Evidence of meeting #55 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was victims.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Office of the Correctional Investigator
The number is about 1,500.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Yes, for one year. In actual fact, 1,500 people were eligible for APR, but a little less than 1,000 were granted day parole and a little more than 500 others were refused.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
You also talked about 5,255 offenders who were entitled to be considered for APR — full parole at 1/3rd of their sentence — in the past five years. So that represents about 1,000 people per year.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you telling us that full parole will no longer exist if this bill passes, as it surely will? Will people serve two thirds of their sentence?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Office of the Correctional Investigator
The answer is no. Only the accelerated parole review procedure will be eliminated. Basically, that procedure is a paper review, based on the file and risk criteria.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
So, it is not based on the analysis of a parole officer who has met with the offender several times, done an assessment with a multidisciplinary team and has determined whether the risk of a repeat offence is high or not, and whether or not he should be released. Do you agree with me?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Office of the Correctional Investigator
That decision is made by the Board, not by a parole officer.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Office of the Correctional Investigator
That's correct.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
Would you agree that if APR is removed from the Act, that will in no way change the fact that offenders will be eligible for day parole, for example, in six months' time, after serving one third of their sentence, where there is not a high risk of a repeat offence?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Permit me.
If we look for a moment at just the roughly 1,000 a year who currently access full parole as a result of directed parole releases through the APR process, those 1,000 cases a year, give or take, would have to go to hearings.
But what we see right now in terms of the behaviour of the Correctional Service of Canada is that most releases from a federal penitentiary today happen as a result of statutory release and not due to a conditional release decision of the parole board. One of the reasons for that is that case preparation, getting those files together so they can be presented to the parole board so a hearing can be held, is behind. We also know that there's an increased number of waivers and postponements of hearings. So even with 1,000 cases a year being siphoned off and directed through APR, there's still a backlog, and most releases are still happening statutorily as opposed to being a decision of the board. So we can speculate that if you put those 1,000 cases back into the system, you're only going to create a deeper backlog. It's really a matter of speculation.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
What you're saying is very interesting. Basically, it's not that these offenders will not be able to be released from prison; rather, they will have to appear at a hearing before the Board, rather than being assessed through a paper review, as is currently the case. They will have a hearing before the Board, something which could plug the system. Later, they will be assessed by a multidisciplinary team. A risk evaluation will be done, they will come before the Board and the Board will have to determine whether or not to direct their release, based on the multidisciplinary team's recommendation. So, it cannot be said that this bill will prevent people from getting out of prison. Instead, from now on, they will be assessed in a more detailed fashion by an officer and will have to appear before the Board. The decision will no longer be based on a paper review. Is that correct?
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
You were, of course, correct that people will still be eligible under the law for some form of conditional release at some point in their sentence. The difference is when and how it's processed and considered. So the impacts are on both the Correctional Service, in terms of more men and women spending longer in custody before they are released, and on the parole board to accommodate those additional number of hearings to get people before the board for potential full release.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Mourani. Unfortunately, your time is up.
Mr. Davies, please.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I also want to express my condolences to the victims for the suffering they've experienced.
I'm going to take a risk and say something that I think is on everybody's mind here. The prospect of seeing Earl Jones and Mr. Lacroix walk out of jail after serving one-sixth of their time--after two years of a 13-year sentence--is jarring to Canadians. But also at issue here is the wisdom or not of making a policy that applies to 1,000 people a year to target two people. So I'm going to direct my questions to that.
This committee did a mammoth study on the prevalence of mental illness and addictions in the federal prison system. We found that 80% of the people in federal institutions suffer from addictions or alcoholism, and a very high percentage--I don't even think we can settle on a number--suffer from mental illness. I know that getting access to timely and effective treatment for addictions or mental illness is woeful in our federal institutions right now.
Transferring those people who are eligible--first-time, non-violent offenders--into halfway houses in the community, where they have access to far broader community services like addictions treatment, mental health resources, reintegration, connections with their families, and work, is helpful to their reintegration and rehabilitation.
Does anybody disagree with me on that?
I also want to ask about cost. It's my understanding that it costs about $140,000 a year to keep a male prisoner in a federal institution. We heard Ms. Pate say it costs $185,000 for a female--
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
That's for minimum security.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
It could be higher then.
Does anybody know how much it costs to house a male offender in a halfway house in a major city?
Director of Policy, John Howard Society of Canada
The last figure I saw was in the mid-twenties.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
It depends on economies of scale. Sometimes they're smaller houses. But it's also important to note that people are fully supervised in those settings.
NDP
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
There were 910 women in 1999 to 2000, based on--
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Mr. Sapers and Dr. Zinger, are these figures you're giving for both males and females?