MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL AND CORRECTIONAL SERVICES
CONTENTS
Monday 15 April 1996
Electronic monitoring
Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services
Dr Elaine Todres, Deputy Solicitor General and Deputy Minister of Correctional Services
Neil McKerrell, assistant deputy minister, correctional services division
Frances McKeague, manager, adult community services
Michael O'Neal, manager, technology coordination unit
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair / Président: Martiniuk, Gerry (Cambridge PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Johnson, Ron (Brantford PC)
*Boyd, Marion (London Centre / -Centre ND)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West / -Ouest L)
Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North / -Nord L)
Doyle, Ed (Wentworth East / -Est PC)
*Guzzo, Garry J. (Ottawa-Rideau PC)
Hampton, Howard (Rainy River ND)
Hudak, Tim (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Johnson, Ron (Brantford PC)
*Klees, Frank (York-Mackenzie PC)
*Leadston, Gary L. (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
*Martiniuk, Gerry (Cambridge PC)
*Parker, John L. (York East / -Est PC)
*Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)
*Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Carr, Gary (Oakville South / -Sud PC) for Mr Hudak
Gilchrist, Steve (Scarborough East / -Est PC) for Mr Ron Johnson
Ouellette, Jerry J. (Oshawa PC) for Mr Doyle
Clerk / Greffière: Donna Bryce
Staff / Personnel: Susan Swift, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1529 in room 228.
ELECTRONIC MONITORING
Consideration of the designated matter pursuant to standing order 125, relating to the impact of halfway house closures and the introduction of electronic monitoring.
The Chair (Mr Gerry Martiniuk): Ladies and gentlemen of the standing committee on the administration of justice, I call this meeting to order. We proceed to have a quorum.
Before you at your places should be two reports of the subcommittee of the justice committee. The first one is a confidential report merely for information, which has already been deemed to be accepted. The second one I'd like to discuss with you for a moment in case you have any ideas.
The second one, which is the shorter one, states that the subcommittee makes the recommendation: "That the two expert witnesses, Jim Cairns, British Columbia and Richard Nimer, Florida provide testimony on electronic monitoring through videoconferencing technology."
I should add that no committee of the Legislature has ever had a videoconference. I understand it's used on Parliament Hill and it has been used for a couple of years. The alternative to videoconferencing would be teleconferencing and the difference is cost.
At the present time, we do not have in the main Legislative Building videoconferencing facilities, and it means if we proceed with this, we will have to go over on one or two occasions to the Ministry of Natural Resources in the Whitney Block to use their facilities. The cost is approximately $200 for the videoconferencing, plus long-distance charges. Teleconferencing is considerably cheaper. The reason we're doing it of course is that to bring one witness here would be somewhat over $5,000 before we finish, so this is considerably cheaper.
As it has never been tried, I'm going to suggest an alternative that's not the committee's alternative, that we have one of the witnesses as videoconferencing and take one as teleconferencing. I think we then can compare the merits of both systems and possibly pass those comments on to the Legislative Assembly, which should consider if videoconferencing, for instance, is something we should continue with as a permanent facility in the Legislative Building.
We can either accept the subcommittee report as it stands or we could amend it to have one video and one tele so we could compare the two, and I'd ask anyone for their opinion.
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot): I agree with your analysis. Obviously this is a new experience, I'm sure for many if not all of the members, and I think it would be an option to explore both forms of new technology and then address which is the most appropriate for future meetings. That's most reasonable.
The Chair: Mr Ramsay, this is your motion, so I'd be interested in your suggestions.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I concur with the past comments. I think we're breaking new ground here. It might be good to have a comparator by using the two different means of remote conferencing. Why don't we try one of each?
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): I'm quite prepared to try one of each. My sense is I am more particularly interested in the Canadian experience and hope that would be our videoconference experience, but I'm certainly willing to go along with whatever you decide.
The Chair: That would be the cheaper alternative also, so that is what we're trying to do.
Mr John L. Parker (York East): I don't want to be the fly in the ointment here. I was just going to say I have already had experience with both and I don't need the experiment. I'm quite happy to come down with a recommendation on one side or the other. But if it's the wish of everyone else to experiment, then I'm not inclined to stand in the way of that.
The Chair: We have then what I'd consider a motion from Mr Leadston to try the two alternatives. All those in favour of using that? Thank you. Carried.
It seems that I must read the other report of the subcommittee, if you'll indulge me for a moment.
"Your subcommittee met on November 28, December 4, 1995, and April 10, 1996, with respect to the consideration of a designation under standing order 125 by David Ramsay, Liberal subcommittee member, as follows:
"That the standing committee on the administration of justice meet for 12 hours to deliberate the impact of halfway house closures and the proposal to replace this form of monitoring inmate reintegration into the community with the introduction of electronic monitoring with particular attention paid to the experiences of other jurisdictions that have taken similar actions.
"Your subcommittee agreed that the committee commence consideration of this designation on Monday, April 15, 1996, and agreed upon the following:
"1. That the staff from the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services be invited to provide a briefing before the committee. The time allotted for presentation, questions and answers will be two and a half hours.
"2. That the following two expert witnesses be invited to provide testimony before the committee for one hour each, including presentation, questions and answers: Jim Cairns, analyst, electronic monitoring program, British Columbia; Richard Nimer, program administrator, probation/parole program, Florida.
"3. That the following 11 witnesses, as agreed by the subcommittee, be invited to appear before the committee for 30 minutes each: John Howard Society of Ontario; Council of Elizabeth Fry Societies of Ontario; Ontario Halfway House Association; Ontario Community Justice Association; Anthony Doob, criminologist, University of Toronto; Probation Officers' Association of Ontario; Crime Prevention Ontario; Priscilla de Villiers, CAVEAT; St Leonard's House; Operation Springboard; Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
"4. That two hours be set aside for report writing."
I've read that into the record. I'd like to thank Mr Ramsay for his indulgence in the delay in getting this hearing, but we did have a strike and he quite kindly delayed it until after the strike.
I'd also like to welcome Gary Carr, the member for Oakville South, who is here representing the Solicitor General. We also have Mr Gilchrist and Mr Ouellette. Are you two substitutes? Thank you.
MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL AND CORRECTIONAL SERVICES
The Chair: If we then could proceed. Could you identify yourself for the purpose of Hansard.
Dr Elaine Todres: My name is Elaine Todres. I'm the Deputy Minister of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services and I've brought with me my colleagues. I'm sorry if my watch is on different time. I apologize for being late. This is Neil McKerrell, the assistant deputy minister, and we'll introduce the others in turn.
We've been requested to be here and we are indeed very pleased to be here. We were asked specifically to come before you and speak to you about CRCs, community resource centres, and the electronic monitoring program. The Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services is committed to working very closely with the Ministry of the Attorney General towards the achievement of a modern, smaller and more effective justice system for Ontario.
That includes focusing our resources on serious crime and maintaining public safety as the highest priority in all the decisions we make. It means applying creative alternatives to deal with less serious offenders and recognizing and ensuring that rehabilitative services are delivered fairly and equitably. It means strengthening partnerships with the community and improving links among ourselves as partners in the justice system. It means streamlining management and the administration of the justice system.
For correctional services, a modern, smaller and more effective justice system will mean significant changes to its institutional infrastructure, to its capital plant, which is in large measure outdated and highly inefficient. As many of you know, two thirds of the plant was built prior to 1950.
The correctional services division has been conducting a very thorough review of its institutional system with a view to rationalizing, streamlining and reducing the enormous cost of incarceration. At the heart of the efforts to refocus resources on serious offenders are important changes to the ways in which offenders are managed and the risks that they pose.
In order to focus resources on the most serious offenders, we have concluded that it would require a risk assessment instrument, which in many ways is pivotal in any actions that we take forward. The introduction of this new instrument is called the LSI-OR, the level of service inventory (Ontario revision). It's the latest revision to what was an older instrument. That statistical work and the research that went through it I think is critical to the achievement of our vision in the justice system.
Risk is a constant factor in correctional services, as much with community supervision as with institutional custody. The challenge is not to imagine that there isn't risk but rather to manage the risk as effectively and as efficiently as possible. Statistics show we are successful in comparison with other jurisdictions. Those new assessment processes will allow the division to do a better and more consistent job at sorting out and providing for the treatment of those offenders who appear to pose more of a threat to public safety.
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The Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services, like other ministries, is going through a rigorous evaluation of spending priorities to ensure that the maximum dollar value is achieved while continuing to maintain its objectives of public safety and offender rehabilitation. Correctional supervision has been particularly affected in recent years by the growing complexity of offender needs. Couple this with the reduction in fiscal resources, and it is necessary to examine and evaluate services provided by the division and the method of providing these services.
Decisions regarding whether to reduce or eliminate spending must include the ministry's ability to sustain services and programs that are required under law and regulations governing the provincial correctional services, while at the same time maintaining public safety to the full extent. What is affordable under the present economic environment are those services required by law and those programs that have demonstrated the greatest degree of effectiveness among the number of offenders.
