In response to the first element of the question about the review of the literature that was done on electronic monitoring back in 2007 and published by the research branch, I'm quite familiar with that because it was actually launched while I was the director general of research.
During that time, we were always engaging in looking at new methods and technologies for the supervision of offenders, and the usual practice is to do a very systematic review of the available literature, explore a variety of questions, and anticipate concerns and whatnot about that. One of the things that was most noteworthy at that time back in 2006-07 was that we were not using electronic monitoring technology, whereas many other jurisdictions were around the world, and also domestically in some of the provincial jurisdictions.
There had been a fair amount of controversy at the time in terms of the technology and its application. Nevertheless, we undertook to do a thorough and systematic review. I understand that probably has been made available to you; it's available on the Internet, on the website for the CSC research branch. I would imagine that Dr. Grant would have summarized some of the highlights and observations.
One of the considerations that came out of the research was on the effectiveness of EM in meeting a lot of its objectives. It was basically equivocal and mixed throughout that literature review. Being equivocal and mixed means that one does not attempt to experiment or demonstrate or try to embrace the technology and see where we need to go. Drivers for implementation in that review of literature were, for the most part, reducing inmate populations in other jurisdictions or finding cost savings. From the review of the literature at that time, it said a lot of it had yet to be realized. It's not that it said it wouldn't be realized, but it was yet to be realized.
Also, which is a classic with a lot of reviews of literature, more methodologically sound research was required because it had to keep pace with a lot of the emerging technology. Rest assured that much of the technology was advancing considerably over recent years. By the time the evaluations come out or the research studies come out, it's extraordinary just how many advancements have been made.
The considerations at the time were the difference between looking at radio frequency technology versus GPS technology, and there was very little experience in that technology but certainly a lot of interest in exploring it. And there was also technology looking at a combination of both at the time. The bottom line was the understanding that we wanted to be as technologically advanced as possible and embrace the GPS technology approach. I thought that might become an interesting way to do a demonstration project or a pilot to test that technology.
To answer the question about what was the research telling us, we needed to do more research notwithstanding to keep abreast of emerging technology at the time and to be clear that we needed to understand what the value-added component of this technology would be associated with when we incorporated it into existing community supervision strategies.
That was the research review at the time. Subsequent to that question of what the review of the literature showed, I'll answer the question about the issues of community supervision and experiences with that.
One of my very first assignments when I joined the Correctional Service of Canada was the conditional release supervision standards project. At that time I had moved from the provincial system, where we were embracing offender risk/needs assessment technology to establish frequency of contact for supervision standards with probationers and parolees in the provincial system in Ontario, and we were looking to incorporate that as a standard of supervision—that we would establish levels of frequency of contact for federal offenders who were being supervised in the community.
Most of that work fell on the back of a major inquiry in the mid-1980s, the Ruygrok inquest, which made substantive recommendations about community supervision standards for offenders and looking at any ways or means by which we could improve supervision strategies. That has been our ongoing challenge for community corrections, to advance its standards and practices, look at how we can better address public safety concerns and reduce the likelihood of reoffending by offenders under supervision in the community, and promote safer reintegration and the transition from institutions into the community.
There have been numerous other initiatives in Correction Service Canada over time. I recall the community offender management strategies and the correctional strategy back in the early nineties that looked at integration right through the continuum of care for case management, from front-end intake assessment right through to institutional supervision and intervention while incarcerated, case preparation, release preparation, and then community supervision later on.
In each and every one of these areas, there have been major initiatives looking to find efficiencies, effectiveness, and improvements.
I would probably suggest that one of the main areas in which some of the most significant advances have been made is the correctional programming within Correction Service Canada. We have state-of-the-art correctional programs. They're scientifically based, evaluated and researched, internationally accredited, and have been demonstrated to bring about significant reductions in reoffending.