Public Safety Committee on March 8th, 2012

[Robert Aloisio]

That's a good point. You're looking at an emergency 911 response department that handled over 800,000 calls last year. Right now, at the level we're at, we're able to deal with pilot projects. However, our strategic partner is willing to advance this technology. He wants to grow with this. So the more bracelets we produce, the bigger he's going to get.

I agree with Detective Clover on the capacity issues. I can tell you this from a business standpoint: SafeTracks has built this at a modular level that we can keep expanding as far as we need to. The proper pillars are in place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

On that other end—on that monitoring end—is it simply where they would notify the police or another group? There is no contact then with a parole officer or a probation officer. Who do they contact? Who would you have them contact?

Whoever...?

[Robert Aloisio]

That's the beauty of it. If you remember what I said about being a solution-based company...of course, if we were the vendor that was selected for this type of thing, we would go and sit down and analyze.

No, that's not to say that a probation officer would not be notified or a police officer. It's whatever the mandate is. We can build the protocols around whatever anybody wants to do. It's completely flexible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Detective Clover, have there been any charges on any of the offenders while they have been wearing the bracelet, whether they're an offender or an ex-offender and they have been released? Have you experienced any charges against them when they were wearing the bracelet?

[Det James Clover]

Yes, sir, I can think of two that come to mind. One was mischief to the device. The offender had cut the plastic coating on the bracelet, and we had him charged with mischief to the device, to which he pled guilty.

A second example would be when we had an offender attend what we call a drug house, or a sort of non-pro-social environment where he was hanging out with drug users, which was against his conditions. A patrol car responded and confirmed that he was there among these people, and that was a breach charge.

Those are two examples of what would probably be considered a common charge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Has there ever been a case where you have been able to rule out that the offender wearing the bracelet was not involved in a crime? This is where you may have specifically thought, he was not wearing the bracelet, we've just released that person into that community, and a crime has been carried out there. Has the bracelet been able to rule out an offender's involvement in a crime?

[Det James Clover]

Yes, sir. We had the release of a high-risk rapist in the community. Every sexual assault that came in, we all suspected the same offender, and the technology was used to show that he was not the responsible party.

It does go both ways.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much. I think Ms. Hoeppner has a question.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have another three minutes.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Great. Thank you very much.

I have a couple of questions that I want to ask both Mr. Aloisio and Detective Clover with regard to cost.

Detective Clover, you said you wouldn't purchase the equipment but you would lease it. Do you have an approximate cost of the leasing and monitoring per unit? Can you give us any idea?

[Det James Clover]

When we negotiated the contract with the company, these were the two precursors: I wanted to lease and not own, so at $22 a day that had to include monitoring; and I wanted to have a clause stating that the moment a device was taken off, I could have it switched off and not be paying any more.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

It's $22 a day, and that includes the monitoring?

[Det James Clover]

Yes, ma'am.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Aloisio, is that consistent with what you would also charge? I'm sure it would depend on the service you would be providing.

Generally speaking, do you have a cost per unit?

[Robert Aloisio]

That's active. That was a solution, of course, designed for high-risk offenders.

Again, that's the maximum amount of GPS points. It's basically as much as what a Cadillac can do. It was $22 a day.

I did mention other programs before, such as our Fusion platform, which I wish I had time to get into but I can't, that can drive the cost all the way down to about $15. I would caution using something like that. Detective Clover basically said that it depends on the offender what solution we would engage at that point.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I wanted to follow up on what my colleague Madame Morin was asking you about charging the device's battery. I just wanted to let you finish explaining it. The person being monitored would have the bracelet on and they would have to charge it for 90 minutes a day. Is that correct?

[Robert Aloisio]

The nice thing is that as long as the offender is abiding by his schedule, nothing is ever going to happen. Nobody is going to ever bug him.

For instance, let's say he does not. The device starts to actually vibrate on his ankle when it reaches 50%. Of course, the monitoring centre actually makes a phone call to him, asking him to charge the device. That's included with the package as well.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

That was my three minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You're over, but we'll give you another.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll just quickly follow up, then.

We've heard some testimony that electronic monitoring is a supervision tool. It sounds like that's exactly what it is, from Detective Clover's testimony. It's not a one-size-fits-all. It's not a magic bullet. It's just a part of the supervising tool when you have to actually monitor offenders who are in your community.

When you're looking at the best type of offender who would use this, would they be the ones with drug addictions and mental health issues as well and would need additional programming? Is that something you take into consideration?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Hoeppner.

[Det James Clover]

That would be a consideration, but it would definitely not be the exclusive—I would never put a bracelet on somebody simply because of drug or alcohol or mental health issues. Often those are complemented with it, but primarily for me—when I look at the technology, again, for the very limited cases that I believe law enforcement are responsible for exclusively—it's more to do with the risk.

What is the risk that this person poses? Where does that risk come from? How can we build barriers—which we call conditions—to allow this offender to live his life as lawfully and as productively as he wants to but still maintain a sense of security in the community?

This technology is simply one of several pieces in that strategy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Detective.

We'll go to Mr. Sandhu and Mr. Côté for the last question, very quickly, please.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Clover, you talked about deprivation of liberty. Can you elaborate on that?