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.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
From your position, would you recommend listing a clear set of guidelines and objectives to tighten that up and then running another study to try to test that out?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
Yes, I would agree with you. That would be one aspect. We need better-run evaluations, and part of a well-run evaluation is having a very clearly defined idea of who your population is and clearly defining the outcomes, which could be breaches. It could be compliance with treatment. It could be getting along at home. You can have many different measures.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right, thank you.
I didn't mean to cut you short, Mr. Bonta, but I was going to make sure Mr. Leef knew that there wasn't going to be another question coming from him.
We're going to go to Mr. Scarpaleggia, please.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Thank you.
I'm still not used to the order. I'm not quite sure what it is. It's very confusing, the order of speaking.
Conservative
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
It's what happens when you're the last questioner.
Just to follow up on a point Mr. Leef was making, am I correct that we're not sure if wearing the bracelet brings recidivism down or not because there are problems with the false alarms, and if there's a false alarm, it may prompt someone to flee? Am I correct in understanding that we don't really know whether someone wearing the bracelet is more or less likely to commit a crime, and we just can't say?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
There are no good evaluations that clearly show it. It seems to me to be a reasonable expectation that at least while it's on your ankle, you're maybe trying to be on your best behaviour, but in looking at the evaluations, it's not clear. It's not as if we can confidently say that crime is reduced while the bracelet is on. However, what's very clear is that once you take the bracelet off, there's no long-term impact.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
When the person is on the bracelet, we would expect it would be a deterrent, logically speaking. If we can't say it's a deterrent, it must raise all kinds of other questions about deterrents, I would think.
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
You're getting me onto something else now.
Can I give a two-minute summary of the psychology of punishment?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
I'm trained as a psychologist, so forgive me, please.
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
Punishment can deter or suppress behaviour, but only under certain conditions. This is from laboratory studies of humans and animals. It has to be immediate, it has to be the right intensity, it has to be predictable, and it has to be done with the right kind of person. Look at our criminal justice system: is the punishment immediate? Is it predictable? Do you know that you're going to get this kind of punishment?
What's the right kind of person it works for? It works really well for people who think in the future, who have little history of being punished, and who think things through. Is this your typical offender? Offenders tend to be concrete thinkers who think in the here and now. They have a long history of punishment. They were raised in families in which most of them were physically abused. Some were sexually abused. Then we sit back and think, “All right, now we're going to give them a bracelet”. Are they suddenly going to be afraid? We've thrown everything at these people, and it hasn't deterred them from a life of crime.
I'd strongly encourage you not to expect deterrence to have a great impact on the behaviour of your moderate- to high-risk offender. You need to put your hope and your money into rehabilitation programs.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
That's a really interesting answer.
You're saying as well that bracelets wouldn't add much value to the tracking of long-term and dangerous offenders who have finished their sentences.
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
I can see one use for them as a way to try to monitor geographical restrictions. You could be very quickly alerted that a sex offender was now nearing a playground or that a gang leader had left his house to do who knows what. It could be helpful in perhaps alerting authorities quickly and maybe intervening before something serious happens, but it's not going to change their long-term behaviour. It's not going to make them pro-social citizens.
Liberal
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
Overall, if I look at the whole body of evidence, I don't think so.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Are you saying that even if it told you that a long-term sexual offender was approaching a playground and the community had the opportunity to intervene through the police, it wouldn't necessarily bring added value?
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
My comment was in general. Yes, it's very possible that you're going to prevent some individual crimes from happening, but if you find from your monitor that a sex offender is near a playground, will you be able to move quickly enough to intervene and prevent something, or will that offender have already kidnapped a child and be out of sight by the time the police arrive?
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
That's a different issue. That's a question of response and the resources available for response.
February 9th, 2012 / 5:10 p.m.
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
It is tied to the public safety issue.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
In your report, you mention that the technology isn't always reliable. Unless I misunderstood Professor Nellis, he seemed to say right off the bat that this technology is foolproof--
Director, Corrections Research Unit, Department of Public Safety
I wasn't here right at the beginning--