The correctional services division has enjoyed a healthy working relationship with the agencies that have contracted with it to provide the CRC programs. I can tell you it was not an easy decision to terminate those contracts. The decision to terminate the funding to the CRCs and to implement the electronic monitoring program was shaped primarily by the need to refocus scarce resources on those offenders who pose a greater risk to public safety and the opportunity to allow those offenders deemed suitable to be in their own home environment to take advantage of local programming while still under correctional supervision.
Mr McKerrell, my assistant deputy minister, is going to present information on the CRCs, our decision to terminate those contracts and the implementation of the electronic monitoring program.
Mr Neil McKerrell: Good afternoon. I'd like to begin my comments first of all by introducing two of my colleagues. Frances McKeague is the manager of adult community services and Michael O'Neal is the manager of the technology coordination unit and was primarily responsible for developing the plans to implement the electronic monitoring program. Both of them will be making presentations, and Mike will be providing some opportunity for you to look at the electronic monitoring devices. He'll explain how they all work and also how the program works.
As the deputy mentioned, I'd like to explain a little bit about Ontario's correctional system and the decision to close the CRCs. I'd like to start off by indicating to you that Ontario's correctional system is the second-largest in Canada after the federal system, Correctional Service Canada. In the 1994-95 fiscal year we had over 72,000 people under supervision on any given day in Ontario. Of that 72,000, 85% of them were adult offenders and 15% were young offenders. Of the adult population, 87% of them were supervised in the community and only 13% of adult offenders were supervised in institutions.
The correction services budget as it stands today is approximately $500 million and it has been shrinking progressively over the last few years from a high of about $580 million. We know there are further budget reductions to come as part of the government's restructuring process. As the deputy indicated, we have been and are continuing to try to examine everything we do to find ways and means of making the system more cost-effective while still meeting the public safety and core legal mandates.
We've already reduced the administration in correctional services in the pure administrative area by 30%, in the community services management by 20% and in institutional management by almost 10%. We're involved -- I think the deputy alluded to it -- in the notion of downsizing and streamlining the justice system with our colleagues in the Ministry of the Attorney General and working towards an integration of the justice system which will make it more effective, more efficient and much more manageable.
Basically, the objective we have is to try to use the money that's left in the most cost-effective manner possible while still meeting our mandate. The decision to close the community resource centres was not a random or haphazard act. It was in the context of the restructuring of correctional services, but it was one piece of that restructuring which could proceed independently from the rest of the overall planning processes for the community and the institutions.
To give you just a little bit of history about the community resource centres, in Ontario our use of them dates back to the mid-1970s when they were started primarily as a means to supervise low-risk offenders more cheaply in the community than they could be in institutions. It started about 1974. We had our first couple of houses and then they increased progressively from there.
The residences were established in a number of communities across the province on the basis of block-funded private sector contracts to provide room, board and supervision to approved men and women. Some of the operators were independent and some were associated with larger organizations such as the Salvation Army, Elizabeth Fry and the John Howard Society.
Most of the residents in these houses were from the institution that was proximate to the house. They were largely on temporary absence from these institutions. There were a very few residents who were either on parole or probation but the majority of them were on temporary absence from the institution. The residents had the opportunity to attend their own employment, if they had work when they came into prison. They had the opportunity to search for a job. They could resume their education. They could attend treatment or counselling or training programs. They could also participate in organized leisure activities, group discussions and other supportive and befriending activities through the residence.
By 1994-95, Ontario contracted for 398 beds in 25 CRCs at a cost of $11.6 million to look after approximately 1% of its offender population. Now, 1% of the budget would have been roughly $5 million. With a utilization rate of 80.6% in that year, the average per diem was $80.
Community-based correctional residences are commonly used in most jurisdictions, and we offer no disagreement that they have a role to play in the criminal justice system. The point for Ontario, or at least for correctional services in Ontario, was, what type of role would they play and for which offenders?
In this country, the federal government uses halfway houses to reintegrate people who have been incarcerated for lengthy periods of time, usually measured in years. Many have committed serious offences and face significant problems readjusting to living in the community post-release. The majority of the significant public incidents which have arisen from residents of halfway houses are primarily related to federal facilities rather than provincial facilities.
Other provinces in Canada use community resource centres in the same way that Ontario did, which is basically as a cheaper means of accommodating low-risk offenders. However, recently Alberta announced its intention to reduce its nine houses by an undisclosed number because of anticipated reduced need based on potential changing sentencing practices and the availability of other community alternatives.
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Given that the average provincial sentence for men in Ontario is 92 days and the average provincial sentence for women in Ontario is 72 days, we're talking about a very, very different type of offender population than the federal system deals with. With such short sentences, Ontario's offender population does not have the same kind of reintegration problems that federal inmates have and the benefit of reintegration housing is perhaps more readily apparent.
The profile of residents in Ontario's CRCs, when we were operating them, was as follows, and I'll just give you some idea of what kind of people were in the houses. In terms of the types of offences, the most common offence was for impaired driving, and we had 28.5% of the people in CRCs for impaired driving. Theft and possession was the next-largest group, at 25.2%, followed by break and enter and property offences, at 16.4%; lesser types of assaults, 16.4%; and drug-related, about 12.2%.
In terms of the length of sentences that our residents of the CRCs had -- and this is their total sentence they were serving -- 26.9% had less than three months; 30.1% were serving between three and six months; 20.5% between six and 12 months; and 21.2% were serving greater than 12 months, that is, greater than 12 months but less than two years less a day.
The time in custody before placement is interesting: Fully 75% of the people that we had in our CRCs were in custody for 60 days prior to placement. The time remaining after placement is also interesting: 50% of the people that we had in our CRCs had less than 81 days to serve.
The most common program participation for our residents was alcohol counselling, largely conducted through AA, and 59.7% of the people were participating in that. Life skills counselling was next, with 52.9%. People participating in work programs were 38.1%. In other words, the people Ontario placed into its CRCs on TAP were those considered not to be a risk and who could be more cheaply supervised in the community rather than in institutions. In short, these were people who could function quite safely in the community and the majority had homes to return to upon the expiry of sentence.
A number of the criticisms which have been directed at the closure decision relate to the loss of the support of living environment and programming to assist the offenders to improve their chances of not recidivating. When we were examining the CRC issue, we looked at the type of programming which was available to the residents through the CRCs and we identified the following kinds of programs: the alcohol counselling that I've mentioned before; health and lifestyles; discharge planning; self-help programs operated through Seven Steps, among others; drug counselling programs; educational upgrading; recreation programs; money management; anger management; job search or the maintenance of existing jobs; and driving-while-impaired programs.
However, it was determined that CRC residents were being referred to program activities outside the house in the community at least as much, if not more so, than to in-house programs of a unique or specialized nature. These community-based programs were of course available to all offenders whether they were on the extended temporary absence program living at home, whether they were on parole or probation, or whether they were living in the CRCs.
We determined, however, that specialized or unique residential programming was a valuable resource to assist offenders with very specific needs which could be best met by placement in the community, and it was for these specialized needs that we decided that the group of community residential agreements which we had should be retained. We've had them for a number of years and we felt they should be retained because they're funded largely on an ad hoc basis whereby we pay for the beds as we use them, as opposed to block funding beds that may not be used.
We're currently conducting a review of these community residential agreements to ensure that we have the right services in the right places and that they're being delivered in the most cost-beneficial, cost-effective way. This review could result in some changes being made to existing contracts, but the community residential agreement program is going to be retained to meet the specialized needs.
On the issue of the loss of a supportive living environment through the closure of the CRCs, we considered that our offenders were living in the CRCs with a peer group of other offenders, just as they did while they were in prison, with a minimal offsetting benefit when you looked at the other aspects of it, whereas by living in their own homes there was a reasonable chance of having reduced prolonged contact with the criminal peer group. As probably all of you are well aware, the criminal association is one of the major criminogenic factors which leads to or contributes to recidivism.
Another factor which we considered was the limited availability of CRC opportunities across the province. They weren't universally available, with 25 houses located in only 18 communities. At an earlier time, a number of years ago, we had more houses in total, but a number of them were closed over the last few years, because of either poor contract performance or low utilization.
On the utilization factor, over the last nine years across the system and by region, by year, the utilization fluctuated from a low of 56.2% to a high of 90.1%. With the period April to September 1995, just prior to the closure announcement, across the province the utilization was averaging 72.1%. These were block-funded residences, where we paid whether the beds were full or empty.
When all of these factors are added to the anticipated changes in sentencing patterns following the proclamation of Bill C-41, which should see more people ordered directly to community supervision rather than custody, we believe that our decision to close the block-funded residences and keep a range of ad-hoc-funded specialized services for those offenders who really need them was both prudent and cost-effective in the circumstances.
What I'd like to do now is ask my colleague Frances McKeague to talk a little bit about the level of supervision inventory, our risk assessment instrument. She'll also talk a bit about our vision for community corrections.
