Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on June 6th, 2007

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

I call this meeting to order. It is meeting number five of the legislative committee on Bill C-27.

Today we have before us, from the Department of Public Safety, James Bonta, and from Correctional Service Canada, Larry Motiuk.

Gentlemen, we'll commence with your opening statements.

Mr. Bonta, if you would start, we would appreciate it.

[Dr. James Bonta, Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I'd like to introduce myself and tell you a little about who I am.

I'm Jim Bonta. I began my career as a clinical psychologist and for 14 years was the chief psychologist at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. While I was there in the detention centre I began doing my research. In 1990 I joined the Department of the Solicitor General, as it was called at the time, where I became director of research. I have spent the last 30 years of my career trying to understand and better assess the risk that offenders pose to the community and issues around their rehabilitation. Basically, how can we identify high-risk offenders and separate them from the lower-risk offenders? What kinds of interventions may work best in reducing their chances of recidivistic crime?

The research in Public Safety Canada, where I am director of corrections research, has spanned, as some of you may know, areas from dangerous offenders to the national flagging system. We have worked on research projects with prosecutors and the courts on various issues.

I'm here today to try to answer your questions as they relate to our scientific understanding of the assessment of risk and the treatability of offenders.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Bonta.

Mr. Motiuk, please.

[Dr. Larry Motiuk, Director General, Offender Programs and Reintegration, Correctional Service Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My name is Larry Motiuk. I'm currently the director general of offender programs and reintegration at the Correctional Service of Canada, at national headquarters. I have been in that position for a year. For 13 years prior to that I was the director general of the research branch for the Correctional Service of Canada. Like Dr. Bonta, I began my correctional career in the provincial system. I started working in field work placement as a student in 1979, stayed on to work until 1988 in the provincial system, and then moved on to federal corrections in 1998.

My background is mostly in research, as you can imagine. I have done quite a bit of work in the area of assessment, treatment, and program efficacy. The areas I've worked on in particular with the Correctional Service of Canada are on conditional release supervision standards, sex offenders, high-risk violent offenders, as well as the assessment processes and the treatment programs.

I am also an adjunct research professor at Carleton University and have worked with students over the years, particularly in the area of psychology. I hold a PhD in psychology.

I am here to answer as best I can questions you may have with respect to any of the issues in administration of the sentence and the management and treatment of offenders in the Correctional Service of Canada.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Very good.

For the first round, seven minutes, we'll commence with Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, gentlemen.

I think you were here during the previous discussion with the Canadian Police Association. I raised a question with them basically on the balance between justice and incarceration versus civil liberties. In my view, reverse onus in our criminal justice system is a huge step forward. It's a huge step. I don't know whether it's forward or backward at the moment, but it certainly has consequences for civil liberties and rights.

From your research perspective, Jim, you mentioned you've worked toward basically a scientific understanding of assessment of risk and treatability. With the dangerous offenders, in the main—I don't even know if you can answer this question, and you've worked closely with them, I suspect, from a scientific understanding--is it right to take their civil liberties away? Is there a possibility of these folks being able to get back into society? Or is it a lost cause?

[Dr. James Bonta]

I'll begin.

I can't speak specifically on the civil liberty issue. It's a bit outside of my realm.

I could speak about two things. One is about the challenge of making a prediction as to who is going to reoffend. In the scientific literature we cannot make a perfect prediction, and we're always, even in the research studies, balancing off who we can correctly identify and who we may misidentify. What I'm getting at is, we may be getting better and better each year in identifying the highest-risk offenders, but at the same time we will still identify offenders who we think are dangerous and who end up not being dangerous. We have different interventions to deal with them.

The issue of treatability is a very difficult one, especially among the highest-risk offenders. There is now abundant research literature showing that certain kinds of treatment programs can be very effective in reducing recidivism when it's targeted to the right people in the community. In fact, on average, based on over 200 experimental and quasi-experimental studies, the appropriate treatment can reduce recidivism by about 30%.

I just want to put that into perspective for everybody. Chemotherapy for breast cancer runs success rates of about 12%. Taking aspirin to fend off a heart attack has about a 3% effect. So when we're able to look at treatment that can reduce recidivism, or show success by 30%, that's pretty astounding.

