Justice Committee on March 29th, 2010

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Do you want to add anything, Mr. Foss?

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

In terms of a timeframe for when interventions occurred, within the prairie region specifically, we started the intervention process directly with gang members in the late 1990s, probably 1996 and later. It occurred sporadically. We did have some external evaluations done on intervention and actually found dramatic improvement in attitudes towards vengeance. There was a reduction in vengeance and in negative attitudes towards the police, and tolerance for law violations, for violent criminal acts towards others, was decreasing.

But more importantly, we also found real behavioural change within the institutions. The average offender a year prior to intervention was accumulating serious or minor charges at the rate of nine a year, but one year post-intervention, those serious or minor charges within the institution were down to less than one per person.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

We will now move on to Mr. Petit.

I understand you want to split your time with Mr. Woodworth.

Monsieur Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

We support the idea of conducting a study on organized crime and to do so, we need your insight. You all spoke to us about your field of expertise, but now I would like to ask some questions that I hope you can answer.

When governments decided to control alcohol, they said they wanted to reduce organized crime. One of the first things to be nationalized was alcohol. That was the case in my province and perhaps in other provinces. Next came gambling. Once again, the objective was to reduce organize crime, which was still a problem.

Now we face a challenge. Even if we nationalize everything that criminal gangs have or want, we will be forced to deal with things like drug problems, human trafficking and money laundering. Poor people are always the ones to have alcohol and drugs; they are the ones who wind up in prison. Whether aboriginal or white, poor people are the ones who take the rap because of these things that belong to the government. We must not forget that the government has ownership over alcohol and gambling, for example.

I wonder if you have any suggestions, based on your own personal experience. Mr. Rice is proposing legal solutions, but are there any solutions that could be introduced on the ground and that we could include in our report? We want to curb organized crime. As you know, we control everything related to the vices that exist in society, yet we cannot fix this problem. From your perspective, how would you go about it?

My question is for everyone, but primarily for those who work in the field, for instance, Ms. Fox, Mr. Cenaiko, Mr. Foss and Mr. Louis. As for Mr. Rice, I understand the issue of disclosure.

[Jan Fox]

That's a complicated question. If you are asking me about what you can do to help us, what we need the help in is to have better knowledge and understanding of the differences among gang members.

You talked a lot about gangs being controlled by all of those things you mentioned: alcohol, drugs, and human trafficking. In my world in the prairie provinces, that's not what I see in prison. What I see in prison and on conditional release, as you've also said, Mr. Petit, are such things as poverty, lack of education, and no employment. Those are the people who are in my jails. They are not rich. They're not making money from the drug trade. They're not making money from human trafficking or from those substances.

In fact, as for what they do, they're violent, and whatever money they do have, they either spend it on themselves to abuse those substances or they give it to their families to help support them. So my experience has not been so related to those things you were mentioning; I think we need to look more at the root causes of prevention before they get to my doorstep.

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

Just to add to that, I'll tell you a little short story about working in a group of 15 offenders in a medium-security prison here, all of whom were in a gang. My question to them was, “What's the number one thing that keeps you guys coming back to prison and keeps you being losers?” Their response was alcohol and drugs and their own consumption of it, not so much their ability to sell it, but absolutely their consumption of it. Do they participate in the selling? Absolutely, but more or less to support their own lifestyle, which is really about the consumption component.

My major objective when I'm working with them individually is to point out to them that with the substances they continue to use, especially if it's soft substances or some that are legal now, like alcohol, what they continue to teach themselves are inappropriate coping skills. Any time something goes wrong, it's “have a joint” or “have a drink”. But that's the wrong answer. That's the coping they teach themselves and that keeps them stuck in their lifestyles.

I'm not sure if that directly responds to your question, but it is a significant issue.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Est-ce que cela suffit, monsieur Petit?

You have about two minutes and 10 seconds, Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Merci, monsieur Petit.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

For Mr. Rice in particular, I wanted to ask about the issues regarding disclosure, because I can imagine a number of different things that would be included in that problem, one of them being deciding how much confidential information about informants should be released; another being perhaps even the sheer necessity of typing transcripts and the time that takes; another being not knowing for sure what the defence will want in disclosure; and yet another being the fact that you may be having ongoing investigation even after charges are laid.

