I am a detective with the Edmonton Police Service and have been for almost 15 years. My current assignment is with the behavioural assessment unit. Our primary task is monitoring and assessing high-risk offenders who live in the city of Edmonton. The bulk of the offenders whom my team supervises are what we call 810 recognizance offenders. These are generally offenders who have served a federal sentence, weren't provided parole as a result of the risk they posed to the community, served their entire sentence, and weren't afforded a gradual and protected release into the community. My unit gets involved by appearing in front of a court and getting conditions to supervise.
We were successful in obtaining funds through the Alberta Ministry of Justice and Attorney General for a three-year pilot project to leverage this technology to help complement our supervision. I would encourage the committee, if they haven't done so already, to research what Alberta is doing regarding that research through the University of Calgary, the Calgary Police Service, the RCMP through Red Deer, and the Edmonton Police Service.
Since approximately September of 2010 we've had an opportunity to use this technology only ten times. This is a police perspective on providing the committee...the user group is policing. Generally, my offenders whom I've been using this technology on are sexual-based offenders. We operate in the context that EM provides a proactive monitoring compliance of offenders on judicial conditions. We can assess risk through lifestyle patterns. It's a motivator and a stimulant for offenders to comply with and follow the conditions and lifestyles we're trying to encourage. We are trying to prove and disprove offenders' involvement in current investigations. We're trying to show that the Edmonton Police Service and law enforcement in general is making the best effort we can to help supervise an offender, assist him in transitioning to the community, and maintain public safety.
When I consider when to use these devices, I think it's important to look at things like the index offence—what has the offender been convicted of—and geographical restrictions. We look at victimology, stranger versus familiar victims. We look at curfew conditions. Are the conditions of a curfew present? We look at residency conditions. Is the behaviour we are trying to monitor or manage predatory in nature? Is there a history of recidivism? Is there a history of flight risk? Does this offender wilfully distance himself from supervision from, let's say, CSC or the Edmonton Police Service? Does the offender face jeopardy on their next offence, maybe a long-term supervision or a dangerous offender? What's the history of the offender's management? What have we done in the past and what do we need to do now? Are we doing the same thing again and again, or do we need to change the way we're working with this offender to make this supervision work, both for the offender and the community?
The last thing I would like to share really quickly is the tenets that come out of this. I've developed a series of principles that my project has adopted, and I share these as often as I can, but again I want to highlight that these are perspectives from police, maybe not necessarily from immigration or from corrections, that EM GPS is not a replacement or substitute for incarceration, that electronic monitoring is a deprivation of a person's liberties, and as such we should be using it when it's lawful, appropriate, and in the most humane way possible.
Electronic monitoring is not a punitive measure but a complementary tool to provide the offender encouragement and compliance with supervisory conditions and to provide the case management team with a means of improved offender accountability. Electronic monitoring data should not be used as a sole source of evidence, if possible. Data should be used in collaboration with other conditions, management strategies, and investigatory techniques.
Electronic monitoring is not a replacement for traditional offender management and community supports. Electronic monitoring has limitations like all technologies and should be used to complement the supervision strategy specific to that offender. Reliance on electronic monitoring needs to be monitored closely.
Finally, electronic monitoring should not be considered a measure to reduce the workload of the case management team. EM GPS operations are an additional task that require additional capacity. EM operations can be structured in a manner, such as the use of third-party monitoring, to reduce the resources required to manage an offender on GPS, but the use of electronic monitoring is an additional responsibility for both the offender and the case management team.
I welcome any questions.
