Public Safety committee  Good morning. I'm the inspector for the RCMP in charge of the national sex offender registry and the criminal profiling programs. I've been in that position for about 16 months.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for this opportunity to answer your questions concerning the National Sex Offender Registry and to discuss this very important program. The RCMP view a proper and robust registry as an enhancement to public safety and look forward not only to the government’s continued

Public Safety committee  Thank you. A number of research projects have been undertaken by academia on the risks of recidivism by sex offenders. Actually, Canada is recognized as a leader in this field. The ranges for reoffending really vary. In some cases, it's 13% for all types of sex offenders. For

Public Safety committee  I can speak to the national system, sir. We have not helped solve any crime where the offender was unknown. There has been a handful of cases where the offender/suspect was already known by the investigating body and we provided updated data, such as an updated photograph or addr

Public Safety committee  Whether or not the objectives have been met depends on what our measures of success are. Our mission is to first collect and house current and reliable data. To the extent that we can under the legislation, which is very restrictive as to what administrative data elements we can

Public Safety committee  We'd like to see a number of changes. The most important is the option of using the data base to prevent crime.

Public Safety committee  Exactly.

Public Safety committee  In the RCMP, I think we go back to what the registry's intended to do. Predicting which sex offender will recidivate and which will not is very difficult. We have seen cases of people who have been assessed as high risks and did not offend and cases of people who have been assess

Public Safety committee  I would like to weigh in on this one as well. There is some research out there on undetected offences. First of all, sexual assault is the most under-reported crime. People report their vehicles stolen and their houses broken into, but for a wide range of reasons, a lot of vict

Public Safety committee  Part of our mission is to monitor compliance and ensure that we have up-to-date data in there. I'll give you an example of the challenges. We have some people who are convicted of designated offences and receive a custodial sentence, perhaps a federal sentence, and they're in th

Public Safety committee  If I could speak to that, I know a little bit about the U.S. registries. I've met a few colleagues down there. There are certain things that are nice, but they have other things that I think we should stay away from. For instance, from the RCMP's perspective, the public access is

Public Safety committee  I can't say we've helped solve a crime; we don't see that impact. As I indicated earlier, I think there's value in this registry, and it's to come as the database is populated and the use is expanded. I think we will see the positive results.

Public Safety committee  I can speak to that. Largely, people who molest children don't just molest children; it's a mistake to think that people are one-dimensional when we're talking about sex offenders. We have offenders who will molest children, the elderly, and people who are mentally challenged--an

Public Safety committee  I can say it's 94%, but I have to throw in a caveat here, because Ms. Lines told you the statistic as of 8:15 this morning in Ontario. The national sex offender registry doesn't allow us to do that. Last week I asked my staff to find out from the national registry the complianc

Public Safety committee  On your first question in terms of impact, mental health professionals will tell you that people in general have positive illusions or outlooks on life. When you see a violent crime happen to someone, you have a tendency to rationalize and say, “It can't happen to me because I do