In order to understand what I can do about the disclosure problem, I need to have a little more fleshing out of that from you. Why, after four years of a case, is there still an ongoing disclosure problem? What can this committee recommend to solve that?

[Greg Rice]

Thank you.

I'm not really sure what the committee can recommend. You're absolutely correct on one of the main issues, and I can tell you about one of the main issues, not anecdotally but factually. In the second case I related to the panel, the main issue is a wiretap affidavit that has many informants. There are confidential informant problems with it. If that is disclosed, the obvious concern is that those informants' lives will be in danger.

Because of the way the information was put into that affidavit, we have had to basically tear it apart and put it back together. We're still not absolutely confident that we have it right yet, because they used a lot of very specific information with regard to information, so that has taken literally five or six months to do. That's one of the issues. Confidential informants: that's our main concern.

With regard to ongoing investigations, we can always basically withhold disclosure to protect them, but ultimately, as we approach trial, we have to tell the police to make a decision on whether they are going to continue the investigation. Otherwise, we have to disclose it. I guess part of the problem is that these files are so big and involve so many different mechanisms and parties; it seems to me that there is not consistently one thing or another that goes wrong.

You put so many facets into one of these files. We're talking about prosecution, the courts, defence lawyers, the police, and even civilian members of the police. When you put so many so facets into one of these files, it always seems that somewhere along the line there is a breakdown.

One case is not the same as the next. I can't put my thumb on what the general problem is. However, I can say that it seems in many cases there's always one facet that goes wrong, and I don't know what to do about that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

I'm going to have to stop you there, Mr. Rice.

Madam Mendes, vous avez cinq minutes.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy.

In terms of the disaffiliation process, as you say, it is a process that can be very, very long. What kind of protections do these young people...? I imagine that most of them would be in their late teens or early twenties. Or even older...?

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

I work with the adults, so they're 18 and older.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Okay. But what protection do they need during this process of disaffiliation to actually make it stay, to make it stick with them? I imagine they get threats from their former gangs. I don't know how that happens, but what is their means of protecting themselves?

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

Are you speaking about that relative to people who are not incarcerated?

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Yes, once they are out of prison and have gone through the process.

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

There are many things we discuss with them. The major issue, really, is for them to become useless to their gangs. It's not necessarily to announce while they're in prison that they're leaving. It's just to fade into the woodwork, to fade into the background when they come out into the community, and not have contact with anyone.

If they're on conditional release, we take into account where to put them with respect to halfway houses and we make sure there aren't any incompatibilities. If they're living on their own, they have to live out of the core area and not socialize in those areas. A lot of times, unfortunately, they go back to the areas where they're most comfortable. Then we have to work with them and say, “You really will put yourself in the line of fire or in jeopardy if you go into those areas”.

“Nothing good happens after midnight” is a consistent message.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Is that part of their parole agreement?

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

While they're on parole, yes, they have curfews as well.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Would job training be part of what you offer, a sort of reorientation in a meaningful way to find other ways of living?

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

Parole officers would certainly be interested in the vocational and job-training part of it. We also have staff in the parole services who assist in finding employment. It is actually a very, very significant part of them being able to change.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

To reintegrate.

[Dr. Hugo Foss]

Yes.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

While they are with you, Ms. Fox, at Correctional Services, is any vocational training or education offered to them?

[Jan Fox]

Yes, very much so. We work really closely with the offenders right from the beginning when they're incarcerated. I have a person who works full-time as an employment coordinator. She does a market analysis to determine what kind of work is required out there. Then we link that to all the men and women who are in jail and give them some training and retraining, vocational training, inside jail.

We then link that to when they come out into the community. We try really hard to do that. It's about the simple things like the specific training skills that they require, but they also need to know how to write a resume and even just about the importance of good work-life behaviour in terms of being on time for your job, being respectful, dropping your gang colours, and not being allowed to wear any markings and that sort of thing.

Again, the multidisciplinary approach we have is important. For example, if Hugo, as a psychologist or in his work with disaffiliation, has some things he needs them not to do in terms of their work, it's about communicating back and forth between parole officer, community employment coordinator, psychologist, and mental health workers. It's a very big multidisciplinary team. As well, from the security side, there are strategies the police are asking us to employ.

We even have the resources, for example, to check on them in their workplaces and make sure they're doing what they saying they're doing. We work in close partnership with the police to do that.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Does that include the parole officers?