Evidence of meeting #27 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 technology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I call the meeting to order.
Good afternoon, everyone. This is meeting number 27 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Thursday, March 1, 2012.
Before we get into the introductions, Mr. Scarpaleggia has talked about his motion. If it is the committee's will, and I believe we have some type of consensus, we would like to reserve 10 minutes at the end of the second hour to go into committee business and to discuss a number of things.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
I would suggest that we have at least 15 minutes, just to make sure.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right, we will go for 15 minutes. At a quarter after five, my intention would be to go to committee business.
Today we are continuing on our report and our study of the use of electronic monitoring in correctional and conditional release settings, as well as in an immigration enforcement setting, with a view to determining effectiveness, cost efficiency, and implementation readiness.
In our first hour, we have witnesses appearing by video conference. The first is Eric Caton, the president and chief executive officer of Jemtec Inc. in Vancouver, British Columbia. We have a blizzard here in Ottawa, so we almost wish we were with you in Vancouver today. We also have Michael Nuyen from Toronto, Ontario, who is the project manager. Our committee wants to thank both of you for taking the time and effort to appear before us and to share your information with us on this study.
Committee members know that Jemtec Inc. is Canada's leading provider of compliance monitoring solutions used in justice, law enforcement, and the immigration system. I looked at their website and I see they do alcohol monitoring and a number of other things.
First, I offer the two gentlemen the opportunity to have an opening statement before we proceed to questions from members of Parliament. We will begin on the west coast with Mr. Caton, please.
Eric Caton President and Chief Executive Officer, Jemtec Inc.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. What I was going to do was run through my comments and then move to the questions, if that is appropriate.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
That would be good. We will hear from you, and then we will hear from Mr. Nuyen.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Jemtec Inc.
Very good.
My name is Eric Caton, as mentioned, and I'm the president and CEO, and I'm from Vancouver. Jemtec's project manager, Michael Nuyen, is also participating today, and he is from Toronto, as mentioned. I'll make a brief statement, as I said, and then we'll move on.
For the majority of my comments, the use of the letters EM will mean electronic monitoring in all forms of the technology.
I'm pleased to offer our experience today and to share our insights, which cover a full breadth and scope of this study from a truly Canadian perspective. I'd like to briefly describe Jemtec, what it does, who our customers are, and the relationships we have with technology leaders in electronic monitoring. Following this, we'll address specific questions. We'll move through cost-efficiency, the implementation readiness and so on, and then the questions.
Jemtec, a publicly traded firm, is a leading provider of compliance monitoring solutions for justice, law enforcement, and immigration agencies. We've been that leader for 25 years; throughout this time, we have focused exclusively on the Canadian market and helped government and law enforcement agencies launch every electronic monitoring program currently in existence in Canada.
We have provided our customized solutions to CBSA and CSC at the federal level, and also to the provinces of British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.
Our solutions have also been used by local law enforcement agencies, including specialized police units responsible for managing high-risk offenders in the community. For public agencies, our services and technology give the courts, correctional services, police services, immigration authorities, and other entities the means to verify if the individuals are complying with their legally imposed orders, such as house arrest, home curfew, abstinence from alcohol, and movement restrictions.
With today's technology, these types of conditions can be monitored very cost-effectively compared to detention in aging and expensive facilities. I will speak to that in greater detail shortly.
Jemtec also provides services directly to individuals in specific cases, not just public agencies. Since 2004 Jemtec has been providing specialized arrangements to accused persons applying for bail pending their trial. For those accused persons, our services provide them and their families with options to develop more robust and comprehensive release plans to propose to the courts or to the immigration adjudicators.
I've talked briefly about who our customers are. Let me now describe our suppliers. I'm especially proud of the long-standing partnerships with high-technology leaders and innovators who themselves have extensive knowledge in the North American EM market. By maintaining strong relationships with reliable manufacturers, Jemtec keeps its focus on customizing integrated solutions for its customers. For example, different government agencies will have different needs regarding EM equipment and computer systems they prefer. They will have different procurement rules and preferences, such as purchasing or leasing or renting. Their training and customer support preferences are not always the same.
