Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, committee members, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you.
Like every member of the public, when the media report a heinous crime, whether committed by a young person or an adult, my first reaction is to hope that the person guilty of the crime will be punished very severely, and I sometimes even think the expression "very severely" would not be adequate for the seriousness of the harm done to victims or the anger I feel. But as in many other situations in life, our first impulsive reaction is rarely the right one, and in many cases, the consequences may be the complete opposite of what we want. Life teaches us that in situations like that, it is important to stop and think.
I do understand the need felt by some members of the public and some parliamentarians to believe that toughening the Act will provide better protection for victims of crimes committed by young people, but it would be a serious mistake to believe that and to proceed to amend the Act on that basis.
My core message is that rehabilitating the young offender and protecting the victim are two sides of the same coin. It isn't an either-or choice, as the public discourse would currently have us believe; it is both one and the other, when it comes to protecting the victim and rehabilitating the young offender. In other words, the best way to protect victims is to rehabilitate young offenders. I therefore strongly support the position stated by Mr. Dudding of the Child Welfare League, who spoke a little earlier about clause 3 of the bill.
In what capacity am I appearing before you? I am wearing three hats: first, as an researcher studying the development and evaluation of leading edge practices in the rehabilitation of young offenders; second, as an educator involved in the rehabilitation of young offenders for over 40 years; and third, as a member of the public and grandfather of grandchildren.
As a researcher, first, I would like to highlight a few facts. All of the literature on intervention with adolescents shows, first, that nearly all adolescents, and I would ask some of you to remember this, commit at least one criminal offence during adolescence. The research data show very clearly that 95% of boys and 75% of girls commit an offence during adolescence. Some of those offences may be serious, and even very serious, but most of these young people are able to make reparation for their acts, to develop, to become responsible citizens and not to become criminals. Only a small proportion of them, fewer than 5%, will pursue a career as young offenders and as criminals once they become adults. So it is important to realize that adolescents have multiple different development trajectories and it is important to take this into account in a youth justice system.
Second, contrary to certain beliefs conveyed in the media and elsewhere, it is possible to rehabilitate young offenders, and it works. There are very good programs and effective methods for doing that. Canada is even a world leader in terms of prevention and in alternative justice and rehabilitation methods. In terms of rehabilitation and open custody, for over 30 years, nearly 65% of young people who participated in the program at Boscoville, in Montreal, did not reoffend after their time at that institution.
In more recent experience dealing with serious instances of crimes committed in the community at the Centre jeunesse de Montréal, we have achieved similar and even slightly better results. Research data show that contrary to what was said a few minutes ago, rehabilitation programs work with young offenders if conditions are placed on them. However, when those figures were collected, they also measured young people who had simply been placed in detention with no treatment or rehabilitation. In that case, over 90% of the young people reoffended within a few months after their placement.
The use of deterrent sentences, as shown by a multitude of studies, produces no results and results contrary to the desired effects. Not only does this not protect society, it worsens youth crime.
In order for interventions with young offenders to be effective, that is, for them to succeed in preventing recidivism and promote reparations to victims and harmonious reintegration of the offender, there are some essential prerequisites. The first is that the criminal justice system must be different from the adult justice system. All of the scientific and professional literature shows very clearly the extent to which a young person is not yet an adult, that they have not finished developing, not just in physical terms but also in cognitive and emotional terms, and thus that they have needs that are different from adults' needs.
The second prerequisite is that the entire criminal justice system be guided by the principle of differential intervention. The principle of differential intervention means that because not all young offenders are the same and they do not all have the same needs, the intervention must take those differences into account. For example, a young person with a minor delinquency profile who was placed in a secure custody institution with intensive intervention would be at risk of leaving the program with a more serious delinquency profile. Conversely, a young person with a serious delinquency profile for whom only minor intervention is used will have a strong chance of engaging in more serious delinquency afterward.
It has also been shown that certain intervention methods work well with certain types of young offenders but are ineffective with other types of young people. That is why it is important to adapt the intervention to the young person's delinquency profile.
