Evidence of meeting #14 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sentences.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
According to your statistics, the majority of conditional sentences of imprisonment were ordered for property crimes, not crimes against a person.
Director, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
From our data we have a total count of the conditional sentences in 2003-04 that were crimes-against-person convictions. We can give you the number; just over 3,600 of the conditional sentences were awarded for crimes against persons. That is over a total of 13,267, so it's just more than a quarter.
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
If we break down the categories, we have 27% for crimes against the person; 32% for crimes against property; 10% for administration of justice offences; 4% for other Criminal Code offences; 7% for Criminal Code traffic; and 19% for other federal statutes, which would include the drug offences.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for your presentation today.
There are always a couple of dangers when we look at these types of illustrations. I find them very useful, but on the other hand they're very sterile, and numbers don't tell the story, perhaps, of what we hear as members of Parliament in our constituencies, representing our constituents. This doesn't tell the story of the sense of injustice that someone feels about some of these crimes. You've enumerated sexual offences, sexual assault, serious property crimes, and major assault. When someone who commits that type of offence against someone else is given what people refer to as house arrest, there's a sense among the Canadian population that in that sense justice isn't being served.
One of the conclusions that I see members opposite reaching somehow from this data--and I don't know how anyone could ever reach that conclusion--is that giving people conditional sentences somehow makes them less likely to reoffend than would be the case if they were incarcerated. I don't think members opposite are comparing apples and oranges. For some of these offences, perhaps a judge will look at the most egregious offence on a scale of severity and maybe give the worst offenders some jail time, whereas on the other side of the spectrum, an individual may receive a conditional sentence.
In my view, maybe a conditional sentence is never appropriate for certain crimes, but to somehow look at a graph and reach the conclusion that a person is less likely to reoffend if the person receives a conditional sentence--you can't draw that conclusion, I don't believe, from the information you've provided, because no two situations are the same and they're not even looking at the same groups of people and the same types of offenders.
Could you comment on that briefly?
Director, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
First of all, I'd like to be very clear in what we're presenting in chart 16, the last chart of the presentation. It looks at reinvolvement with the corrections system after a sentence has been served, and it looks at reinvolvement within a period of twelve months. That's what the slide speaks to. It does not speak to reoffending; it speaks to reinvolvement within the corrections system.
I wanted to clarify exactly what that is. It speaks to that within a period of twelve months after having served the sentence.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
Thank you for that.
Also, the chart you presented showing the increase in conditional sentencing from 6% in 1997-98, when the data became available—because conditional sentencing was introduced in 1996—is interesting.
At the time, Canadians were told that this is not for the most serious offence—and I'm speaking politically now. They were told this is for less severe offences; this is for situations where it's more appropriate for someone not to receive jail time. But what we saw in those years, from 1997 until now—and I can bring the cases out, but I won't because we've all heard them and don't have to go over them again—there have been very serious situations in which serious crimes were committed against an individual and a conditional sentence was imposed. I'm sure that all my colleagues around the table have heard of those situations and how they impact the victim's sense of justice.
In my view, a high number of these offenders involved in a serious property crime or a sexual assault, for example, are receiving conditional sentences. Perhaps they're going to serve those sentences in the community where they committed the offences.
On that subject, I took note of what my colleague from Moncton--Riverview--Dieppe mentioned, that there is this supervision under conditional sentencing. What we hear from provincial attorneys general and the police is that the resources aren't there to properly monitor offenders who are on a conditional sentence order. Oftentimes it's just by chance that they happen to be caught breaking the terms of their conditional sentence.
The chair had mentioned this, but that's why I think it would be interesting to get some statistics on the breaking of conditional sentence terms. It's fine to have these terms imposed, but if an offender's not living by the terms—and you did enumerate some of them for New Brunswick: counselling, abstaining from drugs and alcohol, residing in the house.... Sixty percent reside in the house. Who's enforcing that? If no one's enforcing it, then how do we know that the offender is residing in his house? In cases where someone's been selling drugs from their house or has a grow operation in their house.... I note that a number of the situations where a conditional sentence is granted deal with drug trafficking and other drug offences, which are often committed from someone's house. So I would be interested to see some of those statistics, if they're available.
Could you explain the graph on page 12 a little further? I see the percentage of cases with a conditional sentence. For example, at the very top, you have 89% for “sexual assault”. Could you explain that a bit?
Director, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
Certainly; I can explain that chart.
