Justice Committee on Feb. 14th, 2011

[Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem]

That is correct.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

In my opinion, society and no one around this table will accept pedophilia, even if it is a sexual orientation.

I recall a period, not too long ago, when homosexuality was treated as an illness. It is now accepted, society has accepted it, and even if some refuse to recognize it, it is accepted.

However, I cannot imagine pedophilia being accepted in 2011. You are telling me that even if we were to impose a five-year minimum on people it would not solve the problem. Once they get out of jail, they reoffend. That is worrisome.

[Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem]

Yes, the risk is high, and the best factor to predict that a person will not reoffend is age. My colleagues will probably agree with that, at least one of them will. For a number, or a category of offenders—when we refer to pedophiles we are talking of only 20% of the abuser population—we hardly have any other choice but to wait for the passage of time before we can feel comfortable with their release.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I agree with you. There are a number of aspects to the bill, but let us focus on pedophilia. Would you go so far as to say the same thing in the case of incest?

[Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem]

No, no. In fact I precisely drew a distinction between extrafamilial sex offenders, and that includes pedophiles, and intrafamilial offenders. I drew a very clear distinction there.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

You are telling us that pedophiles, and I was carefully listening to what you said, attack prepubescent children. The problem is that if they are 20 or 30 years old—you have seen pedophiles and so have I—we are going to be keeping them in jail.

What can we do to reassure society? What you are telling us today, with all due respect, is frightening. Regardless of what we do, it is aging, or time, that will make it so that... So, there is no treatment for this?

[Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem]

I think that Canada at one point took a good decision on this subject by creating the long-term offender or dangerous offender designation. I think that this decision was probably based to some extent on this type of observation.

[Dr. Vernon Quinsey]

I just want to say that you can manage the risk that sex offenders present--even pedophiles. It's a matter of supervision. So it's not necessarily that they need to change their sexual orientation; they need to learn to control themselves, with our help.

Pedophiles are not usually the highest-risk offenders. Sometimes they are, but there are other characteristics in addition to sexual preference that make people extremely dangerous. One of them is their anti-social tendencies--things like psychopathy, and their propensity for risk. Those things in combination with sexual deviance make people particularly risky.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

I want to thank both professors for appearing here today. Your evidence has been helpful and will form part of the record. Thanks to both of you.

We will suspend briefly, as we excuse these witnesses and allow the next panel to take their place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

I'll reconvene the meeting.

We have with us a new panel to speak on Bill C-54.

First of all, representing the John Howard Society, we have Ed McIsacc, who is their interim director of policy. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Mr. R. Karl Hanson, senior research scientist, corrections and criminal justice.

You are here representing the department, correct?

[Dr. R. Karl Hanson, Senior Research Scientist, Corrections and Criminal Justice, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Yes, I'm a content expert representing the information we developed from the department.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Okay.

And then we have also the Church Council on Justice and Corrections. We have Lorraine Berzins, the community chair of justice, and Richard Haughian, board member.

Welcome to both of you.

We will begin with Mr. McIsaac.

[Ed McIsaac, Interim Director, Policy, John Howard Society of Canada]

Thank you.

I'll begin by thanking the committee, on behalf of the John Howard Society of Canada, for the invitation to appear. We appreciate the opportunity to meet with you today to discuss Bill C-54.

For those of you who don't know, the John Howard Society of Canada is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support effective, just, and humane responses to the causes and the consequences of crime. The society has 65 front-line offices across the country, which deliver programs and services to support the safe reintegration of offenders into our communities.

Everyone in this room is supportive of protecting our children from sexual predators and promoting safer communities. Where our concern lies with this legislation is in the vehicle chosen to accomplish this goal. The introduction of mandatory minimum sentences and the corresponding elimination of conditional sentences proposed by this legislation will, in our opinion, not move us forward on these issues.

The John Howard Society of Canada has been on record for a decade as opposing mandatory minimum sentences. One of the cornerstones of our sentencing policy is proportionality. We sentence the offender, not the offence. The ability of the judiciary after having heard all of the evidence to pass sentence consistent with that evidence is central to ensuring proportionality and effective interventions.

I am unaware that we have experienced in this country a rash of unreasonable sentencing decisions that would cause us to limit the traditional discretion given our judges. Both experience and research tell us that mandatory minimum sentences, in addition to limiting the ability to ensure that sanctions imposed fit the crime, result in fewer guilty pleas, which results in more trials, with more offenders being sentenced to longer periods of incarceration. Our courts are currently backlogged, resulting in excessive delays in initiating corrective interventions. Our jails are currently overcrowded at both the provincial and the federal level, causing further delays in accessing treatment programs.

We know that mandatory minimum sentences neither act as a deterrent nor reduce crime rates. The protection of society is best served through the timely, supportive reintegration of offenders back into our communities. Mandatory minimum sentences do not facilitate that process.