One of the things that has occurred in the research treatment literature is that the number of studies specifically focusing on the highest-risk populations is very, very few. As a researcher, all I can say is I don't know for sure whether the treatments that are being given to medium-risk and a bit higher-risk offenders can apply to this highest group of people whom this committee is examining.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

In the previous presentation as well, one of the arguments for moving to reverse onus is the fact that some offenders don't participate in the programs or the process. So I would ask you this: how do you assess risk and threat if the offender refuses to participate in an evaluation or assessment process in terms of a dangerous offender?

[Dr. James Bonta]

Perhaps I can bring on the more general, and then Dr. Motiuk could maybe speak to how Correctional Services does it.

In general, with the assessment of risk, there are many ways of doing the assessment without the direct cooperation of the client. You can assess risk by collecting or gathering information from other sources, and not only criminal history, which obviously can be taken from police records, but other risk factors such as employment or substance abuse. You can collect the appropriate information by talking to the people who know this client.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Larry.

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

To answer the question about assessment and evaluation from a practical perspective, within the federal correctional system we have a very comprehensive intake assessment process at the beginning of the sentence to get estimates of the level of risk, the needs, the security requirements, and the programmatic requirements for offenders. The purpose of this is to develop a comprehensive correctional plan to engage the offender. Assessments of motivation to engage in that plan are also gathered at the beginning.

What we do in terms of assessing people who are deemed to be high-risk violent offenders, particularly offenders who have come in with dangerous offender designations or sexual offences...often they are referred for specialized assessments or supplementary assessments for sex offender risk in particular, or other kinds of areas as well. We engage psychologists and psychiatrists in those evaluations and incorporate those in a comprehensive multi-method approach towards assessing each and every individual case, the purpose of which is to prioritize their risk and needs, establish a correctional plan, and find out those targets for intervention that are likely to reduce their likelihood of reoffending. And then we begin that process at the beginning stages, the first phase of the offender management process in corrections.

All of this is gathered to actually find a suitable placement for that individual. On the security they require, we have three considerations in that: we have safety of the public; we have the safety of the institution, the staff, and other offenders; and we also have the escape risk of that individual should they escape from custody.

For the most part, this evaluation takes about 90 days. We have to incorporate information gathered from police records, courts, and other available documentation on the offender to come to some kind of conclusion or picture of each and every case.

Then we also engage the offender in that correctional plan development. We expect them to engage in it. Now, not every offender, that is correct, will engage or cooperate in their plan, and not every offender will stay in treatment. There is a percentage that will drop out, and there are some who are removed from programming. This group is of great concern because they actually pose a higher risk to reoffend, the ones who don't stay in treatment.

So in terms of how we accurately gauge that, there are assessments of motivation, there are statistical assessments, there are risk assessment tools by multiple professionals. It's all aggregated to draw a conclusion about each case. It's re-evaluated through various stages of the sentence and modified accordingly in terms of whether or not there have been gains in programming or not.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you, Dr. Motiuk. We'll have to stop you there.

Mr. Ménard will ask the next question.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, it would have been helpful if you had brought along briefs and information. I don’t know if you submitted any that were not translated, but I must confess that some background information would have helped.

You are all social scientists. You are not members of the legal community and you have very specific information on behaviour determinants, and thus, on the psychological variables which mean that we are more likely to engage in one particular type of behaviour, or act in a particular way, than another.

I would like to have some background information, and to have your opinion in writing on a certain type of information. What do we know? For example, when analyzing the risk of re-offending, do we lean more towards nature or nurture? Are variables part of the equation? Are there some circumstances, which collectively are more likely to lead to recidivist behaviours?

The wealth of social science knowledge that you will impart through your testimony will confirm or refute the fact that the social solution may not be found in law. As some people have argued at this table, we may be dealing with a problem where we should look more to prevention, rehabilitation and treatment for solutions.

In terms of the state of things, the state of knowledge from a scientific perspective, are we more in the realm of nature or nurture? Are there treatments that can be endorsed? What should our response be to the recidivism of dangerous offenders? Is this a question of mental illness or simply delinquency? I would like to have some written information on this topic.

[Dr. James Bonta]

Certainly we'll provide you with written background on some of this information.

We have come a tremendously long way in our ability to assess the risk of reoffending. I've been doing this type of research for 30 years. At the time when I began, much of risk assessment was pretty well based on professional judgment. If you were going to go through training as a psychiatrist or psychologist, you were expected to know who was high risk and who wasn't.