As a reminder about what we've done in chart 12, we've taken the Criminal Code offences that were listed at the end of the Bill C-9 legislative summary and applied them to our 2003-2004 data. We've done this overall and you can see it by offence type. So if you look at the 89% for sexual assaults, for example, this means that 89% of those sentenced to a conditional sentence for sexual assault were convicted of a Bill C-9 listed offence, which was included at the end of the legislative summary document. This was the 246 cases.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
Okay. So under that heading, you're grouping those and breaking out who would be captured, perhaps, by Bill C-9. It starts with the very serious offence of sexual assault, down to theft.
If I have a little time left, Mr. Chair....
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Actually, you don't, Mr. Moore. You're a bit over.
I have one question for clarification, since the request has been made to provide additional information in the area of any breach in conditional sentences. I know that your chart on slide 15 indicates conditional sentences breached, resulting in an admission to custody. To my understanding, there are many times when there may be breaches but no custody. If we could get that data, it would be interesting as well.
Director, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
We don't collect those data within our data. We can't speak to overall breaches. We can only speak to those breaches that result in an admission to custody.
Chief, Correctional Services Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
Maybe I'll clarify a bit what we were able to generate today. From currently available analytical data, this is what we were able to do. I would probably want to draw attention to a future report, which is going to be coming out, in which we begin to look at that specific issue. Those data are not released yet, but there will be a report coming out—right now, it's tentatively for December—that will include specifically Alberta, because in Alberta we were able to get data that links a conditional sentence to an actual specific breach of conditional sentence. Those aren't ready yet.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Thank you.
The challenge of squeezing good public policy out of this data is more difficult than I thought. But let me ask a couple of questions about the data.
I'll go back to this reinvolvement chart, slide 16. While it shows that those who were assigned conditional sentences have a lower reinvolvement rate, it's not necessarily because they were given conditional sentences that they have a lower reinvolvement rate, is that correct? It may simply be because judges are making good decisions and are picking people who are less likely to have a reinvolvement. They simply are assigning conditional sentences to individuals who appear to be a good bet.
Would I be interpreting this chart correctly in that way?
Director, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
When you look at these data, as you say, there are many factors that could be going on behind the data. You could have prior history information that's going on behind the data that we did not take account of. You could have risk assessment going on within the data that we cannot take account of. You can also have supervisory conditions and programs going on behind the data that we're not able to take account of. There are multiple factors that could explain what you're seeing in the graphic.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
So am I wrong to draw the conclusion, could I be right, or is it just a big blur?
If you don't have any clarity in your answer, that's okay; it's quite all right. You're looking at a million statistics; I was just looking for a bit of clarity for my proposal.
Director, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
What I am saying is that you cannot necessarily draw the conclusion that this is only due to a conditional sentence. There are other factors that may be at play here.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Yes, that was my question: there could be other factors, including smart judges. Okay.
By the way, I'm also shocked at the U.S. incarceration rates. They're right off the end of the chart.
One of the two things I noticed, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the conditional sentencing regime appears to have induced a whole lot of guilty pleas. I don't know whether that data is there or not, but the fact that there was conditional sentencing available seems to have induced people to plead guilty. I may have misdrawn this conclusion. That's the first question.
The second one is that a conditional sentence regime appears to have allowed the assignment of more robust sentence conditions—bells and whistles such as restraint of contact, counselling, abstention from alcohol or drugs, curfew, community service. The conditional sentencing regime seems to have allowed more robust, more creative conditions.
Would I be wrong in reaching either of those two conclusions?
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
On the guilty pleas, generally within the data set 90% of all convictions have a guilty plea, not just those with a conditional sentence.
Project Manager, Courts Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
On the second point, assignment of conditions, I can't speak to that from the courts' perspective. I don't know whether Mr. Martin could—
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
I'm looking at the chart on page 14. If you look at all of those—the percentage of cases where there's residential, abstentions, counselling, curfew, and all of that stuff—you get much higher percentages, it appears, of an assignment of conditions. Whether or not they're complied with is a whole other story.
Isn't that what the chart shows?
Chief, Correctional Services Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
Yes, we have reside/house arrest conditions and curfew conditions on conditional sentences that are effectively almost non-existent on probation, or they're very low-frequency. Those are key differences in the kinds of conditions that get imposed. Obviously, more cases that are associated with conditional sentencing have counselling as well. So those are clearly some of the differences we have.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Who actually presides over and administers conditional sentences? It's not Corrections Canada is it? Is there a whole area of activity out there where nobody's in charge? After the judge gives a conditional sentence, who administers the sentence?
Chief, Correctional Services Program, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
When a person is given a conditional sentence it's the responsibility of a provincial-territorial jurisdiction probation service to look after the conditions. They frequently monitor it as part of the broader probation caseload.