Justice Committee on April 29th, 2010

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

The timeline on that would be this year, because they're moving to those stages of near completion, and usually they want to verify data and challenge it for some review. I have offered to do a peer review of it myself, even though I'm out of there, and assist with that.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

You made a reference to something being available on the Internet. Were those your two studies--

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

That is correct.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

--or are there pieces of this longitudinal study that are already out there?

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

No, pieces of the longitudinal study wouldn't be out there. These two reports are research briefs. They're available on the research section or component of the Correctional Service of Canada website.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Mr. Rathgeber, no questions?

Monsieur Petit, you didn't have a full question period. You're okay. Is there anybody else?

Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I did have a follow-up that I wanted to pursue.

We are at the point where we know we're dealing with some pretty sophisticated, intelligent individuals. We now know that they're serving longer sentences. Three years, as far as I'm concerned, for a 33-year-old makes him--generally, it's a “he”--still young enough to be able to do the things that bikers like to do, but at 50 years old you're not too likely to return. That's a discussion for another date.

What kind of programming do you think, as a psychologist dealing with human behaviour, dealing with a human being who is intelligent, organized, all those other things...and is more likely to have learned how not to get caught, because it took a rather expensive, sophisticated police...and the courts had to be given.... The courts are even becoming more sophisticated and able to deal with these people. So they've gone through that whole stage of the cutting edge of policing, the cutting edge of courts, of the judicial process, and now you have them in your institution. What kind of program can turn around that kind of individual with that kind of lifestyle, given that they're not your average prisoner?

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

To answer that question, I look forward to the longitudinal follow-up of who didn't succeed post release to the community, and to start looking into that group of individuals who got re-involved with criminal activity--that was officially recorded. At least then we know. In that group, I would probably delve in deeper, and some of that was mentioned at table in terms of looking in other constructs, maybe psychological evaluations as opposed to the traditional kinds of things that we look at, measure psychopathy, get an understanding of cognitive functioning in terms of how they think and how they operate in the sense of what changes you can make there.

You also have to get a very deep understanding in terms of what is the personal, interpersonal, and community reinforcement for their behaviour. Some of those personal characteristics can be emotional. Some of those interpersonal things can be emotional as well. And understanding the rewards and costs for the behaviour...I think for this group, in particular, the density rewards for engaging in the behaviour are uniquely different than for other offender populations. That requires a fair level of investigative effort and research effort.

Fortunately, in Canada, there are people in the academic community as well as in the correctional organizations who have the skill sets to undertake that kind of research activity.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

I have one other item. We always come across the fact that we're really not looking for or for some reason there seems to be an inability to attract the experts such as clinical persons like yourself, psychologists, people who treat people. Would I be correct in saying that...? At least when I watch the news, I hear hospital administrators, people who operate clinics, say they have a hard time attracting professionals into their institutions in order to do the increase in workload they have? Is that a fairly accurate statement?

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

I don't know about externally in the health care system. I do know that in the correctional system, the recruitment, retention, and the development of correctional psychologists that we see has been an ongoing challenge, and it's been a very good one.

Corrections Canada has been very fortunate and is a large employer of clinical psychologists in its organization. I think we're almost the largest single employer of psychologists in Canada in the public sector. That's put the caveat around that. We still need more. It has a lot to do with the nature of the kinds of challenges and the populations we're dealing with. We have many sub-populations of offenders to deal with that present unique challenges for risk management, assessment, programming, supervision and estimating release risk, all with the goal of enhancing public safety.

So are there challenges? Certainly. A lot of it has to do with the rewards for somebody engaging in this kind of work and how you retain them. It takes a long time to develop a qualified professional in our system, and it takes many years of education and internships, and there are many hurdles to climb in order to become a qualified practitioner. The investment has to start not only in the academic institutions for training of health care and mental health professionals and whatnot, but should also carry over for opportunities and support while they're within the various systems.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Anyone else? Yes, Mr. Ménard.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

What percentage of the correctional population would be people who were convicted as members of criminal organizations?

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

If we use this study, we'd have an underrepresentation of the full extent of that. It depends, again, on the definition of what organized crime is or gang membership and gang affiliation. From our estimates of that, we have seen numbers that would range from about 8% of the population upwards to about 14%, and of course there's regional variability across the board on that. I would say that within that range, from 8% to 14%, there are individuals who are affiliated or who have been members at point of admission with organized crime or gang groups. That number has been increasing over the past decade.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Of those that you have studied, how many were found guilty for offences other than participation in organized crime? I am referring obviously to specific offences, which is to say being a member of a criminal organization or having committed a crime as a member of a criminal organization. In fact, what I want to know is whether or not this legislation is helping us or, at the end of the day, given that organized criminals will commit crimes, we should perhaps not limit ourselves, as they do in British Columbia, to finding them guilty of the crimes that they commit.