The limitations placed on judicial discretion by this legislation will, in both the long and short term, act as barriers to achieving the legislative objective. As both our neighbours to the south and Great Britain retreat from decades of mandatory minimum sentencing policy, I urge this committee to take a step back and ensure that proportionality remains the cornerstone of our sentencing policies.

I thank you for your attention. I look forward to your comments and questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We move to Mr. Hanson for ten minutes.

[Dr. R. Karl Hanson]

I'm Karl Hanson. I'm a senior research officer with Public Safety Canada. I was invited here today as a content expert. I've been doing research on sex offenders for a number of years and some of my work has been mentioned in previous testimony. What I will do today is basically introduce some summaries of some basic facts about sex offenders and open myself up for questions on the topics on which I have conducted research in our department, as stated positions.

In front of you are four separate pieces of paper. One of the pieces of paper is called “Sex Offender Recidivism”. It's a basic summary of recidivism rates of sex offenders. We took a large group of sex offenders, followed them for a period of time, and looked at how many of them were caught for a new sex offence. What we find, on large studies, is that about 10% to 15% will be convicted of a new sex offence after about a five-year follow-up period of time. This is lower than many people anticipate, but it's not zero. Also, there is wide variability in the recidivism rates, with observed rates being as low as 1% or 2% in certain subgroups and being as high as 50% or 60% in other subgroups.

The second piece of paper, the research summary, is “Recidivism rates of female sex offenders”. This is one of the subgroups of sex offenders who have very low recidivism rates. Their sexual recidivism rates are in the order of 1% or 2%, if you follow them for a period of time. We have updated this with larger samples with similar results.

The third piece of paper is something called “What Works For Sexual Offenders?” I'll pause here, since it says something a little bit more complicated. What we did was we looked at all the treatment programs out there that have been evaluated for sex offenders and compared the ones that were more likely to be effective and those that were less likely to be effective.

We found that, overall, for the offenders who received treatment, their recidivism rates were about 11% after a five- or six-year follow-up, and for those who did not receive treatment, it was about 19%--it was higher. Both numbers are not zero, but there is a significant reduction overall.

We also found that we could identify the programs that are most likely to be effective. Those are the ones that treat moderate-risk to higher-risk offenders--offenders who have at least a moderate chance of reoffending--and those that treat the aspects or psychological characteristics associated with offending risk, their criminogenic needs. And the third principle is if they are able to engage the offenders meaningfully in the therapy process--what we refer to as responsivity. For programs that follow these principles, we have much stronger effects than those that do not. Basically, there are treatments out there that can be effective, many of which are implemented across Canada in various places.

The fourth piece of paper is one abstract translated in a French and English version. It summarizes a research study that I conducted with my colleagues Michael Seto and Kelly Babchishin, which looks at the extent to which offenders who have been caught for Internet sex crimes are also involved in contact sex offences. What we found is that among those who have been caught for an Internet sex crime, about 12% have an official conviction or record of a prior contact offence. About half of them will admit to a contact offence in the past.

If you look, then, at what happens to them after they're caught, you find that their recidivism rates are in the order of 3% to 5%. We observe a 4% to 5% recidivism rate after about three to five years, on average. About 2% are new contact offences, and about 3% are new Internet sex offences.

In summary, we believe there is a category of individuals who are involved with Internet sex offences who have a very low probability of becoming involved with contact sex offences. Some of the Internet sex offenders are just normal sex offenders who have Internet access, whereas there's another category, probably a smaller category, of individuals whose crimes are essentially restricted to Internet involvement.

Those are the major points I'd like to make today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

I will move to Mr. Haughian.

[Dr. Richard Haughian, Vice-President, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, thank you for this opportunity to appear before you.

The Church Council on Justice and Corrections is a national faith-based coalition of 11 founding churches, incorporated in 1972. We promote community responsibility for justice, with an emphasis on addressing the needs of victims and offenders, mutual respect, healing, individual accountability, and crime prevention.

In December 2010 the CCJC sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Canada expressing our concern that in this time of financial cuts to important services, the Government of Canada is prepared to significantly increase investment in the building of new prisons: “Proposed new federal laws will ensure that more Canadians are sent to prison for longer periods, a strategy that has been repeatedly proven neither to reduce crime nor to assist victims”.

Mr. Chair, Bill C-54 is one of the bills about which we have concern.

With me is Ms. Lorraine Berzins, CCJC's community chair of justice. Lorraine has had many years of experience working in the criminal justice system. She will speak in more detail about CCJC's position.

[Lorraine Berzins, Community Chair of Justice, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

Good afternoon.

I've worked for CCJC for 27 years now, after working in prison for 14. I want to tell you, first of all, that CCJC takes very seriously the harm done to children by sexual offences and that we've a long track record of really trying to do everything we can to help break the silence about this in our churches and in our communities.

We have produced, over the years, several different resources that help people in churches talk about it, because we've known that so many victims were suffering in silence and that it was something that was condoned. We take responsibility for how that has affected and been contributed to by our own churches. We have done a lot to help victims find a voice and to help churches be candid and honest with each other and work toward prevention. We want to stop the behaviour and help people heal.

