Evidence of meeting #23 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was treatment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
I have one last question. You said there was a large literature review that started with 2,600 studies and ended up with three. Were those three studies of electronic monitoring with integrated rehabilitation packages or not?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
The three studies that were narrowed down all met high methodological standards. One of them did have a rehabilitation component, and that showed a decrease in recidivism, but of course the other two didn't, so it--
NDP
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
However, in the case of Newfoundland and in that larger study, if you single out those who had an integrated package, it did show success.
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
Yes, and in fact the authors of the report that reviewed all those articles also made the recommendation that if you use electronic monitoring, you should consider using it with treatment.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. Garrison.
There are another two minutes for the opposition if someone has--
Yes, Madam. Welcome to our committee. You have a couple of minutes.
NDP
Alexandrine Latendresse NDP Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you.
We heard Mr. Nellis talk about a little bit the use of electric monitoring in immigration situations. What do you think of its use, for example, with asylum seekers?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
I don't know that literature. I've never read a study that looked at its use within immigration, so I think it's best to leave it to somebody who knows more about it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
On that question, some of the asylum seekers may indeed be very low risk. Would you assume that they may fall into the same category as a very low-risk offender? Do you think there might be a similarity between the two groups?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
I would think so. I don't understand why there would be much of a difference. I'm sure asylum seekers would also vary in respect to the risk to reoffend or escape.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you for the question, and for bringing it back to the immigration aspect of it.
We'll go to Mr. Leef.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Bonta, for your testimony so far.
We heard some talk about privatization. Was there privatization of monitoring services in Canada?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
In Canada, the provincial jurisdiction will buy the equipment from a private commercial agency. That's typically how it is done. They will supply the equipment. They will teach the staff, usually probation officers, how to apply it to the ankles and how to read the monitoring equipment. In certain situations, they may also provide the actual monitoring, and this may be done in the United States. The monitoring centre, the main one, may not be in Canada. It could be in the United States.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Do you mean that the offender in Canada is actually being tracked and reported on by an agency in the U.S. that would call and provide the data after the fact?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
I don't know about the specific ones. There are many different types out there. I hope that this question comes back up to the technical people when they're here to speak to you. However, I do know that there is a monitoring centre in the United States that provides information to the Canadian jurisdiction.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Then if an offender is in the home, let's say on a curfew, and an alarm goes off and gives an alert that the anklet has been cut or that the person has just walked away from the home during the night, it may not immediately get to probation services. They may end up reviewing it the following day. I'm just wondering about staffing in this context.
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
I don't think they would wait that long, because these are 24-hour centres, but certainly there may be a gap between the time the probation or parole officer gets the information and the time that he or she decides whether it's a false alarm, an equipment failure, or a situation requiring a call to the police. In that sense, it can't prevent a future crime.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
That speaks to what levels of efficiency we're able to work with, I suppose.
We were talking about studies and whether or not recidivism rates are linked to electronic monitoring. Has there been a study done to measure this aspect? Could you comment on whether it would be a better measuring stick to study of the number of breaches that occur with and without electronic monitoring devices in a population of offenders in a given region?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
There may be a few before-and-after studies. I'm not too familiar with them. What's more interesting is having one group with a bracelet and another group without it at the same time, and just tracking their breach records.
The studies seem to be all over the map. Some find a decrease in breaches, because perhaps the offender is afraid and is being a good boy, or sometimes there's an increase in breaches because when there's a false alarm, the police are called, and it's assumed a breach is done. There are many different factors.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
That's where I was trying to see the utility of this being measured in the here and now versus somebody's long-term recidivism, which can also face a number of factors, but you're indicating it's all over the map.
Do you think there are some methodology issues in terms of studying that specific issue, or is it truly just going to be an issue that's all over the map regardless of how we focus on it?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
As I pointed out, in the big review by Marc Renzema, he whittled it down to three high-quality studies. What we find is that, yes, there could be evaluations out there, but most of the evaluations are problematic. Is it because the breaches are wrongly or poorly measured? Is it because one study uses one kind of offender—an impaired driving offender, let's say—while another study uses sex offenders? What's it due to?
I've seen no analyses that attempt to figure out whether the differences in breach rates are due to the type of offender or the policies in that jurisdiction for breaching someone.