Ms Frances McKeague: Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. We certainly welcome this opportunity and specifically I welcome this opportunity because one of the criticisms we had heard on our closure of the community resource centres was that we had killed community corrections in Ontario. I'm pleased to be here today to give you some background and to indicate to you that we have not killed community corrections in Ontario. There are a number of us who are still around who believe in community corrections, to the point where we're developing, reviewing and revising our revision to provide cost-effective services to offenders in the community.
Having said that, the areas I want to cover for you this afternoon include a history of our risk assessment in Ontario. I think it's important that we give a context to some of the work we've been doing, particularly with offender risk assessment and particularly in Ontario, because in the Ontario correctional system we've really been on the cutting edge of designing and developing risk assessment tools and risk assessment instruments that have been used quite extensively in other jurisdictions as well.
I'd like to give you a bit of an idea on the purpose of risk assessment, what we're trying to do, what are some of its limitations and why are we pursuing this direction in Ontario. I want to give you a model for risk/needs assessment, to give you a little bit of a context upon which we are doing. I want to run you through a little bit of the instrument as well, because some of the work that we've been doing is a little difficult unless we've had some firsthand experience in the kinds of things that we're looking at in risk/needs assessment. So I'll go over that as well.
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More importantly, what we'd like to do is relate the applicability of the risk assessment instrument to a process of risk management, because that's really what we're talking about: How do we manage that risk effectively and how do we do that effectively in the community? Really, that demonstrates the utility of that instrument, because we want it to be and we can see that it is really the foundation or the cornerstone for a renewed community corrections strategy in Ontario.
I want to give you a bit of an overview too on some of the things that we're considering on what we have called our community justice continuum, some of the areas that we have felt from our perspective are important based on a good solid risk/needs assessment.
So a little bit about the history. I think the history of risk assessment in Ontario is very impressive and it's one we are quite proud of as well. The process started in Ontario and it has since led to the development of a similar system in Correctional Service Canada. It's also being used in several American jurisdictions; Colorado, for example. Other folks internationally have also expressed an interest, such as New Zealand, Australia and our colleagues in England and Britain as well.
The work that is being done in those countries really was started in Ontario, and pretty much it was back during the late 1970s. Our correctional system worked quite extensively with Dr Andrews, a psychologist out of Carleton University, to design and implement a risk assessment instrument specifically for probation and parole. The instrument was introduced in the late 1970s and it did provide the foundation or the background for all community supervision for probation and parole clients for well over a decade.
As a result of the review, however, of our offender classification system, the need was established to get a much better process of risk/needs assessment that would be applicable for all offender groups and would be applicable for all facilities, both institutions and in the community. So in 1994 we brought Dr Andrews back again. He assisted us with reviewing and revising our level of supervision inventory, and it's now been renamed the level of service inventory, to reflect the intent of what we are trying to do. We feel that we have a much more comprehensive and sophisticated instrument than what we had before, and we also have an instrument that is used for both adults and young offenders in all correctional settings. We undertook a very comprehensive training session in the fall of 1995, and on January 2 we introduced the instrument for all correctional settings.
In going over what we're looking at, the purpose of risk assessment really is twofold: First, it is to predict whether an offender is going to reoffend at some future time, and second, to use that knowledge in making some very key decisions on intervention or service delivery for offenders, particularly around supervision strategies in the community but also security decisions as far as institutions go as well.
It's really vital in using any risk assessment instrument -- and this is what we're doing in our system -- that it not only be used as a predictor for future reoffending, but it's also used as a focus for correctional work, and that is effective intervention with offenders. If we bear this in mind -- and I want to get into this a little bit more in depth -- it's not only to predict behaviour, it's to influence behaviour as well, which is really the thrust of what corrections is all about.
This is our model for risk/needs assessments that we have used as a conceptual framework for understanding criminal behaviour with our offenders in the provincial system in terms of risk assessment, and it was used in all of the training sessions with both the institutions and the community practitioners that we did this past fall.
Just to very briefly go through it, what we're doing in our model for risk assessment is first of all looking at the overall risk. What is the risk of that offender or the probability or the likelihood that they're going to do further criminal or anti-social behaviour? How we determine that is, as soon as an offender's foot hits the door of an institution or of the probation and parole office, or shortly thereafter, we do an in-depth offender assessment on them. We look at eight key areas -- and I'll get into these a little bit later when we look at the instruments specifically: past criminal history; education-employment, the status of that; family-marital situation; what they're doing with leisure-recreation; substance abuse issues; associates -- who they're hanging around with; their attitudes on criminal behaviour; and what is called an anti-social pattern. I'll expand on that a bit more.
So we look at overall risk. The assessment itself produces a score, and the more of those risk factors I just outlined to you that are present in an offender's situation, the higher the likelihood that they will reoffend.
Referring back to what I said earlier, about so what if we have a score that indicates risk for reoffending: The assessment also identifies what we've called here the risk factors, but it looks at things called need factors as well, both static and dynamic. Static risk factors are the kinds of risk factors that we cannot change and are fixed. Things like criminal history, history of substance abuse and that sort of thing are static risk factors. Dynamic risk factors, of that list I just outlined, are those issues that can change over time, like a family-marital situation that is dysfunctional. There is some potential for change. Current substance abuse -- could be some change there. It's those dynamic need factors or risk factors that we are particularly interested in in corrections, in what we have called criminogenic needs. That really is what makes the LSI-OR, the level of service inventory, unique: its emphasis on those dynamic risk factors. Those are the ones that we are targeting for change and the ones we are most particularly interested in when we're doing our assessments.
The assessment also -- and I'll look at that a little bit later when I look at the instrument -- looks at some other areas that are not related to future reoffending. Those are things like mismanagement of finances, the fact that they don't have accommodation, just to name a couple of things that don't necessarily relate to future reoffending, except there may be some situations in their lives that are very important that we may have to address in what we call our case management of the offender. But our most important ones, the ones that we want to target and look at, effecting some sort of change with that offender, are what are called the needs factors. If we can make some sort of inroads into those areas, those are the ones that we see can make some change, which is really the cornerstone of our risk assessment process.
The instrument itself: I have handouts of all these, so you don't have to take copious notes. That will give you an outline of what the instrument looks like. If you look at the area on general risk/needs factors, those are the eight factors that I indicated before, the presence of which increases with the increase in their risk. In doing this kind of assessment, we are basing it on a number of interviews or sources of information that we have used in addition to interviews with the offender himself or herself. These include official police records, interviews with family, employers, schools, official mental health records, those sorts of things where we get our information from.
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Of the eight, there are really four areas in the assessment that are certainly more important from the psychological point of view and the ones that we really intend to concentrate more of our efforts on. One of these is what we call the attitudes, values and beliefs, and that one is, in our interviews, in looking at what offenders are bringing with them, we want to know what it is that they rationalize about being involved in crime. For example, if we are hearing a lot of statements like, "It's okay; nobody got hurt," "It's big business," and on and on, that's indicative of an attitude that's very supportive of crime. Phrases like -- if I can think of one that I heard a couple of weeks ago from a fellow charged with abusing his spouse: "When two people love each other, they beat up each other anyway." Well, I don't think so, but that was one of the rationalizations that we heard. So in our interviews with offenders, if we're hearing a lot of that kind of thing, that is indicative of an attitude that's supportive of crime, which is a risk factor.
The other two: If their associates are involved in crime and anti-social behaviour, that's also indicative of a high-risk factor as well. Those personality factors -- if there is a diagnosis of psychopathy, for example, that's going to clue us in that there are certain areas we may want to explore a little bit more. We're not making that diagnosis, but we're going to be looking for that. If there is an early and repeated pattern of lawbreaking, of rule violations and that sort of thing, that's indicative of a risk factor as well. The last one, a history of anti-social behaviour or criminal behaviour, is also indicative of high risk.
As well, we look at on the instrument -- you take a look at the section here, "Specific Problems with Criminogenic Potential," those are the ones that again are directly related to law violations or criminal behaviour. We look at prison experience, at what is it that they have brought with them in terms of their past incarceration, at whether they've been a perpetrator before, either sexual or physical assaults, escapes, fire-setting and so on.
It's a pretty in-depth assessment that we do with these offenders, and after we have collected our information we summarize it numerically and we get an idea of their total score. We have separated that into low-, medium-, and high-risk areas. That kind of a separation then determines what it is that we are choosing to do as far as the supervision level or the security in the institution as well. That really determines our program replacement decisions.
As I was mentioning before, there are other areas that we also look at, called other client issues. Those other issues are also, as I say, important when we're developing a plan. We will want to spend a considerable amount of time doing it, but what we want to concentrate our efforts on are those factors that are directly related to lawbreaking.
How does that all fit with community justice and our vision for community corrections? There is a distinct relationship with risk/needs assessment as being appropriate and what it is we want to do with community corrections in Ontario. The proposal we're considering is really very much related to the data and the work we're going to be doing with our instrument.
I should indicate to you too that we just released it on 2 January. We've had a bit of a glitch for five weeks where we haven't collected our data, but we're back on track again and we're going to do some much more solid data collection, downloading that information we have on our computers and getting a better, solid information base.
