Evidence of meeting #5 for Public Safety and National Security in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was risk.
A video is available from Parliament.
Former Member at Parole Board of Canada, As an Individual
Do you have a question?
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Actually, I'll ask you one last question.
Do you think sex work should be decriminalized?
Former Member at Parole Board of Canada, As an Individual
First, may I answer the question you put to me?
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
No, I'd like you to answer that question.
Do you think sex work should be decriminalized? We know that's one of the factors that led to Ms. Levesque's murder.
Former Member at Parole Board of Canada, As an Individual
Personally, I do not think the debate is about that. Even if you say that it is rare, the current debate is about the fact that the murder of this young woman is one too many.
Former Member at Parole Board of Canada, As an Individual
I consider that there are shortcomings—
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Sir, that was one of the factors that led to her murder, though, so please just answer the question.
Former Member at Parole Board of Canada, As an Individual
Personally, I do not think the debate is about that. The debate is about the problems at the Correctional Service and the board.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Okay, I'm going to stop you there.
I'm going to turn to Ms. Latimer.
How common is it for this type of situation to occur? How many people, including murderers, past murderers, are able to reintegrate into society and not offend?
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
The recidivism rate for people who've committed murder is one of the lowest recidivism rates that we know of. These tend to be one-off incidents.
To go back to Monsieur Bensimon's case, our halfway houses have a lot of people who have committed murder in the past and are making their way into the communities, and there are lots who have made significant contributions in the community without ever reoffending.
Liberal
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Could you explain why it is safer for the public for people who are low risk to be released into a halfway house versus spending time in prison until their statutory release?
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
People who come out at statutory release may not have had the preparatory programs and support to persuade the Parole Board that they are ready to be released, but they are coming out anyway. It is very important that we continue to support those people with programs and support.
There's no question. The statistics show that the safest way to release people is through parole and through the graduated mechanism, but we could be skimming off the safe ones.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
We're going to have to leave it there.
Thank you, Ms. Damoff.
Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being here and for their testimony.
Mr. Blackburn, you mentioned in your opening remarks that there was a series of major flaws within the Correctional Service of Canada. We learned last Tuesday, and also since the beginning of this whole affair, that this is really an isolated case and that it hasn't happened before. However, according to the union, it would be possible to believe that this was being done, that people on day parole were going to massage parlours.
In your experience, did you see any other cases like this when you were a board member?
Former Member at Parole Board of Canada, As an Individual
I have never seen such a strategy in my entire career as a board member, or in my academic or professional career.
On top of that, I can't explain the relevance of such a strategy, either clinically, therapeutically or correctionally. There is no element in it that leads the offender to reintegrate socially by consulting sex trade workers. I have never seen that. To me, this strategy is problematic. It's worrisome
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
To put things in perspective, it should be mentioned that it is really the parole officer who proposes the plan. The role of the board member, when he or she receives this information, is to make a decision on whether or not the person should return to incarceration.
Former Member at Parole Board of Canada, As an Individual
It's actually a series of documents. There is the assessment, which is submitted by the parole officer for decision, which is rendered by the case management team, and there is the correctional plan, which is updated. In this particular case, there was also a psychological assessment. So, yes, there's information in those documents.
In the assessment for a decision, there is usually the offender's release plan, which tells us where he's going to work and what he's going to do in terms of social activities, among other things. The hearing allows us to read these documents, but also to question the offender and the victims, if they are present, for more details. However, in the case of new information such as this, it becomes problematic to learn that there is such a strategy in place, because it is new information that was not considered in the risk analysis.
In this case, this likely increased the offender's risk of reoffending. He was sent to already vulnerable young women working in a grey area. The board members made a decision which, in my view, was not based on all the valid information to properly assess the risk.
I'd like to connect this to the fact that experienced board members should be involved. An experienced board member could have seen this loophole and would have ensured a much tighter safety net, precisely to limit the possibility of a higher risk that this offender would return to the community and reoffend.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Bensimon, you said that this kind of report—later we got the information—was co-signed by the authorities in place. According to what Ms. Oades and Ms. Kelly said last Tuesday, they categorically rejected that.
However, am I to understand that such a report would be co-signed by the most senior executives?
Criminologist, As an Individual
Every time there's an incident in the Correctional Service, we look to punish people at the bottom instead of looking to the top of the pyramid.
A report, whatever it is, has multiple signatures. There's the signature of the officer in charge of the file. A quality control is done and the immediate supervisor will sign it. This is part of a case management team protocol within the parole office. It is not done on a whim of the parole officer. Furthermore, I regret that that person's name has come out in the papers. An investigation is underway and a decision has already been made as to who's responsible.
When the board member says that in 37 years she has never heard of such a case, it is unacceptable. I can assure you that in Canada there are approximately eight cases of murder per year that are perpetrated by inmates on parole in the community. This research comes from the Correctional Service, and I'm the author of one of those papers.
I'll go further, madam. For an average of eight monitored inmates in the community who commit murder per year, there are 10 who have already committed murder, if you consider a period of about 10 years. So, that's one Gallese case a year.
When I hear aberrations such as the 99.9% rate of successful day parole cases, I think it's propaganda. It's laughable to give that figure to anyone. We will come back to that. If you have any questions about recidivism, I'd be happy to answer them. Take advantage of it, I'm just passing through and we're talking about a subject that falls within my area. I'm not going to talk to you about baked goods; the criminal field is my area of expertise.
I'm at your disposal. If you have any other questions, it will be my pleasure to answer them.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
In fact, you talked about the rather major difference between community correctional centres and municipal community centres. Is that correct?
Criminologist, As an Individual
No. Community correctional centres, which are under federal jurisdiction, have federal staff, i.e., federal parole officers. They are highly structured halfway houses with curfews. Their specialty is to work with sex offenders, organized crime members, and people who require close supervision, which you don't have in a CRC.
I repeat, a CRC falls under the jurisdiction of the various provinces. There are several hundred provincial halfway houses in Canada; it's an industry, a business. I'm saying that more CRC halfway houses need to be created, to keep the inmates inside. They'll be evaluated by experienced people.