Evidence of meeting #47 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was shur.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Nick Fyfe  Director, Scottish Institute for Policing and Research and Professor of Human Geography, University of Dundee
Gerald Shur  Senior Associate Director (retired), Office of Enforcement Operations, Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, As an Individual

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

I'd like to bring this meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. This is meeting number 47, and today we are continuing our study of the witness protection program.

We would like to welcome individuals via teleconference. We welcome the senior associate director, Office of Enforcement Operations, Criminal Division, the United States Department of Justice, Mr. Gerald Shur. Welcome, sir.

We would also like to welcome via videoconference, from the University of Dundee, Mr. Nick Fyfe, the director of the Scottish Institute for Policing and Research and professor of human geography.

Can you hear us, sir?

11 a.m.

Professor Nick Fyfe Director, Scottish Institute for Policing and Research and Professor of Human Geography, University of Dundee

Yes, I can.

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

It is indeed a pleasure to have you with us as well.

Mr. Shur, you have the opportunity to make an opening statement, but I understand you may not have one.

11 a.m.

Gerald Shur Senior Associate Director (retired), Office of Enforcement Operations, Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, As an Individual

I simply want to thank the committee for inviting me to come up and share with you my experiences in the United States and to try to be as helpful as possible to you. I appreciate the invitation.

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Thank you very much for consenting to come forward with what you have to tell us. I'm sure it'll be very interesting and helpful in our study.

Now, if we could go to the University of Dundee, Mr. Fyfe, are you ready to make an opening statement?

11 a.m.

Prof. Nick Fyfe

I am indeed, yes.

11 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Welcome. Go ahead any time you are ready.

11 a.m.

Prof. Nick Fyfe

Thank you very much for the invitation to speak to your committee.

In my statement I really want to make three general points: first, about my own background and involvement in witness protection issues; second, I was going to say a little bit about the U.K. experience and how it compares to witness protection in other parts of Europe; and third, to raise a couple of general issues about the effectiveness of witness protection and issues of legitimacy.

To take the first point in terms of my own background, my first involvement with witness protection issues was through a piece of research done for the Scottish government. This was an in-depth evaluation of the Strathclyde Police Witness Protection Programme, which operates in Scotland and involved entities with police officers, with protected witnesses, and with members of the judiciary.

Then a second project I undertook for the U.K. Home Office was really looking at ways of facilitating witness cooperation in organized crime cases, and part of that investigation meant comparing how witness protection in the U.K. operated with respect to witness protection in other parts of Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia. That's my background.

I would say a little bit about the U.K. experience. Witness protection in the U.K. really began in the 1970s, pioneered by the Metropolitan Police Service in London and by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Most of the people they were dealing with were involved in organized crime and terrorist cases.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, an increasing number of police forces in the U.K. established their own witness protection programs, largely in response to organized crime, particularly drug-related cases that involved the murder or attempted murder of witnesses. Basically, a very ad hoc arrangement emerged across the U.K., with individual police forces running their own witness protection programs.

I guess the next most significant development from the U.K. perspective was in 2005 when the government passed the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, which included a section on the protection of witnesses and other persons. That defined the eligibility for protection, the powers of the police to make arrangements with other police forces for protecting witnesses, and the duties of other agencies to assist the police in relocating witnesses.

The arrangements in the U.K. are very much modelled on the United States Federal Witness Security Program, which I'm sure you're familiar with, or Mr. Shur will speak about in more detail.

I want to make four points about the comparison between witness protection in the U.K. and what happens elsewhere in the world.

The first point relates to the eligibility criteria, who is allowed into witness protection programs. What we found when we looked at witness protection from an international perspective was that all jurisdictions share a common emphasis on the risk to the witness, the nature of the proceedings in which the witness is giving evidence, the importance of their testimony, and their ability to adjust to being on a witness protection program.

There are significant differences between jurisdictions in relation to the role that the police, the judiciary, and the government play in decisions about inclusion in protection programs. The U.K. is similar to Canada and Australia in allowing such decisions to be taken by chief police officers, but if you look at a country like Belgium, decisions about who is included are taken by a witness protection board comprising public prosecutors, the police, and members of the justice and interior ministries. If you look at Italy, there's a central commission chaired by the undersecretary of state, comprising judges and experts on organized crime.

So there are quite significant differences in who takes those decisions about who is included.

There are also significant differences between countries in terms of the specification in law of the types of protection and support available to witnesses. If you look at the U.K. case, in none of the legislation does it specify what protection is available. By contrast--obviously it is your experience in Canada and elsewhere in places like Australia--there's much more detail about what kind of support and protection is available.

One final point is that there are very significant differences between jurisdictions in terms of the kind of institutional architecture of witness protection programs. In the U.K., witness protection is very much a local matter for individual chief police officers, whereas other countries operate national or federal protection programs. If you look at France and Italy, you find that witness protection is organized on a regional level. But there are some attempts within Europe, through the European police organization Europol, to kind of coordinate good practice between the different European states.

My final couple of points relate to two wider issues relating to witness protection. One concerns how we evaluate its effectiveness and the other concerns issues of perceived legitimacy. In terms of measures of effectiveness, certainly the work that I have carried out demonstrates that witness protection in the U.K. has been highly effective in terms of securing the physical safety of witnesses and increasing the efficiency of investigations by taking the responsibility for protecting witnesses away from an investigating team and giving those witnesses to a specialist unit.

One of the areas where I think in the U.K. witness protection has perhaps been less effective is in terms of meeting some of the welfare needs of witnesses. One of the big challenges for witness protection programs is how you deal with the social well-being of witnesses in the long term in terms of giving them support and helping them to cope with some of the psychological challenges of living in new communities.

