You would need to recognize, Dr. Bonta, that given the limited number of applications we have, and even if they increase somewhat, the chances of most judges seeing one of these during their careers is limited to one or two, given that most judges are only on the bench for 10 or 12 years.
I want to explore another area with you. In terms of the quality of the evidence that could be put in front of a court.... This really raises the issue--and there was a suggestion that you heard it from the CPA earlier--that one of the amendments that should be moved is to include the provision that an application could be made for a dangerous offender designation in the circumstances where there has been a long-term offender designation and the person has breached the conditions.
Given that scenario—the application is now coming forward for the dangerous offender—would both the quality and quantity of evidence...? I assume the quantity would be a definite increase because the person has been incarcerated for a number of years. But would the quality of the evidence--the certainty of your assessment in terms of the likelihood of this person continuing indefinitely to be a risk to society--go up because of the length of time the person had been in custody? I'm assuming there would have been ongoing assessments and treatment modalities applied during that period of time, or maybe attempted to be applied.
Just objectively, from the outside I'm thinking if a person had been in custody—I'll think of the Callow case—for 20 years. You've had a long-term opportunity to observe, assess his capabilities, his risk to society. That evidence would be superior in quality to what we would have had had they made an application when he was first convicted 20 years ago.