But with our community justice continuum and consistent with the remarks that have already been made about the direction we want to go in corrections generally in Ontario, what we're looking at is developing, among other things, an offence-based alternative measures program to divert low-risk offenders from the criminal justice system. That's one area we're looking at consistent with the new legislation under Bill C-41.
As I indicated, we're looking at a community corrections system that is based on risk assessment and, more importantly, risk management. We're looking at a three-tiered community corrections approach that outlines a community corrections intervention which is commensurate with the risk/needs level of those offenders we have assessed. We're looking at a continuum of community corrections that follows offenders from institutions into the community and targets our resources for those offenders at high risk and most at need.
We're looking at enhanced technological infrastructure.
A key one we're really looking at is an integrated community justice continuum, and what we mean by this is that all the partners in the community will have a say, I guess, in what we're doing with offenders in those communities, involving all of our stakeholders, not just corrections but police, courts, crowns, the community residences and the community, both residential and business, social service agencies, community justice organizations etc.
We're looking at an increased and enhanced private sector involvement, encouraging these stakeholders to take a greater role. It's not that we haven't always done that -- we certainly have -- but we want to go back and refocus ourselves and review how we can do that better with those folks. We have a good, solid base in community corrections, we believe, in order to do that.
The approach we're also looking at as well, consistent with this continuum, is how we are going to look at dealing with offenders. As I mentioned before, an effective correctional intervention is one that targets resources and services to those offenders who are most at risk and most at need. Accused persons charged with minor offences: We want to take a good look at what I said before, the alternative measures for adults and can that be applied. We're just on the consideration stage with that one as well, but we think there's some potential there.
As far as the assessment process for community corrections goes, we're looking at a much more refocused, restructured strategy for dealing with our offenders in the community, looking at it from a three-tiered approach, from low-risk, long-need offenders -- probationers -- where we will not be offering a great deal of service, to the medium-to-high-risk to high-risk offenders. The things we're considering around medium-to-high-risk offenders and in addition to the very high-risk, because there are some offenders who just come to our service who don't want our service and they're sometimes the hardest to manage, is we're looking at or investigating much more of an intensive supervision for those folks. There is a potential, we feel, to expand our use of things like electronic monitoring for those kinds of offenders. But we have to be careful in our assessments of those offenders as being crucial to what sorts of programs we're going to be looking at.
Throughout this whole thing, throughout our community corrections strategy is an emphasis on the whole case management approach we feel is important when we're restructuring community corrections, and the things we're looking at are using a good assessment process, a good way to manage those offenders and manage that risk, but also to use all of the players in the community justice system and the community itself to the best advantage.
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Also, going back to what I originally said, the community corrections strategy is on the cutting edge. We're on the drawing board, we're in the thinking stage with it now, but preliminary indications from our work with the level of service inventory, the risk/needs assessment, is very encouraging. We've got quite an extensive training program that was put in place. We think it's going to work out quite well.
I would like to turn it over to Mike O'Neal, who's going to give you an overview of the electronic monitoring.
Mr Mike O'Neal: I'd like to begin by thanking the committee for the opportunity to come and speak today and provide some basic information on the technology we're using in Ontario, provide a bit of historical information concerning how the technology is being used in other jurisdictions, to give you a sense of that, and to also outline how the program is structured in the province and provide a bit of an update on our experiences with the program today.
Electronic monitoring is a program we consider to be a safe and effective alternative for non-violent offenders. First, let me begin by reviewing what electronic monitoring is. It's a freedom-restricting tool for monitoring carefully selected inmates in the community. It helps to monitor an offender's compliance with curfew and program schedules.
There are three types or generations of this technology. The first generation, passive and active curfew monitoring, does not involve any tracking. That's the kind of electronic monitoring technology we're using. A second generation of the technology, currently under development, provides tracking. By that, I mean being able to plot an offender's whereabouts at any point in time. The third generation of the technology, something I would guess we would not be interested in at any point in time, provides tracking plus escape prevention, an automatic shock feature. Believe it or not, there are experiments into that version of the technology.
Mr Parker: We don't want to talk about that.
Mr O'Neal: I didn't think so.
How electronic monitoring is being used in some correctional agencies: It's being used as a condition of remand and pre-trial release; as what's called a front-end sentencing alternative to prison; for immediate sanctions for probation and parole violators; as a condition of early release from prison; and to enhance rehabilitation of drug addicts upon release from drug centres.
What I've described here is the range of applications of electronic monitoring, not our particular application of electronic monitoring thus far. We are applying it as a form of early release.
To give you a flavour for the growth in popularity of this alternative, the chart clearly shows a pattern beginning in 1987 and concluding in 1994. I don't have information for 1995, but I know from research that the popularity of the program continues. You can see a definite growth in the use of the technology, up to 67,000 units of the first generation of the technology in use in North America in 1994.
How we're using the technology: We're presently using it strictly as an early release option for short-sentenced, non-violent offenders. Our program commenced on January 2, 1996. At that point, we had all equipment installed, our staff fully trained, the program model fully developed and our procedures in place. We also commenced the level of service inventory (Ontario revision), something that was described in detail by my colleague. All testing was completed by January 16. Our first clients were released on January 26. From January 26 until February 26, 1996, 10 to 14 clients were added to the program weekly, on average, to the total of 40 by the time we arrived at the OPSEU strike.
Let me review with you the eligibility criteria for the program. The core requirement is a level of service inventory (Ontario revision) score in the low to medium range.
Participation is voluntary and if at any point the client is participating in the program and they indicate they're no longer interested in the program, they can be removed from it.
The offender's sentence must be less than 180 days or, for those serving longer sentences, there must be less than 180 days remaining in the sentence.
The residence must be within a reasonable distance from the releasing institution.
Since the electronic monitoring is a form of temporary absence pass, the suitability of an offender for the program is consistent with the provisions of the temporary absence pass policy and procedures.
There must be a suitable residence. Where it is shared with others, they must be supportive of the offender's conditional release and the conditions of the electronic monitoring program.
The residence must have a telephone line and telephone.
Offenders with the following characteristics are not eligible for the program:
A pattern of violent behaviour or arson, defined as a current conviction for what we call a violent level one offence or arson or a conviction for one of these offences within the last five years.
A sentence for sexual offence, as defined in our management and supervision of sex offenders in the community policy.
A current conviction for drug trafficking.
The offender must have a constructive community plan consisting of at least one of the following activities: employment; education; child care or similar responsibilities; medical needs requiring regular intervention and best delivered in the community; participation in a treatment program in the community. We also allow for other approved activities in exceptional cases.
Let me tell you a bit about the electronic monitoring program model. We have a host computer in North Bay. It's situated in a location where we have expert technical staff on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They've been trained extensively in how to support the technology and are there in the event of a problem. Situating it in North Bay also gave us the benefit of some of the other technology that's in place to maintain our offender management system, such as having a diesel generator backup in the event of a power outage.
We have 17 participating institutions and others have already expressed an interest in getting involved.
We have five data entry sites. The model we had in place to try to contain costs: We initially put five computers at designated institutions so that data entry could occur at just those five sites while we were able to get 17 sites up and running. Each of the five data entry sites has a catchment area of institutions that fax the information to it in advance of their clients being released on the program.
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The program is staffed by specially trained electronic monitoring officers and data entry clerks performing their respective duties. We are also using existing staff in institutions doing what they are trained to do. For example, we're using our experts in classification and we're also using our experts in the temporary absence program.
You're going to have difficulty making sense of this. Perhaps what I'll do is simply leave this slide and if you'd review it individually when the package gets distributed, that would be better. It simply displays two scenarios: first, the scenario where an offender is complying with the devices and the signal is not resulting in an alarm going to the host computer. In the other instance, where there is an alarm registering, it shows the flow of those signals. I'll say no more at this point.
I'll tell you a bit more about the electronic monitoring program technology. The host computer in North Bay is near fault-tolerant, meaning that we have all the necessary hardware and software in place to guard against all but the most cataclysmic of events. We have --
Mrs Boyd: Like a strike.
Mr O'Neal: Like a strike, that's true. It is sort of cataclysmic. Like a direct lightning hit to North Bay.
Our data entry site computers are fully equipped with the latest technology and their own printers. We have as well pagers for each electronic monitoring officer and each operational manager. I'll mention that, again to try to contain costs, we are utilizing operational managers, who are working a 24-7 schedule -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- for full coverage in our institutions to cover the times when our electronic monitoring officers are off duty. They assume responsibility for being available in the event of any alarms or alerts. A pager is provided.
We also acquired cell phones for each of the officers and we acquired a dedicated fax machine for each of the 17 sites so that we'd have a backup. If there is some problem with getting a page to the pager, then there is a fax transmitted simultaneously to the dedicated fax, so we have that backup.
We've since also acquired notebook computers which we intend to use for the electronic monitoring officers to be able to remotely access the electronic monitoring technology or software and also our offender management system. We get the added benefit of OMS access remotely, something we haven't generally had up until this point in time.