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

We know that the majority of them were convicted of other kinds of offences. About 80% of them were convicted of drug offences. That's a pretty substantial proportion. Another substantial proportion was convicted of attempted murder on top of that. That speaks to the nature of criminal involvement of these individuals.

I hope that answers your question.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Yes, but if you ever come back, be aware also of our concern. It is very complicated to prepare a case against a criminal organization. It is also generally very expensive. But many people involved in those cases commit very serious offences. An attempted murder is very serious, and a murder is even worse. Is it really worth it to charge those people? Do judges take into account, when they decide on a sentence for an attempted murder, that the offence was committed for a criminal organization, and not by a rejected or jealous husband trying to kill the fellow who replaced him in the arms of his partner?

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

I'll answer that question in a couple of ways. First and foremost, there used to be only one criminal organization offence in the Criminal Code. Once there were three, it opened up the door to different levels of evolvement and analysis. It's going to be very helpful in the long run to see people who are simply participating in a criminal organization, versus those who are doing an activity for an organization, versus those who are leading or influencing that organization. I think we'll have an ability to look at that more carefully to answer some of those broader questions in the long run.

So has it been worth it? There has certainly been an impact on the criminal justice system. We have people who have been identified. As we know, if you are identified as somebody who was convicted of a criminal organization offence, it's taken quite seriously. It impacts on things like classification, decision-making, release risk, and awareness of that population. Dealing with a unique group of the population who have had these offences has enabled us to examine more closely who they are, what they are like, and how they distinguish themselves from the rest of the population. We have been able to bring to bear more knowledge and better strategies and understanding of what it will take to manage this population effectively.

We're dealing with offenders after they are apprehended and convicted. The issue of how we can prevent this will come out as well. How can you influence this so it doesn't manifest itself in the long run? It is costly, and the social cost of crime is huge. They contribute to this. Anything we can bring to bear from our knowledge and understanding of how to impact on that will certainly contribute to public safety in the long run.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Does anybody else have questions?

Madame Bonsant.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

If I understood correctly, Bill C-24 was divided into three parts for statistical purposes. Does that mean that if someone is charged with gangsterism, they will be sentenced for one of the three offences, or will their sentence be tripled, or... Do you see why I don't understand why you say that to divide an act in three is good, since we do not add up sentences, as far as I know, right? As I was saying, I am not an expert, I know more about telecommunications.

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

To explain again, as a result of that change there are three offences now in the Criminal Code as opposed to just one. That gives more specificity to their involvement in that activity and allows you to analyze the population.

I'm going to take it from a research perspective. Do these groups distinguish themselves in any meaningful way? Are there some meaningful characteristics that distinguish somebody who simply participates versus somebody who acts on behalf of that organization? Will they allow us to do risk assessment, security classification, program placement, and release-risk prediction once there are enough cases to look at? That's why my plea is for more research in this area. That would be very helpful to gain a better understanding and raise awareness of who these individuals are.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

I'm looking forward to reviewing the portion of your study that relates to the post-release offender experience. I think that's something this committee would be very interested in seeing. Would it be possible to get a copy of that once you've released it?

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

Yes. I want to be clear that I won't be the author, but I will certainly endeavour to work with the people in the research branch to make sure it's a very good product. When it is released, the committee can rest assured it will be made available to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Is there something you would like to share with us on how we could most effectively deal with organized crime, specifically from your broader experience with the corrections system and organized crime?

[Dr. Larry Motiuk]

Some of that was raised here. There is a dichotomy, and I really see that in this information. There's a difference between those who are the organizers and leaders, who are fairly sophisticated and running organizations, versus the rest. How we delineate the two, become aware of the two, and manage the two groups is very important for understanding.

It's a fairly new phenomenon for us in Canadian corrections. I know in some regions it's been around for a long time; other regions are experiencing it now. It has been manifested in the correctional systems in the U.S. for a long time.

Colleagues who have done research in this area have given us some insights on the level of embeddedness of somebody in an organization. It's a critical factor that we need to gather for the research as well. Our ability to disengage somebody from an organization is usually contingent on the amount of embeddedness they have within that group.

They have developed new tools and techniques, and we can learn from others internationally as well. So I would implore you to continue to support advanced research in this area and focused research on this topic, because very little has been done.