Clause 92 allows a peace officer to arrest someone without warrant if they've committed a breach of their parole, statutory release, or unescorted temporary absence, or whom the peace officer finds committing such a breach. Again, it gives the peace officer the kinds of powers that normally reside in a justice of the peace in terms of whether the public interest is satisfied without establishing the identity of the person or arresting the person, or if he believes that the person will fail to report to a parole supervisor.
This is a situation where if somebody is violating a condition of temporary absence or parole, the parole officers are the ones who revoke someone's parole or take action of that nature.
This is giving a peace officer the power to carry out an arrest, effectively arrest someone for violating a parole condition, which may be a minor condition. Conditions of release or parole may have all sorts of conditions attached to them, and it is really in the parole officer's or the parole supervisor's authority to determine why this is necessary. There is no real evidence to support that. We haven't heard of any real examples as to why this is necessary. There is no evidence that the existing framework we have, where if someone is violating parole, if that's a problem and it's a necessity for the parole officer to yank the parole, then it's simply a matter of notifying the parole officer and there are mechanisms there already to address these concerns.
They have ready access to parole officers. They're aware of who they are. They are normally aware of who may be on parole within their community, and there's no real reason why this power needs to be given to peace officers.
There's a little bit of a give and take, if you want to suggest that, in parole. Part of the parole provisions is to seek the rehabilitation of the offender. I don't think it's necessary to be punitive in every respect on every occasion and to essentially engage peace officers in this process without the parole supervisor. It appears to be unnecessary.
We think this is an unnecessary addition and that the work of supervising parole should be left to the parole officers and that the decision should be up to them as to whether parole ought to be revoked and the person picked up.