We also acquired electronic monitoring program vehicles. Again to try to keep costs to a minimum, we worked with the Ontario Provincial Police so we could acquire vehicles that had served the OPP well and with some minor refurbishing could be made available to us. Since we're not imposing the same demands on the vehicles as the OPP, they'll serve us quite well, we think, for the future.
Mr McKerrell: Read into that "old cruisers."
Mr O'Neal: We also managed to integrate the electronic monitoring technology with our existing technology telecommunications infrastructure. It was quite a feat, given the time lines we were working with, and we had tremendous support from our information resources division experts. The reason I'm emphasizing this is that it's another way for us to keep costs to a minimum. Some other programs don't have this feature and the electronic monitoring technology ends up incurring long-distance charges. We end up taking advantage of the great rates that are negotiated for the flow of data across the province over the telecommunications network.
Our host computer receives calls from the field monitoring devices. It compares the information received from the field monitoring device with a schedule that would have been pre-programmed on to the computer on the given client. The host computer knows when the client is to be within the residence and when the client is to be out of the residence and those signals are then compared against that information that's resident on the machine. It also generates alarms for follow-up by corrections personnel under a variety of nine different circumstances.
I didn't bring the host computer with me, for obvious reasons, but I did manage to bring some samples of the other technology. What I'll do is simply distribute them as I go.
I'd just ask you to pass that around. That's the field monitoring device. It's installed in the subject's residence. It's connected to the phone and to the power in the residence. As you look at it, you'll see at the back of the unit there's a place for a plug to go in, very similar to the way you would hook up an answering machine, plugging in, and it matters not which plug you put in either of the two jacks. It communicates with the host computer over a standard phone line. It monitors the presence and absence of the transmitter, and I'll show you the transmitter in just a moment.
Here it is. Pass that around. That's the ankle transmitter that gets affixed to the client's ankle. The way we are implementing the program, that ankle bracelet is affixed to the offender before he or she leaves the institution so that we can ensure there is the appropriate correctional staff on duty and not get ourselves into a vulnerable situation putting that device on in the offender's home.
The transmitter is worn 24 hours a day. It's kept on the person for the duration of their involvement in the program. It transmits an encoded signal three times a minute, so that gives you some sense of how frequently the unit is polling for the presence or absence of a client. It has multilevel tamper detection; it's water and shock resistant. We encourage participants to bathe regularly and we want them to know they won't be electrocuted, nor will they damage the unit unless they engage in scuba diving. If they go beyond 15 feet down, the unit isn't guaranteed below that depth.
It's powered by a replaceable battery -- it says "batter" there; it's really not "batter," it's "battery" -- with a one-year useful life, and it's not noted here but a shelf life of three years. The industry is working on batteries that will last even longer. I should mention that given the duration of an offender's involvement in the program, it doesn't affect a given offender.
I'll talk to you a little bit about the limitations of the technology. It cannot prevent an offender from going unlawfully at large. It's not as if the offender is on a physical tether. If the offender wants to flee, the offender flees. The unit -- and you'll get a sense of it when you have your chance to see the ankle transmitter -- can be removed by the offender with a pair of shears. It can be removed, but it can't be removed without an alarm being sounded and it can't be removed without generating physical evidence confirming the fact that it was removed.
The other limitation is that our version of the technology, being the first generation, cannot track the offender's movement beyond the residence. We are not using global positioning technology to try and pinpoint the offender when not at home.
Before I go on, I'd like to mention another piece of technology, a thing called a drive-by unit or mobile unit. It acts just like the other unit, the field monitoring device. It's affixed to the home in a sense. It allows the electronic monitoring officer to drive by the person's place of work or other place where they're engaged in a constructive activity, such as school etc, to determine that the client is where they're supposed to be when away from home during a scheduled absence.
The electronic monitoring officer could go to a place of employment -- let's say, for example, there are three to five offenders who are at the same place of employment. This technology is sophisticated enough to discern one signal from the other and verify that all those clients were there. Interestingly enough, if there were two people at the same point who weren't supposed to be associating, the technology would also show that. The information that is observed is recorded and then downloaded on to the computer later. I'll pass that around as well.
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We do have an evaluation strategy concerning our program. I won't go into it in great detail, but it is an objective evaluation that will be conducted by our ministry's research services unit. The evaluation period has changed. We had originally intended to start the evaluation process for a 12-month period commencing in January, and now we're starting it after the OPSEU strike, unfortunately, ending in April 1997.
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr O'Neal. I think Mrs Boyd had a short question.
Mrs Boyd: I have just a very short question. I'm sorry to interrupt you. But you said if they were associating with somebody they shouldn't be associating with, even if that person didn't have one of these on, you would know?
Mr O'Neal: No, I'm sorry. If both individuals had these.
Mrs Boyd: Okay, thank you.
Mr O'Neal: Program monitoring reports will be submitted quarterly. We received a first draft interim report at the end of the OPSEU strike.
Let me give you an overview of our experiences with the program to date. We had a total of 40 offenders participating prior to the program's suspension due to the OPSEU labour dispute. I'd like to add that it was due to the OPSEU labour dispute but also to the fact that because the electronic monitoring program wasn't around at the time, it wasn't one of the programs negotiated as an essential service and hence was not covered by that agreement. Offenders have been released from 14 of the 17 authorized institutions. Offenders' sentences have ranged in length from 20 days to 138 days.
Participation in the EM program: You can see from the five weeks we were up and running prior to the strike, the first week was a little slow -- we had a couple out -- and then we jumped up to between 10 and 14. In fact in the fourth week we were a little bit above 14 going out. The fifth week tapered right off because of the pending labour problem and the fact that about two days into the week people were advised not to release anyone else on electronic monitoring.
This is the distribution of offenders on the electronic monitoring program, again prior to the strike. Pretty even distribution is reflected on the chart. We will expect higher numbers concerning southern Ontario. It's not what we would expect proportionally, given the number of offenders who are in southern Ontario institutions.
Distribution of offenders based on the sentence length: You can see there that we had less than five with sentences in excess of 120 days. I won't go into this in detail. I'd ask you to refer to the chart in hard copy. The majority of the clients out on the program, in excess of 20, had sentences ranging from 31 to 60 days.
The reclassification of electronic monitoring clients consequent to the OPSEU labour dispute: We were quite creative in handling the offenders who were out on electronic monitoring. We certainly did not want to adversely impact anyone with a constructive activity such as employment etc. Some individuals were close enough to the end of their sentence that they were given a pre-release or terminal temporary absence pass to the end of their warrant expiry. Others were given a day pass, a recurring TAP; others again were given other forms of TAP, including an extended temporary absence pass, which is a form of recurring 15-day pass. A total of 40, though, were out, as I said, at the point of suspension.
Since April 10, 1996, 16 clients have been released. Following the strike, we completely reviewed the system and got the system back up and running by April 4. By April 10 we had restarted the program and we have, as of this morning, 16 clients on the program. From what we're hearing, we expect to see the numbers increasing substantially, particularly since everyone was very comfortable with the program prior to the strike, just getting into it, and then had that unfortunate impact to deal with.
We have a staffing plan for our next phase, to be implemented shortly. We introduced the program using a method that fairly quickly identified staff in each of the releasing institutions, and those staff were put on a six-month or slightly short of six-month temporary assignment. We have a plan to have a full competition or probably a two-year temporary assignment, and we are endeavouring to have a program that will make it fair for everyone, whether they've had any experience as an electronic monitoring officer or not. We plan to be training the individuals and testing everyone involved to identify the best candidates for the next phase.
We also have an alcohol testing component which requires training, policy to be developed, and ultimately an implementation that we're shooting for by the end of the summer. That device we did not implement initially. It was strongly recommended by everyone we talked to, particularly the vendor in other jurisdictions, that we not get into that degree of complexity at the start of the program. It was thought better that we deal with the basic technology components and then look at that other device later, and that's what we're doing.
If we have time and if the committee is interested, I have a brief tape that shows the alcohol device, shows the ankle device being installed. It's approximately 10 minutes. But in a nutshell, that alcohol device is a component of the home electronic monitoring technology. It's fully integrated with the field monitoring device, and for the clients who are selected to be involved in the program, and it will be a subset of all of those on the program, at regular intervals they will be alerted to the need to provide a breath sample. It's a deep, long breath sample that's provided and there is a multiple level of detections to confirm that it is in fact the client on the program who is providing the breath sample, through voice verification and some other technology. That's what it is.
We haven't developed the procedures yet because of our initial focus on the program. But that's one of our major next steps, developing the procedures and providing the training, and we intend to integrate this with the staffing approach used for the next phase of the program.
Let me talk a little bit about other possible electronic monitoring applications in Ontario. I'll mention first that we've made no commitments to looking at other applications. There have been some very preliminary discussions with the Ministry of the Attorney General; however, no commitments and no definite plans to apply electronic monitoring in any other way.
