I think one thing that really prevents us from being able to stop the cycle of violence is that there's a lack of education within the court system itself, and I say that with the utmost respect. We continuously arrest individuals and bring them before courts, and often what's relied upon in assessing whether or not a person should be released back into the community is their criminal record. But we know that some of the most dangerous and high-risk situations involve individuals who have no criminal record. We apply or attempt to apply science, in partnership with the University of Alberta psychology department, to form risk assessments and to provide these risk assessments to the courts before these individuals even get to trial. So our most dangerous time is when somebody is brought before the court to speak to bail. If the person is released, a whole number, a plethora, of negative events can happen.
So I believe we need, perhaps through the federal government, to start some legislation along the lines of encouraging the court systems to rely upon science rather than on old criminal records, which really are useless.
We were just working on a case yesterday in which an individual had no criminal record, but in which, in consultation with a doctor from the psychology department at the U of A, we were able to develop a risk assessment tool that we provided to the courts. That individual is still in jail, and we know that is probably going to save a woman's life.