No.
Evidence of meeting #76 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site.) The winning word was illness.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #76 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site.) The winning word was illness.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
No. If there were no amendments, we would not support it.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Okay.
I want to go to your report. Your submission is excellent, by the way, CLA.
I look at page 4, and building on what Mr. Armstrong just asked, I'll refer to Dr. Crocker who worked for the Department of Justice. On page 4, you refer to her work and you quote her as saying, “there's no current evidence indicating the need for changing the way things are being done at the moment”.
Then you go on in the following paragraph to say this, and I want you to demystify this for me: Moreover, recidivism rates for NCR accused who have committed serious violent offences are quite low. Only 7.3 % of NCR accused who fall into this category actually committed another violent offence in the following three years. When only looking at those who are absolutely discharged, the recidivism rate for another violent offence falls to 4.1 %.
Just to be clear—
5:25 p.m.
Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
That's the CBA's.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Oh, it's the submission of the Canadian justice section of the Canadian Bar Association. My apologies.
Mr. Parry, I apologize. It's an excellent submission you've given to this committee. I've just read that into the record.
If 4.1% is the recidivism rate for another violent offence, does that mean that's the number of people who reoffend? Is that what recidivism means?
5:25 p.m.
Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
Yes, exactly.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Does that mean 96 out of 100 do not reoffend, if 4% do? Is that what those figures mean?
5:25 p.m.
Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
Yes, that's right.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
All right.
I want to ask the Criminal Lawyers' Association. I think you said, Ms. Dann, that the problem with the definition of “brutal” was its vagueness. Mr. Parry, you said it was extremely problematic.
Presumably, do you mean it could be struck down under the charter for vagueness? Is that what you were getting at when you said it's problematic, or the like?
5:25 p.m.
Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
That's correct. Section 7 of the charter could be used to mount a charter challenge on the basis of vagueness and arbitrariness.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
This question is for Ms. Pate.
I want to invite you to say what you said you might say in answers. You said you had several examples you were going to give the committee. I wonder if you could explain what those examples were and perhaps give us one or two in the time available.
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Sure. I'll start with one about a woman who actually, under this provision, even regardless of the definition, would likely come under this definition of high risk, not because of anything she'd done while she was considered NCR, but in fact, all based on her illness and how she was treated when she got into prison.
This was a young woman who was first raped in juvenile custody when she was put into custody because she ran away. She's 41 now, so she's been through the system. She was raped in custody, escaped custody, and then tried to find her birth family. She found her birth family, was raped by her father, escaped her father, and broke into a school.
She was first put in adult jail for breaking and entering, was strip searched, fought back, accumulated assault charges, and accumulated more charges inside. Her first-ever violent charges were actually in custody. She accumulated 10 years of sentences for violent charges in custody. When she got out she had been labelled as having personality disorders, much the same as we've seen with Ashley Smith. When she got out, and we managed to get her into proper psychiatric care, she was actually labelled schizophrenic and was put on medication. As with many people, she went on and off medication. Her first violent offence in the community was when she went off medication. She first tried to go into hospital. She called the police and the police knew her and they took her to the hospital, in fact. They took her to two different hospitals which wouldn't take her on the basis of her criminal record. On the basis of the record she'd accumulated in prison, she was not accepted.
She then told the police she was afraid she was going to do something to herself or somebody else. They stood there and watched as she said that she was sure that somebody was watching her. She was clearly full-blown psychotic and she stabbed her roommate as the police watched. She told them to look and they would see springs come out of her. When blood came out, she was jolted into some other kind of state and walked over and put her hands out to be arrested. They took her to the jail, unshackled, in the front seat of the car. Clearly she was not perceived as a risk, but she was immediately put in isolation.
When we intervened to have her moved to the forensic unit to be assessed, the initial assessment was that she would not be found NCR, because she was on her meds and she was perfectly capable of describing what had gone wrong, but when we asked them to go back and look at the assessment based on what the police report said, they re-examined that and realized, clearly, there were some major problems.
She was then placed into—
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Ms. Pate, that's the time. I'm sorry, but we're way over at six and a half minutes.
Thank you for those questions and answers.
Our next questioner is Mr. Calkins from the Conservative Party.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Obviously, this is a very delicate and very sensitive issue and we've heard some very emotional testimony from the previous set of witnesses that were here.
As a member of parliament, I put myself in the shoes of somebody who is before me telling me their story. I just heard a couple of stories before you guys were here that were pretty compelling and very much brought home what it's like to live with some of the issues when we don't get it completely right.
I just want to make sure. I've heard you all say that you wouldn't support the bill in its current form, but I want to be very clear about which aspects of the bill you do support.
Mr. Parry, I've heard you say that you support the victim notification and the no-contact order components of that. Is that right?
5:30 p.m.
Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
That's correct.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
5:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Yes. That's already possible, and yes, we would support that.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
June 5th, 2013 / 5:30 p.m.
Director, Criminal Lawyers' Association
Yes. I think that's the practice in Ontario, even though it may not be legislated.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
It might just be a practice, so we're codifying it in this particular case, and you don't have any concerns with that.
Mr. Parry, for some reason you said that public safety was already the paramount consideration throughout the assessment process, yet when we try to codify that in this legislation, you seem to have concerns about that. I'm wondering, for the rest of you, if we're not so concerned about codifying what is an existing practice already when it comes to victim notification and no-contact orders, why codifying the public safety component would be any different an issue. Could you please explain that to me?
5:30 p.m.
Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
I would just like to clarify that I did not say that public safety is already the paramount consideration. I said it's already front and centre of the considerations that the review board looks at.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
I apologize for paraphrasing. I wasn't trying...I was simply paraphrasing; I've heard a lot of words here today.
So “front and centre” somehow means something different from “paramount”. Can you explain what that means? Front and centre to me means the first thing. The first thing means paramount. I'm a little confused.