Public Safety Committee on Feb. 16th, 2012

[Don Head]

That's right, yes.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

If I'm reading this news from CBC, this doesn't look like a program that was successful at all. It shows that there were quite a few ineffective technical aspects and malfunctions.

In fact, we had another witness last week, who I'm going to quote. He said, “This [electronic monitoring] project that they ran was so expensive that they would have been better off just to keep people locked up in jail”. This was said by Professor Gendreau, who was here last week.

He also mentioned that “the program was poorly orchestrated, contained too small a sample size, didn't properly collect data, and experienced too many technological breakdowns”. Professor Gendreau is a renowned corrections....

So would it be fair to say that this pilot project was “an unmitigated disaster”?

[Don Head]

I think it's totally unfair to say that. Again, I have the greatest respect for Professor Gendreau and his work in terms of looking at the impact and the effectiveness of correctional programs and on recidivism. This pilot was not intended to address the issue of recidivism rates. It was to understand the use of the technology that we were using at the time: its limitations and its capacities.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I understand that. You've already pointed that out. We've heard from other people that recidivism rates are not affected, whether you're wearing.... This is not for that.

I'm going to go back to the numbers again here. One of the parolees complained that he “received more than 30 calls in a month” because of a malfunction or technical issues. Is that a problem?

[Don Head]

I'm not sure if it's a problem per se. To be honest, if I have my parole officers engaging an offender out in the community more often than they have in the past, I actually see that as a positive thing. As to the fact that they were dealing with an issue around a piece of technology, it was understood by the offenders that this was a pilot. They volunteered for this. They could have agreed to opt out of the pilot at any time.

Even with those false alarms, what we found was that parole officers were engaging the offenders out in the community more than they had in the past. I think most Canadians would accept the fact that if you have parole supervision staff engaging offenders more frequently, that's probably going to lead to better safety and security.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I have a last question. You said the program was voluntary. How many people actually participated in the evaluation of the program at the end?

[Don Head]

I'd have to go back and check the number. I think that at some point we might have been up to 84. It might be a little higher. I'd have to get you the actual number again.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Okay. Would it be fair to say there were only nine people agreeing to evaluate the program at the end of the day? I have that here from the CBC report.

[Don Head]

Yes, in terms of participating in the conversation on the evaluation report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll move back to the government side.

We'll go to Mr. Norlock, please.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

What was the total cost of the program?

[Don Head]

The cost for the period of time they ran it was just over $800,000, but that included the set-up of our national monitoring centre, which doesn't just monitor the electronic monitoring piece; it also is our duty officer centre for any major incident that occurs across the country, and it also monitors our staff safety program for parole officers in the community.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

So it was basically all-encompassing, to make sure that you conducted this study in a proper, holistic way?

[Don Head]

Yes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I'm very interested in your cost analysis, the average daily cost for incarcerating a federal prisoner. Would that be all levels or is that an average?

[Don Head]

That's an average, at all levels, yes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So that's an average. Good.

Maintaining an offender under supervision in the community is at roughly $81 a day. That's the traditional method, I would guess...?

[Don Head]

That's right, yes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Also, in a residential non-government organization on contract with CSC, it's $100 a day.

So these are significantly less than $312 a day.

Who is your typical offender who would qualify for the non-governmental organization under contract?

[Don Head]

The profile for offenders who are managed or supervised by places like the John Howard Society, Elizabeth Fry, St. Leonard's, etc., is not much different from the normal community-based profile that we manage, except that the higher-risk offenders who have a residency clause are more likely to be managed in one of our community correctional centres.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Would they be the type of person who would qualify for an EM?

[Don Head]

There may be some in that group, depending on the conditions placed on their release in terms of full parole or even statutory release. That would determine if somebody was going to be eligible for electronic monitoring.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So on the $15-a-day cost for the program, could you give me a profile of the person who you would think best qualifies for EM?

[Don Head]

Sure. I'll just give you a quick example of some of the kinds of conditions that we have for individuals.

We'll often see individuals when there are concerns in relation to victims. We'll have a condition on their release that says to avoid certain places. I will give you a very specific example: they cannot enter the area of Malvern to Steeles to the north, Port Union to the east, McCowan to the west, and Neilson to the south. Obviously, these are streets in the Toronto area. It's a very specific geographic area.

We'll have other cases that will say where we have registered victims and very serious concerns raised by victims, we'll have conditions that say not to come anywhere near the victim's home or place of work. For individuals who have had as part of their crime cycle an issue related to the use of alcohol, we'll have conditions such as not to enter establishments where the primary source of income is derived from the sale or consumption of alcohol.

These are just some examples. Also, for some of the individuals who have significant gambling problems that lead to the crimes they commit, we'll have conditions to avoid gambling establishments.

I think as you can see, Mr. Chair, through these kinds of conditions, without some tools to help the parole supervision staff understand whether individuals are going there, it's almost impossible for them to enforce some of these types of conditions.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So when you make a statement near the end of the analysis, in the next paragraph, you say that “the evaluation was completed and published in December 2009”—that was what precipitated some of the discussion previous to mine—“and it was determined that all of the EM pilot objectives were successfully met”. By “successfully met”, are you saying that it was successful in ensuring that the offender met all his recognizance conditions, or are you referring in particular to the technical aspect, or would you be referring to both?