I think one of the other issues around effectiveness that some people have commented on is whether witness protection might lead to the displacement of the focus of those who would seek to harm witnesses onto other groups, particularly members of juries. Is there a danger that by investing all our resources in protecting witnesses that we displace the problem of witness intimidation onto other groups? I think that in essence is a matter for debate and discussion.

The final point I would make—and again there has been some speculation about this in the research—is on the perceived legitimacy of witness protection programs. Some people have raised questions about the perceived morality and fairness to the public of programs that relocate people who generally have a very long history of criminal activity and who are placed in communities where often members of those communities are unaware of these people's past and so on. I think there are some concerns about how the public would perceive witness protection arrangements, and particularly about their own safety if they're living in communities where relocated witnesses have been placed.

That concludes my opening statement.

11:05 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Thank you very much.

We have as a normal practice at this committee the opportunity to ask questions. Hopefully both of you will be able to do that. I'm not sure if the official opposition is ready to participate.

11:10 a.m.

Liberal

Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON

Mr. Chair, I unfortunately had to come from another meeting. I will pass this round and then do the second round.

11:10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Okay.

Monsieur Ménard.

11:10 a.m.

Bloc

Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC

First, I would like to make sure the interpretation is working right.

11:10 a.m.

Prof. Nick Fyfe

Yes, it is, thank you.

11:10 a.m.

Bloc

Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC

What I like about instantaneous interpretation is that, when I make a joke, people laugh twice.

11:10 a.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

11:10 a.m.

Bloc

Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC

I believe it is working. Thank you.

I am a member of the Bloc québécois, which has certain affinities with the Scottish National Party. We are talking about a subject in which, beyond political considerations, we are pursuing the same objective: to secure the cooperation of important witnesses.

There are two types of witnesses that we want to protect. There are those who are innocent and who, if they testified, would run the risk of being intimidated or even killed by members of organized crime. There are also witnesses who have taken part in criminal activities and who one day decide to cooperate with police in exchange for lesser sentences. The Italians have a special name for them. They call them “turncoats”. That moreover is the expression that we tried to use in Quebec, but the press didn't always understand it.

I very much appreciated the document you sent us and the comparisons it contains. They are very enlightening about the various ways in which the witness protection system is used. I don't think Austria's would inspire us a great deal.

Apart from the experiences you've shared with us and that will no doubt be very useful, I would like to know whether your experience is the same as ours in one respect. A number of witnesses to whom we have offered this protection and a new identity, and who have been able to go and live in other parts of Canada have returned to their homes. Generally they return within approximately two years.

Have you noticed the same trend among “turncoats”?

11:10 a.m.

Prof. Nick Fyfe

Yes, exactly the same issue has been part of the U.K. experience, that witnesses find it very difficult to deal with this process of rebuilding their lives in new communities. Generally, they come from places that are very close knit in terms of the existing communities, in terms of their friends, their relatives, and so on, having a history of all living in one particular community. They therefore aren't, if you like, as mobile as other populations, and they find it incredibly difficult to sustain a new life in a new community.

So certainly the U.K. experience is very similar to what you're describing--people returning, probably, as you say, within 18 months or two years to their home community and basically accepting that they will face increased risks by doing that. But they would rather do that than live with the kind of mental anguish and psychological challenges of trying to lead new lives in completely new communities.

11:10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Mr. Shur, do you have a response to that as well?

11:10 a.m.

Senior Associate Director (retired), Office of Enforcement Operations, Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, As an Individual

Gerald Shur

Yes, our experience I think would be somewhat different. Our program began back in the late 1960s. It started about 1966-67, and it was formally adopted in 1970.

In answer to that specific question, we have relocated approximately 8,000 witnesses since that time, probably 14,000 or 15,000 family members, so you have about 22,000 to 23,000 people who have been relocated. And 95% of the witnesses have been involved with crime in some way--some in a major way, some in a peripheral way.

Very few of our relocated witnesses have returned home. I would say less than 100, and I'm inclined to say less than 50 have returned home. We did have an instance where one witness returned to his home after being advised not to. He went to his home, he turned a doorknob, and it blew up. But that is a rare event.

11:15 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Thank you.

Go ahead, Monsieur Ménard.

11:15 a.m.

Bloc

Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC

That will no doubt discourage others from imitating him.

One of our major concerns with regard to these turncoats, that is to say those who have previously belonged to criminal organizations and who return to them, is that these are people who show a particular inclination toward crime. Do you take any measures to ensure that these people do not resume their criminal activities?

Your programs, like ours, make it so that, if they commit an indictable offence, they will be warned and prosecuted. It is one thing to warn them that they will not escape convictions for other crimes, but it is another thing to monitor them and meet them to ensure they are not in a process that leads them to commit other offences.

11:15 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Mr. Fyfe, would you like to reply?

11:15 a.m.

Bloc

Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC

I'd like to know whether you are taking measures to monitor these people so that they are not tempted to commit other indictable offences.

11:15 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz

Mr. Fyfe, would you like to respond first?

11:15 a.m.

Prof. Nick Fyfe

Speaking in relation to the U.K. experience, as far as I'm aware there are no specific measures to achieve that. People are not set up with new businesses or, as far as I'm aware, even given support in terms of seeking new employment and making job applications and so on. I think there is some support in one area that has caused some difficulties in the past: when people have been moved to new communities, getting references from old employers in order to get employment has been very difficult, and I think several police forces in the U.K. have begun to find ways of helping witnesses from that point of view. They are getting references from people, but in ways that wouldn't compromise the security of witnesses.

It is very difficult, and I think certainly the U.K. evidence is that a high proportion of relocated witnesses who have had a history of being involved in criminal activity return to criminal activity within a relatively short period of time of being relocated. In a sense, they can't give up the world that they are most familiar with, and a lot of them do return to crime relatively quickly.