In some cases, agencies prefer that we not only provide the systems, but perform some of the services that are part of an overall EM program. For example, a well-designed program will have specific people responsible for installing equipment, setting up parameters in the monitoring software, receiving and responding to alerts when customers are non-compliant, and providing reports for the courts or other justice agencies.
Jemtec has been involved in a wide variety of contracts, some involving the supply of equipment, software, and training, and others involving the installation of GPS tracking bracelets on site at a participant's residence, for example. When asked, we've also established 24-hour monitoring centres that receive and act upon alerts around the clock and escalate to local law enforcement when needed.
What I am trying to convey is that Jemtec doesn't just ship pieces of equipment around the country. We provide a customized set of services and support our customers' specific needs for the day in, day out situation. In this way, Jemtec's business is similar to a mobile phone carrier like Rogers, Bell Canada, or TELUS. We don't make electronic monitoring equipment in the same way that the mobile carriers don't make the smart phones they sell and support. Instead, we're all focused on determining the customers' technological needs and then customizing the best match for them.
Now l'd like to speak to the scope of the committee's study, which involves the use of EM in a correctional and conditional release setting, as well as an immigration enforcement setting with a view to determining effectiveness, cost-efficiency, and implementation readiness.
I want to speak to each of these factors and then point out how the issues may differ depending on the setting. As context for my remarks, let me start by sharing some of the key insights I've gleaned over the past 25 years.
First, I am aware that in certain circumstances the nature of an offence warrants incarceration, and sometimes lengthy or even indefinite incarceration. For example, through the years I have come across research that suggests that some violent repeat sexual predators cannot be “cured“.
Second, notwithstanding my first point, it is my experience that the vast majority of convicted offenders will eventually return to the community. Sometimes this will be after a period of incarceration—for example, through parole—and sometimes it will be because they received a community disposition, such as a conditional sentence or probation order. It is my experience that across the country, about 85% of the offenders under provincial supervision are in the community, while only 15% are incarcerated on any given day.
At the federal level, the ratios are different because the Correctional Service has a different jurisdiction, but in the vast majority of cases, even their offenders will return to the community. For the border services agency, I am aware of media reports suggesting that in the Greater Toronto Area alone 1,400 criminals remain at large and unsupervised in the community.
Third, I am aware that cognitive behavioural treatment programs show the most promise for sustainable long-term behavioural change, whether delivered within a custodial facility or in the community, although sometimes we don't get the results we would all like to see. For example, just last week the media reported that two out of three B.C. criminals serving their sentences in the community instead of jail may not be completing the rehabilitation programs aimed at preventing repeat offences.
Finally, I am aware that the delivery of correctional services has always aimed to have a balance of deterrence, rehabilitation, punishment, accountability, and the containment of people demonstrating undesirable behaviour.
Through those means lawmakers aim to discourage unacceptable behaviour. I am also aware that governments must monitor public compliance with those laws. It's not enough for governments to post speed limits on the roads or create penalties for drinking and driving; governments must also look for speeders on our highways and set up RIDE-type programs to catch drunk drivers.
I will speak more about the role of compliance detection shortly.
As I indicated before, I am aware that cognitive behavioural treatment programs show the most promise for long-term behaviour. It is my understanding of the research that generally these programs can reduce the rate of reoffending by 10% to 15%. As an illustration, a repeat offender going through the justice system with no treatment programs might be expected to have a 50% chance of reoffending. Meanwhile, another offender with very similar characteristics going through a well-designed treatment program might have a 35% chance of reoffending.
On this last point, I can appreciate that it's not necessarily a simple exercise for governments to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment programs versus their cost. For example, is the government prepared to pay an infinite amount of dollars to achieve a 10% to 15% reduction in reoffence rates? Just how much per offender is an acceptable amount to pay for such programs? As I indicated above from media reports, what happens if offenders do not complete their programs?
In terms of effectiveness, I am also aware that studies show that installing an electronic ankle bracelet by itself provides little by way of lasting behavioural change. The key point I would like to make about such studies is that in my view, they overlook a key point about what electronic monitoring does. Mainly, these techniques and technologies are tools to monitor a person's compliance with a specific rule, such as getting home by their curfew time, staying out of a schoolyard, abstaining from alcohol, and so on. Just as police cruisers look for speeders on our highways or RIDE programs are set up to catch drunk drivers, electronic monitoring is a way to document that an offender or an accused person or an illegal immigrant is respecting a condition imposed by the court or an immigration adjudicator or some other authority.
