Public Safety Committee on Dec. 8th, 2009

[David Moffat]

We are accepting people who are charged with drug trafficking. It is the Crown who decides after studying each case individually. It establishes if the traffic was for personal use or for commercial purposes. People charged with commercial drug trafficking are excluded from the program.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Holland]

We shall now go to Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for appearing before us today, and more importantly, for breathing a really strong breath of fresh air into what can be a very difficult problem. It seems that what you're telling us is that there are progressive and innovative alternatives to prison that are not only better for the people coming through but also have some success in treating the underlying causes. I want to thank you for the work you do.

My first question is probably due to my bad notes, but I want to clarify something.

Ms. Trottier, if I understood correctly, you indicated that funding has been extended to March 2012 for the existing six drug treatment courts. But I thought I heard you say that there was no real way to gauge the effectiveness of that program. Did I have that right?

[Margaret Trottier]

Recently we've completed the summative evaluation on the initial four years of the program, 2005 to 2009. The summative evaluation concluded that we still needed more time to evaluate whether or not this is an effective or cost-efficient approach.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If I could drill into that a little bit, are you looking to see whether it's cost-effective or whether it's effective?

[Margaret Trottier]

We will be looking at both. There is an opportunity to determine whether or not it's cost-effective, but when we're dealing with issues around high-needs clients, besides cost-effectiveness or is the question of its being an efficient or effective program. There will be elements we explore involving cost issues, and there will be elements we explore around effectiveness as well.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

What I'm hearing from the rest of the testimony here is—at least I'm getting a pretty broad swath of testimony—that these programs, both mental health courts and drug treatment diversion programs, are very effective. Does anybody want to comment on this and tell us whether or not we should be expanding this program to include more of these courts across the country?

[Doug Brady]

I can attest that the drug treatment courts across Canada have varying results, and I think that's what Margaret was alluding to. We're seeing very promising and encouraging results, moving forward. We're seeing a great cost saving. I can speak a good deal about Edmonton, because that's where I'm from. We did a social return on investment piece in our program evaluation, and for every dollar we spent, there was a $5.90 return on investment.

We also know that we've had success rates in Canada of up to 32%. I guess “completion rates” is a better way to put it, because success is really hard to measure when you have people who maybe don't graduate from the program but have benefited from it and have decided to opt out near the end of their term with the drug courts. That happens across Canada. They have, for some reason, decided that they would now just want to get it over with and move on. Many of these people remain clean as well. We would want them in the program longer, but they have decided that they want to get out, because it's not an easy program.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Budd, did you want to comment?

[James Budd]

The people who come into drug treatment courts typically are some of the most disadvantaged people in society. They're very often homeless when they come in. They have very high needs, and because of their history, they have quite a high risk of reoffending.

One of the difficulties in doing a national evaluation and coming to some kind of conclusive data is how different each court is. As Dr. Ward expressed, they really are built on community models that respond to the unique needs and structure of each community. I can say that in Ottawa the average participant who comes into our program--we assess them very carefully before they come in and we do some extensive interviews with them--uses, on average, $500 a day worth of drugs before coming into our program. All of this, of course, has to be supported by criminal activity. And you understand, of course, that you don't commit $500 worth of crime to buy $500 worth of drugs. The cost is much higher than that.

We did some analysis within our program and found that in a one-year period, approximately $3 million in drugs were not consumed in our community. That doesn't even consider the crime required to support that amount of consumption. So I think the courts are very effective.

In terms of reducing criminal activity, in our first year of operation we operated differently. You have to remember that drug treatment courts have been running in Canada for about three years, during the most recent funding agreement anyway, and we're learning as we go. In our first year, about 40-some per cent of our clients reoffended while being involved in the program. We increased the intensity. We brought in some criminal thinking. And we dropped that down to about 14%. It's gone lower since.

You have to remember that there are two types of reoffending: the one they get caught for and the one they don't get caught for. If somebody's using $500 a day, they're committing a criminal act every day--many, many criminal acts. I spoke to one client recently who told me that he would shoplift all day, until the stores closed, and then he would start breaking into cars. I like to think that any day a client is in drug treatment court and not using and not committing crime is a good day and is a benefit to our community.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

In terms of the mental health court, which I think is an excellent idea as well, I wanted to know if you could tell us, conversely, what the effect is of having mentally ill offenders in prison. We're talking about diverting them out of prison. What is the cost of having those people in prison, untreated or treated, as the case may be?

[Dr. Helen Ward]

There are a few costs. One of them is that they are involved in more institutional issues, so in fact, you end up with an increase in segregation and an increase in altercations with guards, which results in sick time, injury time, and so on. You end up with potential suicides. You end up with people who need quite expensive psychiatric medications while in the correctional facility, and probably more of them than if they were out. You also end up with people who come out without any treatment established, so they rapidly go back in. I've had a few people who I can't even get my hands on before they're back in again. Those are the kinds of things we really need to fix, because in the end, you're ending with really increased stays.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Holland]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Rathgeber, for seven minutes.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice-Chair.

Thank you very much, all of you, for your excellent presentations today.

I'll begin with Ms. Trottier.

You indicated that not all your participants graduate, but you didn't tell us what percentage do. I was wondering if you have that statistic.

[Margaret Trottier]

As was mentioned, national evaluation is challenging in that we bring together the results from the different programs across the country. What the current statistics show is that we have a range of graduation rates, from 6% to 36%, in the various programs. There's an obvious need for us to collect better data to better understand what the graduation rates are.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Brady, do you keep statistics on graduates from the Edmonton program?

[Doug Brady]

Yes, I do.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

What's your rate?

[Doug Brady]

When we did our original evaluation, it was 27.5%, and that has increased now to a 32% graduation rate. All the graduates come back and see us. There are people who didn't graduate who come back to us as well. Even after they've been removed from the program, they come back to us and tell us how well they're doing.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Sure. So for the 68% or so who don't graduate, they're ultimately sentenced, I take it. Their sentences are initially suspended, but if they don't make it through the program ultimately, there is some disposition of a fine, probation, perhaps a custodial sentence. Is my understanding correct?

[Doug Brady]

That's correct, and I think across Canada most of the people who come to drug courts would be receiving a custodial sentence. So they would return to the original sentence that was set out at the beginning, usually. That's an early case resolution. In our provinces, they would be receiving somewhere between 18 months and three years in jail, and that varies up to two years less a day, I think, in Ottawa. So it varies across Canada, but they would be stuck with their original sentence.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Brady, I have to challenge you on one of your stats. You said 11.6% of your graduates are not recidivists. I'm just curious as to how you measure that, because unless you're tracking them all the way until the end of their lives, there's no real way of coming up with that. Is that one year out, is that two years out? Where does that 11.6% come from?

[Doug Brady]

I got that out of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. So 11.6% of those who complete drug treatment court programs ran into trouble with the law again, and of course you can't measure it. I agree, it's probably two years out. That is what I would think.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Two years, okay. Do you have a way of finding out for me?

[Doug Brady]

I will check that out and get back to you.