If the law is to punish the severity of the offence, it must also allow for the young person's profile and needs to be taken into account. A formula that would also be an objective was suggested in Quebec, in response to the report by Judge Jasmin: the right measure at the right time for the right young person.
Researchers elsewhere in the world, and particularly here in Canada, have developed assessment methodologies that make it possible to get a better idea of the risks of recidivism and the needs of these young offenders—Andrews and Bonta, among others. These methodologies are necessary and we have them, and they have proved their usefulness. It is important that before sentencing a young person, allowance be made for using methodologies like these to assess each offender's situation. That would mean that the sentence would be based not only on the seriousness of the offence, but also on the needs of each young offender and on their chances of being rehabilitated and not reoffending.
And in addition to all that, it is important that the criminal justice system offer various forms of intervention, ranging from alternative justice methods and mechanisms, mediation with victims and community service to rehabilitation on probation and open or secure custody, all of which is currently possible under the YCJA, without amending it.
As an educator, I worked for 20 years as a psychoeducator at Boscoville in Montreal. For several decades, Boscoville has been a beacon in the rehabilitation of young offenders. The institution has had tremendous influence not only in Quebec, but also internationally, to an extraordinary extent. My experience in that institution involved working with and getting to know a large number of young people who had extremely positive experiences with rehabilitation and social reintegration. That is the case for most of the ones I have known. Of course there are very sad cases that failed. For the most part, they became responsible, well integrated citizens. They are now labourers, business people, teachers, company managers and artists in various fields. Some of them are have families of their own and are happy and proud to come and introduce their offspring to us, their former teachers. Most of the young people who successfully completed rehabilitation have also taken action to make reparation to their victims, during or after the rehabilitation process. I think full rehabilitation necessarily requires some effort to make reparations to the victims, directly or indirectly.
Fifty years ago, educators in the vanguard went and got young people who had been placed in Bordeaux prison in Montreal to give them a chance to take part in a new rehabilitation program they were creating. Personally, over the years, I have had the opportunity to visit young teenagers placed in adult prisons in the United States, in Chile and in other countries. Every time, I saw how terrible a situation it was, how degrading and how disrespectful of the fundamental rights of those young people. Those consequences are terrible for them, for their victims and for society. For these young people in prison, one of the worst consequences is to find themselves in a situation in which they are in despair, and that can only exacerbate their delinquency and violence.
For the victims, the human degradation of the young offender provides no real relief and may even heighten their fear of a recurrence of the violence committed by the young person when they get out of prison. The same is true for society in general.
A just law therefore must not base the assessment of the act and the sentence imposed on a young person exclusively on the seriousness of the offence. That is where this bill goes wrong. A just law must be based on a complex youth criminal justice system that is constantly trying to strike the difficult balance between the needs of society and victims and the needs of the young offender. That complex system, and this is where the government may have a job to do, should include a system for administering the law in which there is a series of components: first, a differential assessment process based on the principle that each young person is different, that each case is different; second, a multimodal system of intervention that includes the possibility of alternative justice measures, mediation, reparations to the victim, etc., and rehabilitation; third, a process that allows victims to participate and provides them with the support they need; fourth, a structure that encourages parents to participate and be involved; fifth, rehabilitation programs while under supervision, while being intensively monitored in the community, and while in open and secure custody, administered by competent personnel; and sixth, an investment in research to promote the development of best practices and to evaluate the effects of the law.
To conclude, as a member of the public and a grandfather, I am concerned that our laws be just, both for the welfare of society and for the protection and development of my grandchildren and other people's grandchildren. If one of my grandchildren commits an offence, I would fervently hope that not only the seriousness of their offence, but also their needs, will be taken into account. My fondest wish would be that we help them to rehabilitate themselves and make reparation for their criminal act or acts. In the event that one of my grandchildren was a victim, I think my first reaction would be a desire for revenge, but once that passed, I would sincerely hope that whoever assaulted them would get help and be able to rehabilitate themselves. In holding this dialogue about Bill C-4, we must not lose sight of the fact that the future welfare of our society depends on the welfare of our children and grandchildren.