I am also aware of a study done on a program in Newfoundland whose results showed that a combination of treatment programs and electronic monitoring yielded reductions in reoffence rates.
In other words, the use of electronic monitoring does not negate the value of treatment programs and indeed can add to their effectiveness. If treatment programs do not reduce reoffence rates to zero, and if large numbers of offenders may not even complete their treatment programs, then as a matter of prudent public policy, lawmakers need to have some safeguards in place. In my view, compliance tools such as electronic monitoring bracelets, GPS trackers, and alcohol monitoring bracelets have a role to play.
We have worked with a variety of public agencies that have adopted electronic monitoring as a compliance tool. Because very few probation and parole officers in the community work after hours or into the weekend, their ability to visit their clients to make sure they're at home when they need to be, or to make sure they're staying away from schoolyards and playgrounds as directed, or are not drinking, is extremely limited. Governments could change this by having more officers supervising their clients, but with today's technology, do we want to have highly skilled officers do this type of work when the technology does it more consistently and more continuously than humans do?
When I talk about “officers”, I include all types of officers: correctional officers, immigration officers, bail supervision officers, and the like.
Now I'd like to turn my attention to cost-efficiency. When I see media reports of costs of custody, I tend to see figures of between $150 and $200 per person per day. As I indicated previously, there is no question in my mind that for some cases, incarceration is the appropriate management method, so my remarks are not focused on those individuals. Instead, I want to speak to the vast majority of individuals who either need to be managed in the community or who will eventually return to the community.
Again, sometimes hard and comparable data are difficult to find, but I am aware that for some jurisdictions, the cost of community supervision, including the use of electronic monitoring, can average out to something like $5 to $10 per offender per day. The numbers speak for themselves, but behind these figures, I would like to speak to a growing trend in recent years when we look at what we are spending $150 to $200 on per person per day.
Note that I didn't use the word “offender” in this case. That's because correctional officials from most of the provinces we deal with are saying that two-thirds of their beds are being occupied not by convicted offenders but by people on remand. By “remand”, I mean individuals who are awaiting trial, awaiting a bail hearing, or awaiting sentencing. Therefore, not only are custodial facilities expensive, but the majority of their occupants are not even convicted offenders.
Given these statistics, in the name of efficient use of public funds it would be my suggestion that correctional authorities, particularly at the provincial level, pay closer attention to management of the remand populations, including the use of EM. That way, double-bunking can be reduced and expensive custodial facilities can be reserved for those who pose the greatest threat to public safety.
With the proposed changes included in Bill C-10 and the media reports of possible increases in incarceration at a provincial level, it might make sense for the federal government to show some guidance to the provinces in how electronic monitoring can be used to reduce the high number of remands in their facilities.
Specifically in the context of immigration and reports by CBSA officials that 1,400 criminals are at large in the Greater Toronto Area, in my view it would be prudent for the federal government to take a serious look at electronic monitoring and GPS tracking as a solution to monitor these cases once CBSA tracks them down. Some of them will no doubt merit incarceration, but others may be appropriate candidates for electronic monitoring technologies.
Finally, I'd like to share my observation about implementation readiness. This is an area where Jemtec has significant experience with public agencies across the country. As I indicated earlier, our customers seek our expertise because they are not interested in just having someone sell them a box without any support or training. Jemtec has unique experience, because it has worked very closely with CBSA and CSC. These contracts are a matter of public record. While we are not at liberty to discuss the specific details of our work with CBSA, with CSC we helped launch their pilot program in the Toronto area, which used GPS tracking technology on federal offenders returning to the community after doing time in CSC penitentiaries.
It was through Jemtec's experience and close work with the Nova Scotia justice department that we were well placed to introduce CSC to officials from Nova Scotia, who were the first in Canada to implement leading-edge GPS tracking technologies for offenders residing in the community.