Those are very good goals, and I think those are the goals you have with this legislation too, but we are very concerned about the fact that mandatory minimum sentences, as a tool, are not effective and can do a lot of harm. Our concern is that your proposals cover a lot of different situations for a lot of victims in a lot of different situations and they cover them with the same blunt tool of mandatory minimums.

We know and we've encountered situations where the immediate safety of the victim in the community does require that someone be in prison, and we are absolutely confident that when it's the safest thing to do, it has to be done. But there are so many more where that is not the case. What we're concerned about are the proposals that are going to really make this something that has to be done even when it's not appropriate and that what is already bad for victims in the criminal justice system will become worse. I mean by that the adversarial system and the way that works.

The adversarial court room is not a safe place for victims to find support and tell their story. It's very frightening, especially for children. It makes them feel guilty when they are pushed by defence lawyers who are busy doing their job in our criminal justice system. It's very scary for them, and people who care about particular child victims would do anything not to put them through that. So proceeding in a way that is not going to require a prison sentence for safety but can avoid for the victim the kind of extra suffering is often a good thing to do. It's something we would not want to lose.

The increased penalties are going to raise the stakes in that and are going to make that battle even more so in our courts. Even the victim impact statement is a scary thing for victims, and I'm telling you this from my own direct experience with some victims and from what I've heard from many others who work with victims. Child victims don't want to feel that their entire life is ruined by what has happened. They need to feel that they can still have a good life and that the tools are there to help them do that.

A victim impact statement in an adversarial system really tends to make them stress all the worst things and the terrible prognosis of what's going to happen to them. That's not good for the victim. So for those of us who care about them as people, it makes a lot of sense to try to look at what could be avoided in order to give them what they need to find support but not put them through what is not necessary.

We have found one model that has worked very well and we would really like to recommend that. It's the child abuse teams that some crown attorneys' offices have established in some jurisdictions. In that kind of model, the crown, police, victims' services, children's aid, the parents, and the interviewer of the child—all of the people who have a piece of the puzzle—get together and carefully assess what would be the best way to respond as a criminal justice system in this situation. Then they make a proposal that's put before the judge. Sometimes it includes a sentence of imprisonment, but often it doesn't.

The problem with a mandatory minimum sentence is that it doesn't allow you that flexibility. As other people have told you, it goes against all the research we have. There's no positive reason to do it, and it takes away something that is so key to working more effectively. It also goes against the international trends right now.

So why is the government doing this? Have you found from research that the sentences are too low? I haven't seen anything like that put forward. Have you found that when they were too low crowns didn't appeal when they could have? What is the reason that is pushing you to think this is necessary? I haven't seen any.

The terrible thing is that there will be collateral damage from this. There will be a lot of unintended consequences, because these proposals are designed by people who don't understand how the system really works. I would like you to think very seriously before you move ahead with something that's going to do so much harm.

It appears to have been done to reassure the media and the public, but uninformed people are not the people to rely on to guide you in what you should be doing on something as important as this.

We're not the first country to experience this. I'm going to leave you with a quote by Lord Auld in the U.K., who faced the same situation. He said:

it is one thing to rely on uninformed views of the public as a guide to what may be necessary to engender public confidence, and another to rely on such views as an argument for fashioning the system to meet them. Public confidence is not an end in itself; it is or should be an outcome of a fair and efficient system. The proper approach is to make the system fair and efficient and, if public ignorance stands in the way of public confidence, take steps adequately to demonstrate to the public that it is so.

These proposals will not do that; they will do the opposite. They will make the system worse, and they will reduce public confidence as a result of that.

I make three recommendations. First, there should be no mandatory minimums. At the very least, could you make it presumptive rather than mandatory?

Second, have child abuse teams in more jurisdictions. I would really recommend that you consider this as an important direction to pursue.

Third, couldn't future proposals be more evidence-based? They need to be designed by people who understand how the system really works. You could begin as a government to consult with people who can give you that kind of recommendation so what you do doesn't do more damage.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you very much.

We will open the floor to questions and move to Mr. Murphy for seven minutes.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, witnesses.

This has been an extremely interesting panel of witnesses. I'll get right into some questions.

We've had some research here that is very interesting. I think a lot of us are shocked about what the actual degree of recidivism is.

I have some short snappers, Mr. Hanson, because I have all kinds of questions that are more philosophical in nature. In the documents you gave us in the research summary it makes no distinction between a sex offender and a pedophile, if I got it right.

[Dr. R. Karl Hanson]

No. Pedophilia is a--

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Are there any statistics that break it down?

[Dr. R. Karl Hanson]

In that report we divide them by their victim type. We look at offenders against extra-familial boy victims, of which a significant proportion would be pedophiles, by the other term. They have rates that are substantially higher. But after five years it would be 30%, or something like that.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

What you're telling me exists somewhere?

[Dr. R. Karl Hanson]

That exists.