Evidence of meeting #17 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was youth.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Croisdale, I listened to your testimony carefully and I need some additional information. You say that you have analyzed statistics. How many years have you done that for?
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Professor, California State University, As an Individual
On prolific and repeat offenders, it has been since about 2004. It has been for five or six years.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Were these statistics provided by British Columbia only or did you use the ones for Canada as a whole?
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Professor, California State University, As an Individual
No. In Canada the data was from the RCMP for British Columbia.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Do you have the figures with you? Do you have a document about the studies you have done on repeat offenders since 2004 or 2005?
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Professor, California State University, As an Individual
I don't have them with me, no.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Can you provide those statistics to the committee members? I want the numbers to be made to say what one wants, but I want to have the exact figures.
I am going to ask you a question. You talked about repeat offenders being 10% to 15%, maybe even 5%, we don't really know. Exactly how many does that represent in relation to the total number of crimes committed by young people?
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Professor, California State University, As an Individual
Yes. I can provide that. A lot of those percentages come from the research, in general, around the world on prolific offenders.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Professor, California State University, As an Individual
That's the report I will put up.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
So you will be able to send us those figures, the ones you have used since 2004-2005? Does that relate solely to what I would call habitual criminals, the ones who are difficult to reintegrate?
12:10 p.m.
Assistant Professor, California State University, As an Individual
That is correct.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you.
Ms. Gaudreault, you talked about the Kane report, is that correct?
12:10 p.m.
President, Association québécoise Plaidoyer-Victimes
I talked about Catherine Kane, who is now senior counsel at the Department of Justice, but until very recently she was the Director of the Policy Centre for Victim Issues.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Perfect. So Ms. Kane produced a report that your presentation drew on today? Do you have notes? Can we locate the document you are relying on?
12:10 p.m.
President, Association québécoise Plaidoyer-Victimes
No. The document I referred to, Mr. Lemay, was not written by Ms. Kane. I referred to two documents, the one from the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime entitled "Towards a Greater Respect for Victims in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act", published in March 2010, and the Report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights entitled "Victims' Rights—A Voice, Not A Veto", published in 1998.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Mr. Clerk, could you make a note of the fact that we would like to get those documents? I would very much like it if they could be sent to the committee members.
What you are saying is very important.
Ms. Goyette, I practised criminal law for 30 years, at least 15 of those years in youth protection. I challenge you to send us statistics. Do you have any? I know that you represent the Association des centres jeunesses du Québec, but do you have statistics? I don't want names, I want statistics. Mr. Petit thinks we are incapable of getting any. Personally, I think you have some. I would like to have statistics about failures for young people placed under protection, who have committed crimes. Do you have those figures?
12:10 p.m.
Director, Special services and Services to Young Offenders, Centre jeunesse de Montréal - Institut universitaire, Association des centres jeunesse du Québec
Unfortunately, I don't have them with me today. However, they are figures that we could provide to the committee from the studies that have been done all across Quebec.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Ms. Goyette, can you send us those figures as soon as possible? In fact, I am speaking to all three witnesses. We are going to use those figures to question other witnesses. You can imagine how we are going to use them.
Ms. Goyette, you have long experience with the situation in Quebec. In your opinion, the failures... With Mr. Croisdale, we talked about repeat offenders that it is impossible to put a stop to. In Quebec, how many might there be in a year?
12:15 p.m.
Director, Special services and Services to Young Offenders, Centre jeunesse de Montréal - Institut universitaire, Association des centres jeunesse du Québec
That is difficult to determine, first, we have to know what is meant by "failure". To us, the fact that a young person becomes a productive member of society, whose situation improves, does not mean that they won't have other problems at some point. So we have to specify what is meant by "failure" and "success". That is the first question.
Second, as the gentleman said, the situation is very difficult in the case of some young people. I would say that about 10% of the young people we work hard with still end up continuing down their criminal path and moving into the criminal network. I believe these young people are already being treated as harshly as possible.
I am going to give you an example. In the case of the victim whose name was given to this bill, the young offender is in custody in an adult prison at this moment. It is impossible to do more than that to protect society. It is being done within the existing legal framework. When it comes to young people whose cases are very serious, we already have everything we need to protect society.
I share the gentleman's point of view on the fact that a percentage of young people—and we could talk about the numbers for a long time—are much less amenable to our intervention. The fact is that there are already tools for dealing with those young people.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Brian Murphy
Thank you, Mr. Lemay. I would also like to thank the witnesses.
Just as a reminder on the documents that were asked for, particularly Professor Croisdale, if you are sending articles you've written and that are copyrighted, we need your summary of them. We can't have copyrighted documents translated and distributed. So if we're going to get that information, it has to be your written summary so we can have it translated and distributed.
