full because of requests from the inmates, not because they're being punished and sent there; most of the inmates are there at their own request, for protection.

Is there quite an additional cost when you fill up your segregated units?

[Ross Toller]

I would say there is not a direct cost.

What you speak to is certainly, without question, the immense increase in gangs in our incarcerated population. Right now we're trying to manage over fifty different types of gangs within our facilities. I think what you speak to really does create some population management difficulties for us in trying to manage those different types of groups. We continue to work to try to develop different types of gang strategies for the manageability of this.

A number of people do go into administrative segregation because of fear for their own safety or concerns about what's going on. It doesn't create additional costs per se; those would be reflected in the numbers that Mr. McCowan gave you. But segregated inmates do create operational difficulties for us, which we struggle with in getting them back into a regular population, creating those conditions of success for inmates to be able to participate in programs, and so on.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

When visiting with these inmates, I asked why they felt they needed protection. Most of them said it was because they owed money; 99% of the time they said, “I'm in debt”. And when asked, they usually said, “I'm in debt to a gang”. And when asked for what, they said, “For drugs”. And the response that blew my mind was, “I'm in debt because I haven't paid my 'rent'”. I said, “What? You're in a penitentiary and solitary confinement for your protection because you haven't paid your rent?” It's because gangs demand rent money from other inmates, and there are other ridiculous reasons for being in debt.

Is there any action at all? I mean, this has got to be a costly thing in an overall picture. What are we doing in our institutions to bring this kind of thing under control? Are there any steps that are being taken, and if so, how much additional funding are we going to need to do that?

I'm not paying my “rent” and I'm in prison? Come on!

[Ian McCowan]

One of the things I guess I would say in responding to your question is that there is clearly a changing offender profile of those who are coming into our institutions. I'll give you some specific examples of what I mean by that. We're seeing an increase in the number of individuals with affiliations to gangs or organized crime. We're seeing an increase in the number of individuals who have mental health problems. We're seeing an increase in the number of offenders who have a potential, or propensity, if you will, towards violence. It is a tougher and hardened crowd who is coming through the door.

When that plays out within the institutions, you get into a lot of the dynamics and difficulties you alluded to during the course of your comments, Mr. Thompson. It's a changing offender profile and it's a hardening offender profile.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Are we providing any additional training for our front-line officers and case workers in these institutions? Is that an additional cost that is beginning to rise? There must be some special training, I would think, for what needs to happen, from what I've seen compared with ten years ago.

[Ross Toller]

Yes, there is some training that is provided right now. It's necessary to evolve even the training associated with gangs because there are so many differentiations and so many differences between what would normally be seen to be your traditional motorcycle gang versus an aboriginal gang versus an Asian gang versus all these different types. What's their motivation? What's their raison d'être? What's their goal? What's their purpose?

As Mr. McCowan points out, the amount of gang activity has increased dramatically for us here. This is what we do in terms of responsivity to try to deal with these particular gangs. Each institution has a security intelligence officer who looks to gather information. A lot of systems we've developed are sharing information. So if visitor X is visiting somebody at Kingston Penitentiary and then also now is visiting at Millhaven Penitentiary, we can do cross-correlations. We work extremely closely with the police.

One of the newest initiatives that we are heading into in this particular year from the funding we received is we're hiring community liaison officers. They are actually police officers who are coming to work with us in the institution, to begin to look at sharing intelligence and gang information. We have 17 who are on track to be hired. We don't have them all ramped up yet. I think seven or eight are right now on site, as we speak, and I think the other additional ones are supposed to be hired before the end of December, to try to be responsive to this particular issue.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Under Bill C-10, do you anticipate more gang members coming into penitentiaries?

[Ross Toller]

We don't have anything that would say one way or the other on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I wanted to pursue Mr. Bagnell's line of questioning a bit more.

What you told us was that to put somebody in jail, the whole luxury deal is about $260 a day, and to have somebody in community service it's about $56 a day, roughly a $200 difference. Is that a fair statement? Is that correct?

[Ian McCowan]

The estimate I think was $241 per day in the institutions and $56 per day in the community.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Where did I get the $260 from then?

[Ian McCowan]

The $259 is from the CCJS figure, which, as I explained, is a slightly different amount.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

It was a different averaging figure. All right.

Essentially, the committee has heard that this bill, combined with other bills, will move roughly 5,000 people out of the community and into jails. Is that something you agree with?

[Ian McCowan]

On the impact of this legislation, we've assessed it in terms of being an additional 270 offenders per year. I heard the comment earlier about 5,000. Frankly, I'm not aware of those numbers, so I'm not really in a position to comment on them.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

So if the number is 5,000—and I'll use the higher figure because that was the one I initially heard—on the face of it, that's about $475 million, and then you would presumably save about $100 million because you're not in communities.