Justice committee  I think there are concerns about vagueness in some of the definitions. For example, the definition of violence in young people is not clear enough. There's no definition of bestiality, which can attract mandatory minimum penalties. There are section 7 problems associated with the

Justice committee  I'm glad you raised that question. Some of my colleagues who are here will be addressing this more specifically later, but it is our view that to preclude a person who has paid their debt to society—they've completed their sentence, they've participated in a crime-free period—to

Justice committee  I believe that you are probably hearing from the same people I'm hearing from, who believe that there should be more access to programs within the custodial facilities. We strongly support additional resources being given to CSC to continue and to expand the programs and to make

Justice committee  Do you mean, to say the same thing with respect to pardons, that there are problems of access to pardons? Yes, I think—

Justice committee  I think there are problems with access to pardons now. As Mr. Jackson pointed out, many of the people who would be entitled to a pardon, based on their statutory entitlement, are waiting for two or three years for these pardons to be processed. I also think the change in pardon

Justice committee  We generally refer to that as incapacitation: you're actually removing someone from society who is dangerous, and therefore they're posing less of a risk. I don't think it has much, actually, to do with deterrence. Deterrence would kick in if the person, because of experiencing

Justice committee  I don't want to argue the semantics, but the evidence is that if you take two similarly situated offenders and put one in custody and give the other a community-based sentence—to hold both of them fairly accountable for their offences—the one who is given the community-based sent

Justice committee  That's a very interesting point. What we had been advised—I defer of course to Commissioner Head—is that the federal population base since about March 2010 has gone up by 800 to 1,000 inmates. That's two full penitentiaries worth of inmates being compressed into the existing in

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here this afternoon. The John Howard Society of Canada is celebrating its 50th year as a community-based charity in Canada with a mission to support effective, just, and humane responses to the causes and consequences of crime. Th

Human Resources committee  The pre-trial detention issue is a very serious one. I think many of us are watching to see what the implications of that are. Many people are held in detention longer, perhaps, than the sentence they would have received would have imposed upon them, and then the charges against

Human Resources committee  What was the wording of the amendment? Was it “found not guilty” or “convicted”?

Human Resources committee  My issue would still be that it would address some of my concerns about pre-trial detention but not necessarily some of my concerns about other people who are detained. For example, let's say that they're detained under preventive detention under security watch. It is not suppose

Human Resources committee  My second level of concern is that it's a civil penalty on top of a criminal conviction. You're losing something. The state is taking away a benefit that you previously had. Where other people who might be equally at fault may be in the first category--maybe it was a self-induced

Human Resources committee  You would have an extremely serious charter issue if you did not—if the presumption of innocence was, yes, violated in that way.

Human Resources committee  Some of the studies I read over the summer indicated to me--because I was looking at social enterprise and ways of trying to encourage employment for people who were leaving periods of custody--that offenders or ex-offenders are 11 to 13 times less likely to reoffend if they have