Justice Committee on Feb. 9th, 2011

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for your appearance here this afternoon and for your expertise on this very important subject matter.

Dr. Marshall, if I could start with you, I'm a little confused as to why it is easier to treat a sexual deviant outside of an institution than it is inside an institution. Having visited many institutions with the public safety committee, it appears to me that it's a very structured environment. The individuals obviously have the benefit of time on their hands and are not distracted by family or work commitments.

Could you explain it to me? I'm having trouble understanding why you believe it is much more complicated to treat an individual for a sexual disorder outside the structure of a prison institution.

[Dr. William Marshall]

Actually, the evidence that I spoke to was raised by Mr. Fletcher. This is a result of a very large meta-analysis with thousands of subjects. You look at differences there, and these are quite marginal differences, really, between the effects of treatment in the community versus treatment in institutions. It's confounded by the fact that almost inevitably there would be lower-risk men in the community treatment programs than there would be in the institutional programs. So I don't make too much of that issue, to be perfectly honest with you.

I think what we need is treatment in the institutions and treatment in the communities, and that's particularly true for those men whose risk is at the higher end of the spectrum. We definitely can't just let them out after treatment and think that's going to have done the trick. Corrections Canada has always taken the view that those men have to be involved in continued treatment in the community, and so does the National Parole Board. They make it a condition of release. I think that's very sensible myself.

There are some men at the lower end of the spectrum, particularly the exhibitionists, for example, but probably some of the very-first-time sex offenders, and probably, certainly, the older ones who commit an offence for the very first time, and they could probably be dealt with effectively in the community. If they get a short sentence, the job that we'd be faced with is trying to prepare them to continue that treatment once they're back in the community. If they get a short sentence, there are probably no conditions on them that would require them to do that, and that would be a pity.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Dr. Fletcher, do you share your colleague's opinion that the difference in treatability, for lack of a better term, is marginally more successful or less successful inside or outside the confines of an institution?

[Randall Fletcher]

First, I want to clarify again that I don't have a doctorate, so you shouldn't be calling me “Dr. Fletcher”.

Basically, I do agree with Dr. Marshall about that: you need treatment both in the institution and outside. The institution provides a secure setting where the behaviour at least can come under control. You can begin to focus a little bit more time on treatment.

But if you think about the stages that people go through in learning things, first you may learn it at a cognitive level, but it doesn't really take hold until you actually start putting it into practice. So ultimately you need to have some treatment in the community, where you're supporting the person and you're teaching them how they apply what they're learning in their actual day-to-day activities, in their marriage, in their relationships with family members and with employers, and in dealing with the financial stresses of earning a living--all those sorts of things.

The applied part of that is going to take place better in the most natural setting, where you actually live in the community, but you certainly can begin to learn that in the institution. For someone who poses significant risk, it becomes important that they begin to do that there. I would just like to point out—

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you. I'm going to cut you off there. I only have a short amount of time with you, Mr. Fletcher.

You rattled off a number of statistics regarding increase and decrease in I believe recidivism, involving a number of different techniques to treat people with sexually deviant behaviour. I think the highest number you quoted was an 11% decrease for those who had been through counselling. Did I understand that correctly?

[Randall Fletcher]

Yes. These are general statistics for any type of criminal behaviour. These were studies that were done with general criminal populations.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Right. So you'll agree with me that a very large proportion of individuals who have been involved in sexually deviant behaviour are not affected by any of the programs they might face, whether it's counselling, whether it's prison, or whether it's other forms of treatment...?

[Randall Fletcher]

No, no. They are affected by it. The treatment works.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Well, how do you measure your success? When you say there is an 11% decrease, does that mean this person is cured? Or is that individual just going to commit with less frequency?

[Randall Fletcher]

First of all, you have to understand that this is a very conservative number. It's based on large numbers of treatment programs, some of which are effective and some of which are not, dealing with some people who are very dangerous and high-risk and some of whom are a lower risk. So as for what you're looking at, the way you measure it is that you look at a matched sample of people who didn't get treatment, and you take a look at the recidivism rate for them over 5, 10, or 15 years, and then you compare that with the recidivism rate for people who went through treatment.

The large study I mentioned that was done as part of the collaborative database found that generally you got a reduction from I think 17% to 9.9%. That's a significant decrease.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

For our next question, we'll go to Ms. Dhalla.

Just as a reminder, apparently Mr. Marshall needs to leave by about quarter after five, so for those of you who want to put questions to him, you had better do it now.

Ms. Dhalla, for another five minutes.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

I don't know if I'll go the whole five.

I just wanted to ask, based on the expertise of all of the witnesses we have here, what advice you would actually give to parents, perhaps in a preventative or a proactive sense, in the hope that their children do not get affected or impacted by these child molesters? What can parents do to help prevent something like this?

[Dr. William Marshall]

Child molesters seek out children who are vulnerable, so the greater the efforts parents make to increase their children's resilience, the better, and the obvious route to that is love, support, encouragement, and complimenting them on their successes and so on. That's the best strategy. It doesn't guarantee perfect safety, but it markedly reduces the chances.

Scare tactics don't work. I wrote a book with a colleague in Australia about the prevention of sexual abuse. One aspect of that was how we could arm parents with the necessary wherewithal to reduce the chances so their children would be protected.

This doesn't actually completely eliminate it, but it markedly reduces it. Scare tactics don't work. They just make children frightened of everybody.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

What advice would you give to that constituent, the father who wrote in from my riding of Brampton—Springdale in regard to the image--which he considers pornographic--that his daughter received?

[Dr. William Marshall]

First off, I'd tell him how sorry I am that his little girl was exposed to such a disgusting image, and I would just tell him to give her all the support, love, and affection that he can to help her deal with this. It's profoundly regrettable.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Ms. Hannem, from your expertise...?

[Dr. Stacey Hannem]

In my opinion, I concur with Dr. Marshall that parents need to be supportive of their children. They need to be involved in their children's lives. The closer the relationship between the parent and the child, the more likely the child feels comfortable to confide in the parent if somebody approaches them who probably shouldn't be approaching them.

In my experience, it wouldn't have been likely that this was a random photograph sent to a random cellphone. There was probably some kind of pre-existing relationship there, and if the parent had been aware and cognizant of that relationship and how it was evolving, they might have been able to do something.

But again, I would offer my sincere sympathies to that family. They should have all of the support needed to help their child, particularly given the fact that we know a lot of men who sexually offend have been victims themselves in the past. Therefore, the need for early intervention, treatment, and help for victims of child sexual abuse is absolutely imperative.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We're going to go to Monsieur Petit, but I want to make sure that I ask Mr. Marshall one question before he leaves.

In your introductory remarks, you distinguished between incest and exhibitionism and child molesting. You said that child molesters should go to jail. I think you referred to three years minimum. Am I correct in understanding you?

[Dr. William Marshall]

Well, we need three years in order to effectively treat them. So if they're going to send them to a federal sentence, then instead of two years they should give them three in order for us to get them involved. But they could give them two years less a day, let's say, and send them to a provincial system; they would get effective treatment there and then transition into the community treatment program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Okay. So what you're saying is that a longer sentence isn't necessarily bad. It could be helpful to that offender. Is that correct?

[Dr. William Marshall]

Well, “longer” in the federal system...three years is not longer. It's down at the bottom end of a federal sentence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

All right, but let's say five years. In order to get the treatment they need, often offenders need to be incarcerated for longer periods of time. Is that correct?

[Dr. William Marshall]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Monsieur Petit for five minutes.