Public Safety committee  Some of them might be. The standard for “not guilty by reason of a mental disorder” is quite high. A lot of them are in psychiatric remand right now being assessed for the suitability of the sentence, to see if they understand the nature of a trial.

Public Safety committee  If somebody's in the community and they're suffering from a medical issue such as diabetes, they know they need to take their medication to be better and to live. But somebody who's mentally ill in the community, perhaps taking medication for his mental illness, may one day think he's feeling fine and doesn't need to take the medication.

Public Safety committee  There's a concept called assertive community treatment teams. Right now there's a police officer that's part of a group of people, including mental health professionals. They'll have a caseload. One team of perhaps 12 professionals will deal with 100 people on their caseloads and actively monitor these individuals to make sure they're functioning, taking their medication, and not developing problems that require them to be taken into care.

Public Safety committee  It wasn't a big issue in Vancouver.

Public Safety committee  I think information sharing is really important, especially for young people. In Vancouver that is a priority for us, with school liaison officers who deal with the education, with the social service, and also with health professionals in terms of a wraparound approach to preventing young people from getting into that life of crime.

Public Safety committee  In Vancouver, we have close relations with our academic partners. I have several officers who are doing Ph.D.s in criminology. In terms of what the federal government can do—legislation, lawful access. I'd like to talk about that more if there's a chance.

Public Safety committee  I know of no cost savings.

Public Safety committee  In Vancouver we've looked at all of our patrol operations in quite extensive detail, because our most expensive resource is the officers who are out there on the streets. We've looked at a number of key performance indicators, but we've boiled them down to a couple of pretty important ones.

Public Safety committee  Good morning. Greetings from Vancouver. The sun is just coming up in the city right now. Greetings on behalf of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which I'm very proud to represent and head. My understanding is that this morning a number of topics are going to be discussed, but that I am to talk about mentally ill offenders and policing.