Our work with Nova Scotia, CSC, Manitoba, and other public agencies using GPS tracking has pointed out the importance of carefully designing one's EM program around one's strengths and resources. For example, it does not always make financial sense to operate a 24-hour alert management centre staffed by government employees. Monitoring and alert management are staff-intensive activities wherein one can achieve economies of scale. For caseloads of fewer than 300 people being monitored, it is faster and more efficient to outsource the monitoring and alert management function, thereby reducing the time needed for implementation readiness.
Furthermore, when an agency is working with multiple technologies and/or officers have high caseloads, a program can sometimes be implemented more quickly and more efficiently by allowing the private sector to perform the installation of an ankle bracelet on the client, rather than having them supervise officers who perform that function. Basically, in our experience, it can be expensive and time-consuming to train officers to be familiar with the installation, the troubleshooting procedures, and the removal of the equipment, as well as the intricacies of the supporting software systems.
For small programs with small caseloads, these functions can sometimes be best managed by leveraging the expertise and resources of the private sector, which then enhances an agency's implementation readiness. This being said, from our close association with federal agencies, we have no doubt that they've built up the reservoir of experience and competence needed to establish such programs in as little as two months.
Our only caveat would be that the policy-makers and procurement advisors should avoid the temptation of trying to fit a one-size-fits-all solution across different departments. For example, the technology, the choice of tools, and the preferences around procurement methods, training, monitoring, and alert management may be quite different between an agency such as CSC versus CBSA, and it may not necessarily be advisable to attempt to create a single procurement to meet these very different needs of these two agencies.
In closing, let me thank the members of the committee for giving Jemtec the opportunity to share the insights gained over 25 years. Today I hope that I have properly conveyed that EM is not a silver bullet policy solution, yet it is being used today across the country as a very useful safeguard to measure the level of a person's respect for rules and accountability.
The tools available today perform the work more consistently and more continuously than what we can expect from humans, and in any event, we probably ought to keep highly trained humans focused on highly skilled activities, such as treatment and prevention programs. We know that the Correctional Service can integrate EM programs so that average community supervision costs are around $5 to $10 per day compared to custodial costs of $150 to $200 per person. That's a significant financial consideration. Based on Jemtec's close work with federal agencies so far, we have no doubt of their implementation readiness, and they have shown that they have the skills. Our main caution, however, would be to avoid assuming that one single solution will adequately meet the needs of these two very distinct agencies.
Now, with the pleasure of the chair, I would like to welcome questions from the members of the committee.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Mr. Caton, for that in-depth look at your company and the process of electronic monitoring.
We will move into the first round of questions. We will begin with the government side.
Go ahead, Ms. Hoeppner, please.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Caton and Mr. Nuyen, for being here. It was a very good presentation. It would have been great if we could have had a little time to look it over, because it was very thorough and had a lot of information.
I want to focus on a couple of things.
I think we've heard contrary testimony in terms of whether electronic monitoring actually helps in the rehabilitation of offenders. From what we've understood, there really hasn't been enough research done in Canada to see how effective it is in terms of actually rehabilitating. I'm just going to ask you, very briefly, and then I'll go on to some of the other points that you made. Strictly in terms of actually rehabilitating and reducing recidivism, have you actually seen research? We haven't really seen a lot of it, and I'm wondering if you've seen research that would indicate that it does.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Jemtec Inc.
In my opinion, there have not been large enough programs in Canada that have been studied, so my answer is that I have not seen studies that clearly state one way or the other that there is a rehabilitative component in using an electronic monitor.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Okay. Thank you very much.
In that case, you mentioned that sometimes electronic monitoring would be more of a way to document if an offender is actually complying with certain requirements, perhaps not so much for rehabilitation as for the safety of the community and as part of their program, because the parole officer or the programmer would want to know if compliance was happening. I'm wondering if there is a way you can make that link, or am I stretching that?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Jemtec Inc.
I think that is the link.