But intermittent sentenced inmates is certainly an area where we could look at using electronic monitoring. Intensive supervision, probation and parole, as my colleague Frances McKeague alluded to earlier, or intermediate sanctions, depending upon one's terminology, is an area where electronic monitoring could be used effectively and has been used in other jurisdictions.
Probation following incarceration is an area we're exploring, looking at the number of offenders we have with probation to follow incarceration, whether they fall within the existing parameters of the program or not. Certainly where you have an individual who has probation to follow, it may make sense to get the individual out on a form of temporary absence pass prior to them getting on to probation.
Another area is bail supervision, and lastly, domestic violence. The vendor that we went with in the technology that we're using also has a different form of technology called the jurismonitor. It is a device that's been used on a limited basis in other jurisdiction to help alert a victim of violence to the presence of the perpetrator of the earlier offence. In a sense, the offender wears an ankle transmitter and there are devices in the victim's home to help alert the victim. The technology is not sufficiently reliable yet but it's close, and as soon as I think it's close enough, it will be something for us to explore in concert with the police and with the Ministry of the Attorney General.
That's it for that presentation. If you'll bear with me for just a moment, I'll start the tape and show you the rest of the equipment.
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The Chair: Excuse me, Mr O'Neal. I'm sure there are a number of questions. We had allocated an hour and a half and we've only got five minutes left of that hour and a half. We have until 6 and we had allocated approximately an hour for questions. Possibly we could use the tape at the end if we have time, to make sure it doesn't cut into our question time. Each caucus therefore has a maximum of 20 minutes, and we could start with Mr Ramsay.
Mr O'Neal: If I may, one thing I've been reminded to add is the fact that our program is designed so that if an offender is released on electronic monitoring, there is no requirement that the offender remain on electronic monitoring until the end of their sentence. We've allowed for a cascade option. If an offender is performing well in the program and it's determined that there's no longer a need for the higher level of monitoring provided by the technology, we can cascade that person to a straight extended temporary absence pass where appropriate.
Mr Ramsay: I'd like to thank everybody for coming. I have a few questions and I would just address them to the group. I suppose, Elaine, you could direct them to who you feel would be the most appropriate responder.
When the announcement came last fall that you were not going to renew the contracts for the CRCs and that one of the replacements was the increased use of electronic monitoring, one of the concerns was, from my point of view, not so much that electronic monitoring was being considered or that you were going to increase that, because I too embrace modern technology and, as you know, I was there when we were starting to look at a pilot. I'm not bound by ideology and I think we should be looking at all the best answers for how we can provide the services that are required of government and to do that in the most cost-effective manner.
I think when the announcement came forward, though, it was looked upon as being a wholesale dismissal of an aspect of community corrections that by and large had been seen to be successful over the years, had developed on the provincial level in Ontario over those years, a system we were very proud of, and that some of the major groups in Ontario were sponsors and/or supporters of, the CRC system. I think the shock to a lot of people was the wholesale dismissal of this sort of supervised transition into society. The concern is that this is just a cost-cutting exercise and that we're not looking at the very best ways we can to supervise offenders, especially in that delicate transition period as they go back to society.
I anticipate probably what you're going to say, but do you really think we should just chuck that whole CRC system, or rather have a variety of solutions to this systemic problem?
Dr Todres: I just wanted to answer briefly, and then I'll ask Neil to comment. One of the things I asked the staff to do was to see whether there were empirical research studies that were examining this kind of thing, because we know the community quite well and we know all of those who have devoted decades of their lives to the houses, in fact who were pioneers in the movement. Implicit in the critique is that one form of dealing with this seems to be more superior than others, or at least that's the hypothesis that needs to be tested.
I just wanted to share with you a very interesting doctoral thesis done by a woman named Jody Klein-Saffran as she was completing her doctorate. The subject is Electronic Monitoring Versus Halfway Houses: A Study of Federal Offenders. Yes, it's federal offenders. It was done in the United States. Let's just assume there are a number of variables that are different. But when I read it, the thing that was most interesting to me was that, after she painfully explained which statistical techniques she was using, there is not a statistically significant difference in recidivism between the people she studied who were in halfway houses and those who were in electronic monitoring. It made no difference.
But what I thought was equally interesting was that there was a statistically significant difference with employability if you are on electronic monitoring. In other words, you had a better chance of sticking to a job and remaining in that job for longer periods of time had you been on an electronic monitoring instrument which permitted you to be employable, whether it's actually looking for a job or being employable.
Now, it's one study, and I would have to sit down with her and others to analyse the generalizability of that study. But I think it's important for the committee and for us to think about it. I know, Frances, you and Neil were speaking to the spectrum or alternatives that have to be offered, so I think I'll turn it over to you, Neil.
Mr Ramsay: Elaine, can I just have a clarification of that study? Is the reason that there was a greater success of employment that they actually lived in their homes, that there was a home address rather than the stigma that it's over at the halfway house?
Dr Todres: And that they were actually at home, the experience of actually being at home and not there and --
Mr Ramsay: The total support.
Dr Todres: Exactly. Which is interesting to think about.
Mr McKerrell: The issue about the appearance that we were sort of giving up on community corrections was distressing. Maybe we should have predicted it, but I was surprised and dismayed at the degree of the reaction in the sense that we were "throwing out" community. Nothing could be further from the truth in fact, given that the vast, vast majority of our people are in the community under supervision.
What we did was we looked at the residential component of our community corrections. That was what we focused on. Yes, there was the financial element; there's no question about that. We looked at the number of people we were putting into the houses and the characteristics of the people we were putting into the houses and the kinds of programming or activities in which they were participating in the houses. Then we said, based on what we're paying for it, is this the best use of the scarce resource?
What we determined was that where there are specialized needs that can best be met by community residential programming, we would keep the range of ad hoc beds where we pay for a residential bed when we need a residential bed, but if somebody can be supervised in the community who doesn't really need the accommodation piece, then so be it. That way we can divert some of the money that was being spent on those block-funded beds over to a range of other community-based alternatives.
So, yes, very much the perception was that we're kind of giving up on the community or cutting the throat of our community corrections, and that wasn't the intention. It was simply to refocus the community corrections based on the residential needs. Have beds for those who need them, but for those who don't need the beds, deal with them in another way, of which EM is only one method.
Mr Ramsay: Mr McKerrell, I think one of the concerns that a lot of people had and probably still have is that people being supervised exclusively through electronic monitoring are no longer going to have that sort of programming opportunity that was present in a CRC. I know you've said in the presentation that the idea is to access community programming that's already out there, but I know there's very good supervision when somebody's just arriving at the CRC, is seeking employment and maybe doesn't have those employment opportunities right there, and meanwhile, during the day, could access at the house a substance abuse program, life skills, all the different programs you have mentioned that some houses offer; some don't. It just seems it is not as tight or as controlled a setting now that the person goes home.
You have talked about potential future alcohol detection systems, because that is a problem with a lot of offenders we talk about here who are appropriate for EM use. The concern is still there: Can we enforce or give that supervision so that we know the offender is getting the programming, is arriving there? It was sort of under one package, and with the accommodation it was in the home, there was support there, there was somebody just to talk to. If you were there and weren't going to work yet, you had 24-hour-a-day supervision.
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It's very different from going home and now saying, "Next week, starting Tuesday, I've got to report" at such-and-such a place for life skills training. They are alone for a while there now. If there's family, maybe it's different, but I think that's the concern, that they've gone from a very highly controlled environment to a partially controlled environment with still a human interaction that helps them along the way. That's the concern, that that won't be there any more. What's going to replace that sort of human interaction and helping with that development and transition of the offender?
Mr McKerrell: There are a couple of things there. The first is that you're absolutely right that where we had CRCs in the 18 communities, the 25 houses, when people would go out to them to participate in the kinds of programs I talked about, there was certainly the supportive element from the staff of the house. But we considered that in all the other communities in Ontario where we release people from the institutions, they were still getting into the various programs without the intervention of the people in the houses.
If people are on the electronic monitoring, when they are supposed to go, say, to employment or to a counselling program or whatever, as Mike indicated, the person leaves the institution on a temporary absence program and it becomes a term or a condition of the temporary absence program if they should be participating in the remedial program. As you know, if the individual doesn't want to participate, then forcing them to participate really is quite pointless. Therefore, if the granting of the permit, the pass, was contingent on participating in a program because we felt the person really needed it even if they didn't admit to it, then frankly they wouldn't get approved for the permit.
If they are out and they're participating in the program or employment or whatever, the electronic monitoring officers are expected to pop in and see the person from time to time. That's the purpose of the drive-by thing, so that they can check and see whether they are at home. There's nothing to prevent them from popping in to the place of employment or doing a telephone check or just following up. So we don't have to just rely on the technology; we also have the dynamic factor to provide some supervision.
