Justice Committee on Oct. 31st, 2006

[Kevin Wilson]

The conditional sentencing system really doesn't interact with the drug treatment court system at all.

People who are coming into drug treatment court are typically facing a period of custody. They're often people with very lengthy criminal records for similar offences such as trafficking. These are people who would not ordinarily be released on bail because they've accumulated a large number of convictions for things like failing to attend court, or failing to comply with probation orders or bail conditions. They tend not to be people who are looking at a conditional sentence anyway. And also, the conditional sentence is not used as a sentence in the drug treatment court.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

With the Gladue courts it is.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yes, it is used quite a lot.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Maybe I should have said that, because that is using it for drugs, and the Gladue courts use that.

[Kevin Wilson]

That's right. In the drug treatment court they virtually always receive a suspended sentence and a period of probation at the end.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Let's talk about commercial trafficking. Like an organized crime offence, commercial trafficking would be eligible.

[Kevin Wilson]

Organized crime would not be eligible.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I guess I should have said that the other way then.

[Kevin Wilson]

We don't have to get to that point. In our court and in most of the courts the Crown does the initial wave of screening. We have a six-stage screening process. In the first stage the Crown looks at the application, the synopsis of the offence, the criminal record, and any recommendations from the police. On the divide between an addict trafficker, who is just trafficking at the subsistence level to support their own addiction, and the commercial trafficker, it's more art than science.

For example, I will look at the quantity of drugs and the role the person played in the transaction. Typically, someone who gets screened in through that first stage in our court is out on the street, makes the initial contact with the police undercover officer thinking the officer is a customer, but then has to go to someone else to get the actual drugs to complete the transaction. That's somebody we call the front end, in the vernacular, as opposed to the back end, who is the person actually holding the drugs.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Let's talk about success rates. You've been in operation for a little while now, so how do you measure success?

[Kevin Wilson]

If you measure it by graduation--and you ought not to--the graduation rate in the evaluation report for the first five years of the Toronto Drug Treatment Court was a little over 15%. I'm told by treatment people that's about the same as or maybe even a little better than the success rate of people in standard, non-coercive, more voluntary cocaine treatment programs. Considering the fact--as Mr. Coleman pointed out--that we're dealing with a population that is much more marginalized and criminally involved than might be found in a typical cocaine treatment program, it seems we're doing extremely well.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

What about a person charged with any violent crime, or an offence involving a child, firearms, or a motor vehicle?

[Kevin Wilson]

Those are screened out.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

They're totally screened out.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yes.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

That's good.

What about a robbery or home invasion?

[Kevin Wilson]

Those are screened out. If it's technically a robbery that really breaks down to more of a theft and a shove, there's a bit of discretion to let something in if the violence component is really innocuous. My colleague with the provincial crown office who screens most of the Criminal Code offences is very careful about that, and is obliged to be very careful.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

But there's a difference between some robberies and other robberies. Some at the lower end would be eligible and some at the upper end obviously wouldn't.

[Kevin Wilson]

Something like a home invasion would absolutely not be eligible. Even a residential break-and-enter when there's nobody home would not be eligible. Only vehicular and commercial break-and-enters are eligible.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Repeat offenders are eligible for your program.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yes, but repeat participants in the court are a little less eligible. We established a policy within the court, after discussion with duty counsel, the judiciary, treatment, and so on. Previous graduates from the program are not allowed to participate in the program again. After they complete the program and graduate successfully, they don't get a second shot. People who do not successfully complete the program may not reapply for two years after either withdrawing or being kicked out. After that they may be at a better point of readiness in their lives and may get another chance.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Ms. Barnes.

Mr. Ménard.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you. My question is for Mr. Coleman.

A you know, you are here today because we are studying the government's estimates. If I understand the documents correctly, the transfer payments for drug treatment courts will be cut by $638,310.

In my opinion, you provide a very good service in terms of offering alternatives.

When I was a member of the committee that studied the issue of non-therapeutic drug use, you appeared before us. I think you were there, but Mr. Wilson was not. I find that you have a good record, no doubt about it, especially since you are operating under such strictly defined conditions.

I would like you to tell us a little more about the budgetary reality you deal with. How much does the kind of intervention you do save in terms of costs? What do you think would be the impact of this budget cut, as far as you can tell? I imagine you have worked it out, given that the budget will be cut by $638,000, which is substantial.

[Richard Coleman]

In terms of savings, we've had a very difficult time measuring all of the savings that drug treatment courts effect, because the people we're dealing with are already consuming many of the services that are being delivered. However, they're doing it in a rather haphazard fashion.

The beauty of a drug treatment court is that we have these regular appearances before a judge. We're able to begin the case management process and use the courts to better assign the use of the services within the community that are already being accessed by an individual. We could have, for instance, one person accessing similar services at four or five different agencies not involved with the drug treatment court system. Once they're involved with the drug treatment court, there are the regular appearances in court, the regular attendances at treatment, and visits with their case manager, so we know exactly where they're going and we can then better coordinate the delivery of those services.

As I mentioned earlier, some of the costs are very difficult to capture. In Toronto, we followed one man—this was not through the drug treatment court, but through one of the shelters I managed before my involvement—through his health card and discovered that he had consumed $350,000 worth of emergency room visits in a one-year period. If we can have a person who is getting their medical care through a community health centre instead of at emergency, there is a significant savings there. Again, though, this is very difficult to capture because we're trying to get information from systems that are not willing to readily share the information because of Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act issues.