Electronic monitoring is a tool—an audit or an accountability tool—and what you're trying to do with the technology is not so much to rehabilitate but to try to set down a set of positive behavioural patterns. Whether that will make a difference or not is dependent on the individual, but you're trying to build a set of positive behavioural patterns, and you do that by having a reactive component whereby you're always in the face of clients who are being a problem and not following the rules. The ones following the rules do not need to have intensive face-to-face time, but you don't know that unless you have technology that provides you with an up-to-date account of what's going on in that client's life.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
When you actually work with a province with different organizations, and you listed quite a few of them, can you explain to us what the process is? Maybe there are a variety of ways. Do they tell you what they'd like to do? For example, in Manitoba they used bracelets with young offenders, so would the Province of Manitoba have come to you—I know there are some confidences, obviously—and described the platform and what they wanted to accomplish, and then you helped to build the package they needed to achieve that goal?
Would you include GPS, radio frequency, and biometrics, and can you explain the alcohol monitoring bracelet to me?
Could you answer all of those questions?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Jemtec Inc.
Michael Nuyen actually handled the direct interface with the folks in Manitoba, so I'm going to let him field that one.
Michael Nuyen Project Manager, Jemtec Inc.
Thank you, Eric.
We deal a lot with provincial corrections, as Eric mentioned, and we have also dealt with the federal agencies, so without sharing any confidences, I can tell you that generally when customers approach Jemtec, the agencies we deal with generally have a very good structure and an understanding of what they want to achieve on the community supervision side and the objectives of rehabilitation.
They are not looking at electronic monitoring as a silver bullet solution that will solve all their problems, but the process of rehabilitation is quite lengthy, and it's costly. It doesn't happen overnight. In many cases agencies are having to deal with relatively young people who've had years and years of dysfunctional behaviours, dysfunctional social environments, and that doesn't get changed overnight. They are looking for tools that allow them to move toward rehabilitation through treatment and prevention programs in cognitive behavioural therapy, but on the way to achieving that ultimate objective, as Eric indicated, they need to have some feedback and some guidance as to whether there is compliance with some basic legal conditions that have been imposed upon them.
In many cases, these conditional sentence offenders or probation offenders have bail conditions such that very basic legal rules, such as home curfew or house arrest or abstaining from alcohol, are being imposed upon them. However, as Eric indicated, probation officers and many other types of officers are not working in a 24/7 environment, and even if they were, do we really want them to spend all their time making sure that people are coming home when they are supposed to according to their legal orders, or abstaining from alcohol and staying away from parks and schools, when technology can do it more consistently and more continuously?
The one thing we haven't spoken about or addressed in relation to your question is the alcohol bracelet. I will let Eric address that.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Jemtec Inc.
Basically, we haven't seen a lot of use of alcohol bracelets, but they are transdermal. They fit against the skin and collect samples of the sweat that comes off the person's leg. They can actually take a reading fairly quickly once the alcohol has been absorbed into the bloodstream and into the body fluids.
Those devices have a lot of merit. There are a lot of them out there in the U.S., but we have not seen any particular programs in Canada that have taken the lead and decided to implement that particular technology as yet.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much. We'll now move to the opposition side.
Mr. Chicoine, you have the floor for seven minutes.
NDP
Sylvain Chicoine NDP Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the two witnesses for agreeing to answer our questions.
Mr. Caton, in your presentation, you briefly talked about your customers, mainly the provinces. You said you had very few contracts with the federal government for the time being.
Before we talk about that, could you tell me more about the types of relationships JEMTEC Inc. might have with companies such as Omnilink, BE, iSECUREtrac, Protek and TELUS?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Jemtec Inc.
We purchase, rent, and buy different technologies from a variety of suppliers. Our biggest provider is a company called BI Incorporated, in the United States of America. We take their technologies and we employ them here in Canada. We would put them on a variety of clients, or we would give them to the province and the province would put them on.
We have, then, agreements whereby we purchase technology in the case of, let's say, Saskatchewan or Newfoundland. We have purchased that equipment and we lease it to them in those provinces, and then they would put it on the actual clients. They would monitor the technology themselves—they have computers there to do so—and they would respond to any alerts or alarms.
In Manitoba, I believe they're using the Omnilink technology. The Omnilink technology is more of a rental situation. We would take that technology, then, and we would move it along to Manitoba, who would put it on the client—in this case, young offenders—and then they would monitor it themselves as well, so in that particular case we're not offering anything except a rental basis and support for their program on the policy and procedure side.