Public Safety committee  I don't have a comment on that.

Public Safety committee  I comment on what I specialize in. I specialize in the needs and rights of victims, how we can meet those needs, how we can prevent.... I'm not a specialist on this issue, so I prefer to not comment.

Public Safety committee  I am not for or against. I don't have a comment.

Public Safety committee  In the United States you've got the series of different jurisdictions. You've got the federal and the state jurisdictions. So it varies enormously. The California system is that if a restitution order is made, then the state correction system--you've got two levels of the correct

Public Safety committee  I think what we have to do is work out what restitution is justified in respect of the harm that was done to the victim and what actually gets paid. You should not be trying to get blood out of stone. You have to recognize that somebody who's incarcerated is typically not getting

Public Safety committee  I do crime victims week on both sides of the border, and I was invited by the bipartisan caucus of the U.S. Congress to address their public policy forum. In Canada, I would like to see at the federal level—actually at any level—more cooperation on the victim issue. I didn't say

Public Safety committee  It is extremely difficult in this country to get accurate statistics on the use of restitution. It is also difficult, but not impossible, to get statistics on the harm. The $83 billion comes from a combination of the crime victims survey multiplied by the estimates of costs. Th

Public Safety committee  The $83 billion comes from work done by Justice Canada. It's used a lot by Minister Nicholson, and I think it's good use of data. It is limited in some ways. It's based on really two core bits of information. One is what's called, by me, the “victimization” survey, which is the

Public Safety committee  You didn't hear this, but I wrote a major book on the effectiveness of the prison parole system. It's somewhat dated, but the data is used on the website of the Correctional Service of Canada, and I've certainly stayed in touch with the material on what is effective in terms of r

Public Safety committee  Adult victims.

Public Safety committee  In Canada.

Public Safety committee  A year.

Public Safety committee  Well, maybe I can just clarify. What they do is look at the number of victims in a year and then look at the harm for those victims, the loss of quality of life over their lives.

Public Safety committee  But unless you bring the crime rate down, which we're actually not doing in Canada—despite the police statistics—it's basically $83 billion every year.

Public Safety committee  Yes, if you're a victim of an aggravated sexual assault, or what the Americans would call a forcible rape, your loss of quality of life.... So there are some small payments that you make for the sexual assault nursing examiner and some payments you may make in short-term trauma c