Mr Ramsay: I think that will be fine for now, Mr Chair.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you very much. I think this has been very useful. I must say one of the things I regret is that it all happened in a way that led to that public perception. I wish you could give me an explanation as to why on earth, when you had contracts that you had to fulfil anyway, so the money was already being used and there wasn't, as far as I've been able to determine, any person in those halfway houses who would have extended over that period of time, you couldn't have phased out rather than drive in, pick those people up, send them back to an institution and create the kind of havoc that you did. It frankly sours what is probably a very good program, and there will be people in the corrections field, particularly in the community corrections field, who as a result are likely to be much more resistant to the kind of participation they ought to have in this program. I think that's a great regret.
Can you explain to me why on earth you decided to do it that way?
Mr McKerrell: Yes. As you realize, we have annual contracts which go on the basis of the fiscal year, and we make quarterly upfront instalment payments on these block-funded houses. What we were trying to do was to end the contract by invoking the cancellation clause at the end of the third-quarter payment, which was December 31, and then be able to redirect the fourth-quarter payment to other programs.
We knew that each of the contract providers, the service providers, had obligations to meet in terms of severance payments to their staff and winding up the operation, and the only money that was going to be available to them to meet those obligations was the third-quarter payment, which they had just received. By removing the residents from the house, it gave them the opportunity to use the available funding to try to meet their obligations for discharging the staff, as opposed to having to put it into food and other kinds of things like that, extra utilities and stuff. So it was to reduce their operating costs.
We also recognized that some of the staff in the houses would want to leave to go to other jobs as soon as they knew they were going to be out of a job, and that the supervision of the offenders in the residences would require an ongoing staffing presence.
The third thing was that some of the residents might have decided they really didn't want to risk going back to the institution and taken off.
Those were the three reasons for the closure in the way in which it was done.
Mrs Boyd: The reality was that you just wanted to do it too quickly. If you'd had this in place as an alternative, people knew about it and were used to it, you could have done it gradually, in a way that didn't sour the whole introduction of the program.
I think it's a shame, whatever the kind of financial pressures you were under, that you were unable to convince the government. It would have changed the entire way in which this program would be accepted, and I suggest not just by people involved in community corrections areas but by the community itself. The community in general does not like surprises. I think you could have sold this program very effectively and gradually had you done it in a more gradual way.
It's a great shame that this happened, and it's going to take a lot of effort on everybody's part to try and convince people that this is an effective corrections alternative. Often those first impressions are the things that really spoil the kind of commitment. It would seem to me that with this kind of technology you need people committed to community corrections more than ever before. As far as community service orders, as far as people being prepared as employers to accept people with this kind of equipment and with the kind of supervision and so on is concerned, it's going to be really important to win that kind of support.
I certainly hope it's a lesson that any future changes -- and I'm sure that as the technology changes there are going to be many new applications over time that will prove to be very useful. I hope everybody takes a lesson from this, because I think it's a real shame it happened the way it happened.
Having said that, I think what we've heard today, everybody should be hearing. I hope you're going to take this show on the road. Quite frankly, it's really important for people in the community to understand what's going on here, because I agree with you. With the changes in Bill C-41, with the kinds of things we're seeing happening in New Brunswick, with the kinds of understanding we have about the vast number of people who are incarcerated who could be earning their own living, could be remaining self-sufficient and aren't because of the way we've done things in the past, it's going to be really important to win support for those methods and to win a sense of this being in the best interests of the convicted persons, not just for monetary reasons. I think the arguments are pretty persuasive.
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I'm interested that your form talks about pre-sentencing reports and predisposition reports -- you've got a box to check on that as well in your assessment -- and it really seems to me that eventually what we would benefit most by in many of those cases would be to have that assessment done on a pre-sentence kind of issue so that people never got into that criminal milieu, if you like, of a jail at all. I know the general public might see that as not sufficient punishment, but I'm sure we'll hear from the civil liberties people that this kind of monitoring is considered very extreme punishment.
Have you any comments on that? I know that crown attorneys and judges have often said we need the upfront rather than the back-end way of dealing with this kind of innovative sentence.
Ms McKeague: You'll get no argument from us on that either. We are very supportive from our perspective, the policy perspective anyway, of having that kind of risk/needs assessment done at the pre-sentence level, and in lots of ways it does mirror the kinds of questions we're asking in a pre-sentence report and a predisposition report, for young offenders anyway.
We're looking into using the LSI-OR, but we have to be very careful from a legal perspective as well. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to get into the legal arguments here, but there is some indication that there may be an argument against the charter of using that kind of assessment at the pre-sentence level. I don't know the exact ins and outs of it, but one of the things that --
Mrs Boyd: There certainly would be at a pre-conviction level. At a pre-conviction level you'd have some difficulty, it seems to me --
Ms McKeague: Exactly, yes.
Mrs Boyd: -- but at a pre-sentence level, once convicted, with the pause before sentencing --
Ms McKeague: Yes. But then some of the offenders aren't convicted if there's been a -- there could be just a finding of guilt. So again, we have to be careful at that level as well.
The other thing is our assessors who are doing the LSI-OR can come and give evidence about the indicators they have considered in assessing an offender for risk and needs, but where we have to be careful is our people cannot go and give evidence on the empirical basis for that assessment. I don't know if we want to bring back our researchers every time there's something called into question. But having said all that, it is vital that what we're doing at the pre-sentence level includes an assessment of risk and needs as well, because that's going to give the judge an indication of the areas where we're prepared as a correctional service to intervene with that, again back to the risk management approach.
Mrs Boyd: Yes, because one of the concerns that I heard expressed by many judges was the issue of when they make a finding and make an order for, for example, the temporary absence program, they have no assurance that that's going to happen. Once someone is handed over to corrections, you folks all make that decision, and one of the real issues for judges has always been what that really means to them in terms of sentencing, because the sentence they pass may not be the sentence the person gets, and how appropriate is that? I think that's a lot of the sense of dismay that professionals and the public feel about how this system works. To try and rebuild public confidence in the whole thing, it seems to me that's an issue that needs to be dealt with when it comes to this.
If a judge makes a comment in passing a sentence that this would be the ideal solution, he or she has no way of ensuring that happens at the present time in our system. I think you will find a lot more enthusiastic participation on the part of crowns, defence attorneys and judges in this whole process, which it seems to me, quite frankly, you need very badly unless we're going to end up like the States, just simply piling people in tiers. It's going to be really important for us to find some mechanism.
I was really encouraged by what the deputy said about this notion of integrating the whole system, because it seems to me very much the problem we have, that the pieces are operating independently and one of the reasons people aren't seeing justice being done is they don't see that continuum of justice either.
Ms McKeague: Right.
Mrs Boyd: It's a bit of a problem.
I did have one other question about the possible future applications, because one of the most dangerous times often for people is at the bail situation. We all know that the Attorney General's ministry is looking at a much more specialized way of looking at bail, to be much more sensitive to the kind of risk factors you're trying to take account of here. Have you any sense of whether they have dealt with the possible legal ramifications of using this kind of mechanism while somebody's on bail?
Mr McKerrell: The preliminary discussions we've had with AG are around the possibility of using the technology while people are on bail and also particularly around the notion of replacing the current use of intermittent sentences, which, as you know, is not a particularly practical sentence from any point of view because the offender's out in the community five days a week and then in the institution two days a week. You have to have beds sitting around to accommodate them and many of them come in, let's say, prepared for the weekend; they either have their drug supplies or they're drunk or whatever it is. It's not a very practical solution.
One of the things we're exploring with the AG, and of course it would need the cooperation of the judiciary, is that when a judge is presented with an argument by defence counsel that this client would be a good candidate for an intermittent sentence, the judge, she or he, could simply give a straight sentence with a recommendation to corrections to use them on the electronic monitoring program.
At the front end of the system, the judges could use electronic monitoring for probation potentially. They could say, "We want someone to go on probation now." We have not branched into that at this point in time. Obviously we want to start out on a small scale. But there are a number of potential applications and we have just begun talking to the AG about that. I think they wanted to see how it worked and learn a little bit more about it before they were prepared to make any commitments.
Mrs Boyd: The issue around use of alcohol: If you're successful with your alcohol monitoring, it may help them in getting some ignition interlock for some of the other situations. It seems to me that's what's needed: Does the technology work, and if it works, how does it work and how can we make it work in the whole realm of places? Particularly, for example, with driving while impaired you've got the really serious problem of potentially injuries and yet if you're able to survive charter challenges on your breathalyser routine, it may make it a little easier for that.
Mr McKerrell: Yes.
The Chair: We have 20 minutes. Mr Tilson and Mr Guzzo are on my list, plus anyone else.
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Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): A couple of questions stemming from some of the questions Mrs Boyd was asking: There's a suggestion of this being Orwellian and I suppose the answer to that is that it's voluntary. I suppose the difficulty is that could lead to something that isn't voluntary, whether it's in pre-probation or bail or whatever. That remains for debate, I suppose.
I'd like to ask a question as to the public perception of these devices. The public perception is that when people are incarcerated, they are paying a price. The whole topic of the fact is that you simply can't go home; in other words, it's a form of deterrence. Whether you're in a halfway house or in a jail, you can't go home. That, it has been believed, is a form of deterrence. I wonder whether in your investigations you discussed that topic; in other words, the perception to the public.
