Evidence of meeting #27 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prevention.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC
At the end of the presentation, you said:
...whether we are talking about social innovation through social finance or some other progressive partnership program—in the absence of a statutory framework that encompasses obligation, accountability and transparency—along with a substantially larger financial commitment by the federal government to municipalities...
Can you elaborate on that, please?
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Regarding the municipalities specifically?
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
In my dissertation I talked about natural threats inherent to the crime prevention endeavour, and I called those “tertiary drift”, based on what we call the PST model, the primary, secondary, tertiary model, being applied to crime prevention. The other one I called “social development creep”.
What I said is that if we can't somehow handle those natural threats inherent to crime prevention efforts, we would eventually go back to the traditional and very reactionary way of doing things: the police, courts, corrections way of doing things, partly because they're involved in the day-to-day operations of the system and so naturally it drifts back to them. Alternatively, the other point was that slowly we would start advancing social programs only in the name of crime reduction or crime prevention. That would be quite wrong to do as well, not the least of which is it would criminalize certain marginal populations.
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witness, thank you for attending.
I read with interest and listened to you when you quoted some of the United Nations.... I agree with most of the statements here, in particular that there is no single approach to crime prevention.
I think the evidence that this committee has heard and the statements made by the parliamentary secretary are just that, that in this committee,s exploratory enterprise looking at social financing, perhaps we need to look at it as a way to diversify our crime prevention portfolio, if you will.
I was particularly interested in the second part that talks about cooperation and partnerships, that these should be an integral part of effective crime prevention. That's what almost every witness here has admitted, saying that social financing, including but not limited to social impact bonds, is being embarked upon by other countries and entities. That's in line with Einstein's statement that you can't continue to do the same thing, and that if you do, it's the definition of insanity. Right?
So we want to do things differently to get better outcomes, and to invest those very valuable tax dollars that people expect.... So would you not agree that its appropriate for the government the explore the avenue of social financing as part, but not the whole, of its crime prevention strategy?
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
I think I'll stick to what I said earlier, that of course I'm supportive of any venture that would reduce harm to Canadians. But if it's a stand-alone venture apart from a larger strategic framework, I don't think the word “sustainability” should be attached to it. But I think that if something can be shown to work, we need to support that. I'm not sure in this case that the recent literature, at least what has been provided to this committee, states that it does in fact have the impact or outcome they want.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
So you're saying that the government should not enter into any kind of experiment with regard to crime prevention, that we should wait until somebody else shows us a better way and then we should adopt that?
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
No. I think that—
Conservative
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
Succinctly, I expect that ad hoc solutions, or things where you're just putting out brush fires around crime and social ills, will ultimately go into the annals of history without a broader strategic framework in place....
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
So you disagree and don't think that the federal government's crime prevention strategies are good strategies. I don't want to say this in absolute terms, however, because there's no absolute.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
I'm saying we don't know.
Conservative
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
As the evidence starts to come in.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Okay. If we bring in a program that says we want to reduce.... I need to hone this down to where people at home can understand it and not get into esoterics. Let's say that we have a problem in a village or a town, where there is a lot of vandalism. A group in the community, let's call it the United Way, says, “We would like to work with”—and people think it's youth and there's evidence to indicate that it is—“our young people in our community to prevent this vandalism and we're going to bring in programs, but we need some funding for them.”
Then, someone in the community, let's say the local Tim Hortons owner, says, “I'd like to contribute to this, so here is the money for you to develop the program.” A year or a year and a half later, whatever the time span, their social contract shows, and everyone in the village sees, that the instances of vandalism have gone down to the measurable result that the contract agreed to. You're saying that really isn't a good measure.
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that—
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
I think that we should look at anything that contributes to the reduction of crime in Canada, especially to the reduction of harm to Canadians from those crimes. Ventures like this should be looked at. I am saying that these need to be contained within a broader strategic framework that is clear about accountability and transparency.
Conservative
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Staying with that, for a moment, I think we're on to a good point here. What you're saying is that we have an unproven product before us. You're not opposed to looking at that, but you think that putting all our eggs in that basket might lead us in a wrong direction. Would that be the direction we're heading in here?
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
We'd stick with the report that you have before you that is a very sober and an interesting look at social impact bonds. I think it states clearly that we have yet to fully see the results.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Are there other things in your experience, both academic and applied, that we already know work and might be a better place to put resources?
Professor, Faculty, Criminology Department, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, As an Individual
It depends on the problem in the local context and what they're facing. Sometimes, certain types of social development or wraparound programs work quite effectively. In the City of Surrey's case, some of that's being done with young kids to prevent them from joining gangs.
In other situations, it could be that a situational or an opportunity reduction measure would be the more appropriate response. What I'm trying to say is that it is very contextually specific to the problem.
