Justice committee  I wonder if I could just make one last comment.

Justice committee  Just in terms of length of sentence and how that impacts on treatment, it's important to understand that if a person gets a provincial sentence, which is anything up to two years less a day, the judge also has the discretion to add a period of probation, and in the case of sex of

Justice committee  To respond to that question, prior to specializing and working with sex offenders, I did work in a general mental health setting and did some treatment with victims, particularly with adult survivors, adults who had been sexually abused as children. As well, in my practice with s

Justice committee  First of all, you have to understand that this is a very conservative number. It's based on large numbers of treatment programs, some of which are effective and some of which are not, dealing with some people who are very dangerous and high-risk and some of whom are a lower risk.

Justice committee  First, I want to clarify again that I don't have a doctorate, so you shouldn't be calling me “Dr. Fletcher”. Basically, I do agree with Dr. Marshall about that: you need treatment both in the institution and outside. The institution provides a secure setting where the behaviour

Justice committee  Yes. These are general statistics for any type of criminal behaviour. These were studies that were done with general criminal populations.

Justice committee  No, no. They are affected by it. The treatment works.

Justice committee  No. I should clarify that. I'm a clinical social worker. My background was in mental health clinics and psychiatric hospitals in doing clinical work. Then, about 23 years ago, I specialized and got training in this area. But to respond to your question, I agree with Dr. Marshal

Justice committee  If I could comment on that, I agree that obviously we'd like it to be zero per cent. When you're talking about something as complex as human behaviour, you're always going to find some people who, for one reason or another, are resistant to treatment or where treatment can't be d

Justice committee  I would certainly concur with what Dr. Marshall is saying. It needs to be understood that if someone commits a sexual offence, it's not a sickness. It's not a disease process that happens with them. They're not born with something different about them that leads to that behaviour

Justice committee  I really can't comment. I have no insight into why that decision was made in the federal system. I can say that there's nothing similar in the provincial system in P.E.I. But I certainly concur with Dr. Marshall that effective treatment requires someone with extensive training.

Justice committee  If you set aside the implication of it maybe resulting in decreased money being available for treatment, then I can't see it having any impact on that. You're not talking about a very big increase in the minimum sentence. The question is whether it will actually do any good.

Justice committee  Yes. That's what both Dr. Marshall and Stacey Hannem have been saying. It takes money away from treatment. The provincial systems are already struggling greatly with some of the legislation that has been passed in regard to changing sentence lengths for other types of criminal b

Justice committee  Similarly, I can't see how it could be beneficial. With provincial sentences, which tend to be shorter anyhow, it makes it a little bit more difficult in terms of perhaps the timing of treatment. I think the biggest thing would be a negative effect where it does probably result

Justice committee  Yes. This was gone over regarding a previous presentation I was going to make and there was agreement with this.