Thank you, Chairman and members of the committee.
Today I am speaking to you in my capacity as vice-president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and president of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police.
Canada's justice system has two overall responsibilities: protection of the public and ensuring justice for all those charged with committing crimes and those who are victims of crimes.
In the last several years, there has been great focus on ensuring justice for those charged, as a result of the judicial and public attention to those cases where offenders have been wrongly convicted of crime. That attention was warranted and strongly supported by the police chiefs in Canada.
The focus of my address today deals with the latter: changes that are needed in legislation and in system practice to ensure that the public is protected from further criminal victimization or crime by people who are known as chronic offenders, prolific offenders, or repeat offenders.
To provide you with some background, during the 1970s, Parliament passed into law the Bail Reform Act. In essence, the act established principles such that those alleged to have committed crime would be free from custody until the court established their innocence or guilt. If the court determined that a person was guilty, then further consideration was given to determining whether or not the disposition of the case meant incarceration or jail time for the offender.
The act also established exceptions to the general rule or principles. The first exception dealt with offenders where there were grounds to believe that the offender, if released from custody, would fail to appear in court in answer to the charges against them. The second exception dealt with offenders charged with a crime or multiple crimes where there were grounds to believe the offender would continue to commit crimes while out on bail awaiting their trial.
In the first exception, an accused person could face a bail hearing during which the court would hear evidence relating to those grounds. The law permits the court either to hold offenders in custody until their trial or to release offenders on strict conditions of release that they must adhere to or be in breach of their conditions, which is another criminal offence for which they may be charged.
In the second exception, where there are grounds to believe that an offender will continue to commit crimes while out of custody on bail, the offender can face a bail hearing where the court can hear what those grounds of belief are. Either a judge or justice of the peace can commit the offender to pretrial custody, which incapacitates them entirely from committing more crimes, or the court can release them from custody on strict conditions of release, which ideally prohibit their ability to reoffend.
The foregoing is what the legislation provides for in section 515 of the Criminal Code of Canada. The concern is not so much with the legislation needed to protect the public. We have it, and when it is used properly, for the most part it works. The concern is that the legislative processes are not being used to the extent that they should be, especially with prolific, chronic, or repeat offenders, and because of that, the public is not being properly protected from further victimization.
The justice system is made up of the police, crown attorneys, the defence bar, judges and justices of the peace, and, of course, corrections. While these different participants of the justice system are constitutionally independent of one another, on a practical level they are interdependent on one another to make the system effective. This is important to fulfill both responsibilities of the system: to ensure justice for victims and offenders and for protection of the greater public.
Through 2006 and 2008, studies looking at criminal offender backgrounds were done in Edmonton and Halifax. Canada's police leaders wanted to establish that this was not happening just in one area of Canada.
The studies revealed patterns of offending up to and beyond 100 arrests in a five-year period, where offenders were arrested and released dozens of times, where they breached their conditions of release multiple times, and where they reoffended, harming the public. Hence my focus and my remarks on the protection of the public.
In fact, it is not uncommon to see offenders out of custody on the streets of our cities on multiple bails when their background suggests that they should be incapacitated through pretrial detention. Often, chronic offenders are those who are addicted to or dependent on alcohol or drugs. They're most often locked into the cycle of committing crime to get the money to buy the drugs to feed the habit and so on and so forth.
Most experts agree that the offender's concern is a health problem, primarily, and I believe the Canadian police community would agree. However, when someone crosses the line from harming themselves to criminally victimizing other people, that is a problem for our justice system and for the Canadian public, given the system's responsibility to protect the public from those committing crime.
Although the terms “chronic offender” and “prolific offender” are often used to mean the same thing, the term “prolific offender” can be used to describe offenders who live a lifestyle of crime and victimization and have no lawful means of support. Although for the most part the legislation is in place to address offenders who commit crime, there are legislative changes necessary to strengthen the effects of the justice system in this 21st century.
Allow me to give you some ideas and try to make those tangible. Today I have specific recommendations for change that the committee might wish to consider.
Number one: changes to legislation are needed that make certain actions by justice participants mandatory.
Number two: Parliament must recognize in law the prevalence of alcohol and drug dependence and its influence on crime in today's society.
Number three: Parliament must make changes to the legislated “conditions of release” options, making them more reflective of today's realities and more effective in controlling an alleged offender's conduct while on release.
Let me begin with number one, please: making actions mandatory. When the police prepare evidence for a bail hearing showing the likelihood of an offender reoffending if released, this information amounts to a risk assessment or threat assessment for future criminal victimization. This information is very often disregarded, with no explanations given. This puts the public at risk, and the system is therefore not accountable.
With respect to number two, the legislation makes no mention of Canada's drug problems and the impact of drug dependence on crime and those who are trafficking in crime. I believe this is necessary. It would also link Canada's anti-drug programs to those most affected and causing the most criminal harm to others in our society.
On number three, changing conditions of release, the conditions of release options written into law in the 1970s and 1980s do not contemplate technological advances now available to the justice system. Electronic monitoring may well be an option the courts could consider for offender release, but that option in law does not currently exist.
Another example is the condition to “keep the peace and be of good behaviour”. The example is often used, but it seems to count for nothing in today's system. That expression seems to really mean nothing.
There are many more examples I could provide to you, but the point is that we need to modernize the conditions of release options and ensure that they are effective in limiting the opportunities for criminal behaviour.
Here's the payoff, though: more focus on prolific, chronic, or repeat offenders will without doubt make our communities safer and without doubt reduce crime. I also believe that it will reduce the strain on our justice system, make justice more effective for all, and have a deterrent effect on offenders as well.
In conclusion, while the existing legislation is very much upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, it needs to be modernized to reflect today's reality. The system needs to put more focus on the harm to Canadians from repeat offenders and the system's responsibility for protection of the public.
In the short term, I believe the only way to accomplish that is by making certain actions mandatory. Making changes to this area of criminal law will help bring about the changes that are needed to protect the public and reduce criminal victimization.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee this morning.