We are continually moving, and 20 years later we have a much more accurate picture of what are the key risk factors for criminal behaviour, what's more important than other factors. We know that certainly everybody here would easily recognize that criminal history is important. But pro-criminal thinking is one of the most important predictors of criminal behaviour, as are the associates whom you hang around with, and certainly anti-social personality features. I'm not specifically talking about psychopathy here. I'm talking about personality features such as impulsiveness, lack of self-control, self-centredness. We have been able to rank in order what are the most important predictors and what are the least important.

As I'm sure my colleague will say, Correctional Service is in the business of assessing these factors in a reliable way. The highest-risk offender—

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

It is very important to have at the very least a summary table of all this information. I don’t really think that anyone is interested in reading 3,000 or 4,000 pages. A summary table would be greatly appreciated. The fact remains that we are all Parliamentarians, and that we will be enacting a bill that will create new law.

Earlier, Mr. Cannavino indicated that the bill applied to people who had committed three serious offences. That is not quite accurate, since the bill also applies to designated offences, of which some may be less serious than others. While they all raise social concerns, it may be somewhat ingenuous to reduce everything down to three serious offences.

For an expert witness, for whom the rules of appearance based on jurisprudence are already known, and which I will not get into here, would it be possible, from a first offence, to inform a jury or a court that there are probative, plausible and scientifically recognized risks that the individual will re-offend? As an expert witness, can you share this information with a court to avoid any subsequent pain to the community?

[Dr. James Bonta]

I think that is a possibility, and I believe there is one offender who was found dangerous on the first serious offence. I believe there is one case like that.

If you complete a comprehensive assessment of all the various risk factors, it is possible to meet someone who has those anti-social personality features, has committed a serious offence, meets the legislative requirements, and has all the other risk factors.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Chair, this is the first time that we have invited representatives from the social sciences to speak to this committee, and I am rather excited intellectually.

If you were asked, would you be prepared to conduct an ad hoc education session for members outside of this committee? I would be prepared to spend a few hours with you to learn about the clinical reality and the evidence available on this subject. There is a wide variety of material that we should tap into, but that, within this context, may not fit in with our work.

This session is due to end soon. However, prior to our return to work in September, it might prove interesting for those members who so wish to receive a few hours of real education on this matter, the clinical picture, the predictive variables to control. I may even make a motion to that end, in due form. Regardless, I feel that we should approve such a suggestion.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

The suggestion is a good one, Mr. Ménard, but it remains to be seen if Mr. Bonta would agree to spend two hours with you.

With that, we now turn to Mr. Comartin for his seven minutes.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

Have either one of you ever testified in court on a dangerous or long-term offender application?

[Dr. James Bonta]

No, I haven't.

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

I have once.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Because of the way you've described your careers, can I assume that your focus has been primarily on research? Or has it also been on assessment and treatment?

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

I'll speak on behalf of the one case for which I was subpoenaed. Ironically, it was almost 20 years after I worked at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. We take our clinical notes, and somehow they ended up in court during the hearing of a dangerous offender application. There were some notes taken about violence in the family, and it turned out that the victim had been a repeat offender. Also, the person who perpetrated the offence had re-victimized this individual repeatedly over the years.

Basically I was called upon to testify about the veracity of the clinical assessments that were done at a point in time to establish a pattern of criminality over a period of time.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Both Mr. Ménard and I have made it quite clear that we're opposed to the use of reverse onus. One of the concerns I have is of the quality of the evidence that the accused person will be required to bring forward.

As I understand the process, although we've never used this before, probably a clerk or a police officer will be put on the stand. It will be said this person has committed two prior offences and has now committed his third. They fit within the category in the code of designated offences, and that's all the evidence that will be put in. So there will be no evidence put in by the Crown of a psychological or psychiatric nature.

If in fact that is going to be the pattern of what we see, what I'm asking you is, where would the accused person be able to get evidence to establish in the reverse that they are not dangerous offenders?

[Dr. James Bonta]

I don't know if this will answer your question, but I'll try. In the assessment of risk, the general view among scientists in this area is that we need multiple indicators of risk. Criminal history is one indicator, and it is one of the better ones, but other indicators are almost equal in predictive power.

When we talk about risk factors—