Mr McKerrell: Yes. One of the things we did talk about was, is it going to give the perception that we're getting soft on people? Because of the element of supervision that Mr Ramsay was pointing out that is present in the residences, if we simply put people in their own homes, is that going to give the public cause for concern? What we did was point out that the electronic devices are intrusive. It's not a minor slap on the wrist to be unable to move out of your house on a daily basis except for a specific purpose for however long the sentence is. It is limiting in movement. As Michael said, it doesn't prevent somebody from running away, but then neither did residence in a CRC. People left them all the time, fortunately not too often, but people still leave our institutions from time to time.
Yes, they can leave the house, but not without setting off an alarm. There is a restrictive element there. Although some members of the public may feel it's not sufficiently punishing to individuals to be in their homes, we believe individuals who are placed on that program benefit better in terms of their rehabilitative process by being in the community as opposed to being in an institution. They are confined in their movements and they're not able to go anywhere and do anything they like, so there is that element of intrusiveness.
Mr Tilson: Which leads to another question. There has been and will be criticism of this with respect to the fact that the community resources centres had counselling, therapy and other such things. I gather that the mandate of this philosophy is that you don't necessarily need bricks and mortar to provide these types of things. I think one of the presenters talked about relying on volunteer groups, whether it's John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, whoever. My question is the assurance that these types of things -- therapy, alcohol counselling etc -- will still be provided.
Mr McKerrell: Yes. These kinds of programs --
Mrs Boyd: Not with your cuts.
Mr Tilson: Marion, you ask your questions and I'll ask my questions. You just sit over there and wait.
Mr McKerrell: Those kinds of counselling programs are available in the community. They were available when we had people in CRCs and they were available to people on probation, on parole or on the other form of temporary absence, the extended temporary absence program, whereby people are living in their own homes but without the devices.
The fact was that the residents in the CRCs were getting the majority of that type of program outside the house anyway as opposed to its being provided on a specialized basis inside. That's not to say they didn't have group discussions and those kinds of things -- they did very much so and there was that supportive environment -- but the more specialized treatment counselling programs etc were provided out in the community. The individual went out there and then came back to the house at night.
Mr Tilson: How much time --
The Chair: We have Mr Guzzo and Mr Ouellette behind you.
Mr Tilson: I'll yield.
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): Thank you, staff, for the presentation. My first question is to Mr O'Neal. When you look at what you've displayed today, one can think of some extensive applications of this system. I'd like to be reassured by you today that our whip's office hasn't been in contact with you.
Mr O'Neal: About the third generation that administers the shock as well? No.
Mr Guzzo: But I'd like an undertaking also, sir, that if he is, you'd give us a little advance warning.
To Dr Todres, if I might, with regard to the doctoral thesis that you referred to, could you just give me the name again?
Dr Todres: Absolutely. It's Jody Klein-Saffran.
Mr Guzzo: What university was that?
Dr Todres: I'll tell you in a moment. It's on the east coast.
Mr O'Neal: The University of Maryland.
Dr Todres: That's it, 1992.
Mr Guzzo: That was based on the national --
Dr Todres: On federal folk.
Mr O'Neal: In the United States.
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa): A couple of questions: First off, currently, how often are the checks taking place with the people in the program? How often are they checked now?
Mr O'Neal: Are they being checked, in terms of a person going in the residence?
Mr Ouellette: Location or the phones and things like that.
Mr O'Neal: Something that Mr McKerrell alluded to, and something that I probably should have emphasized more in my presentation, was the fact that we're not strictly relying on the technology; we're also relying on telephone calls with some frequency.
Mr Ouellette: That would be included in the checks.
Mr O'Neal: That's right, two forms of it.
Mr Ouellette: How often?
Mr O'Neal: It varies from client to client.
Mr Ouellette: On average then. Are we saying once a day, twice a day, once a week?
Mr O'Neal: It's at least once a week, and we are doing phone calls to the residence and we're doing phone calls to significant others; for example, the employer. We're doing unannounced visits, actual physical visits to the residence.
Mr Ouellette: Being that there's no cure been found for paedophilia, where would a paedophile fall into this?
Dr Todres: Not at all.
Mr O'Neal: Wouldn't qualify.
Mr Ouellette: Even when individuals are released into the community, though, being that there is no cure, is there not something that is utilized or anticipated to be utilized in the future?
Mr O'Neal: I'm sorry, I can't speak for other approaches to that particular offender group, but it does not fall within the electronic monitoring program as it stands and I know of no plans to apply electronic monitoring to that client group at the present time.
Mr Ouellette: You also mention that there was special training for the staff and the officers. What sort of special training? What's involved in the training?
Mr O'Neal: They had 10 full days of training. We brought experts on the technology from Boulder, Colorado. The equipment we acquired was provided by a consortium of three companies. BI from Boulder is the manufacturer of the equipment, another company in British Columbia has the distribution rights within Canada and another company, Logicsys in Ontario, provides the service and maintenance.
We had their expert trainers come down to give electronic monitoring officers and data entry clerks a very thorough review of how the technology is used. It spanned a weekend. We sent some of the electronic monitoring officers home wearing the technology to generate the alarms and alerts they would then have to deal with the following Monday. It was very much hands-on training and very thorough.
We also employed the experts at our Bell Cairn Staff Training and Development Centre in quite a variety of soft training skills: interviewing techniques, case management techniques, how to make effective referrals to agencies etc. The participants were provided with that kind of training as well to equip them to be able to deal with the challenges facing them in a new program with a new client application.
The feedback we received in the evaluations of the training program from participants was extremely favourable; people felt very prepared and very enthused about starting the new program. What we've experienced so far would suggest that the training was done very well. People have been doing very well; we had no violations at all of a serious nature during the first five weeks of the program.
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Mr Leadston: I have a couple of practical questions. You had 17 locations, correct?
Mr O'Neal: That's correct.
Mr Leadston: And 16 are in the program now.
Mr O'Neal: That's correct.
Mr Leadston: Can we be provided with the locations, as a matter of interest?
Mr O'Neal: Where the 16 are right now?
Mr Leadston: And in terms of those locations, are the local policing authorities aware there's an individual in their municipality on the program, or is it only the probation officer who would be aware?
Mr O'Neal: I believe it's standard practice, before anyone is released on a temporary absence pass, that the local police are made aware of that fact.
Mr Leadston: I notice the hand-held unit was manufactured in Canada.
Mr O'Neal: No. In fact, all the units that were distributed were manufactured in the United States.
Mr Leadston: One had "Made in Canada" on it.
Mr O'Neal: It may have had a seal noting that it is approved for use in Canada. If you like, I have the distribution of the 16 offenders.
Mr Leadston: Maybe you could provide that later to all of us.
Mr O'Neal: Certainly.
Mr Leadston: The unit the member just held up is the drive-by unit.
Mr O'Neal: That's correct.
Mr Leadston: You indicated that if there are two individuals in a location, it would register and monitor them separately.
Mr O'Neal: That's right.
Mr Leadston: Is the individual who has the hand-held unit aware at that point that there are two individuals in a location or in a work environment who are obviously in very close contact and shouldn't be? Is he aware of that, or does it go to the computer?
Mr O'Neal: The electronic monitoring officer is responsible for managing the cases. Consequently, for any offenders out there within their area, they would be responsible for knowing when they're to be in their home and when they're to be at their place of work or school etc.
I used that as an example; it's probably quite unlikely. But if it happened, if an electronic monitoring officer had more than one client who was to be at a particular place of employment at a given time, he or she would be well aware of that. In fact, the reading of that device I distributed would merely confirm that what was supposed to occur was taking place. However, if for some reason a person wearing one of those devices happened to be at the place of employment at the time the electronic monitoring officer was checking on the other individual, the unit would also show the fact that the other ankle transmitter occurred. Perhaps it's even more unlikely for that to happen, but if it did it could be used to help counsel individual A and individual B about not associating, could be used for supervision purposes.
Mr Leadston: The officer knows at that point, gets a reading right then and there in a code he or she is familiar with. It's not as if he has to wait and get a computer printout a week from Tuesday from North Bay.
Mr O'Neal: No. As I mentioned earlier, the electronic monitoring officer also has a cellular phone and could access information on the electronic monitoring software over the phone. I mentioned as well that we had acquired some notebook computers that will allow for remote access. Very shortly, the officers will be able to dial in remotely to the host computer and get full access to all the information on that individual residing on the database without having to be at their place of work or at the institution proper.
Mr Leadston: Have you had any glitches in the program since it's been implemented?
Mr O'Neal: None whatsoever, I'm pleased to report.
Mr Leadston: In terms of violations, the reaction by the monitoring staff, alerting the local authorities, things of that nature?
Mr O'Neal: None whatsoever. We've had no complaints from the local authorities. We've had no instances where we've had a serious violation. We have not had to supervise to the point of bringing a person back into the institution. We've had an instance or two where the person was late returning to their home. We've had a few technical glitches that I would say were addressed by fine-tuning as people were getting comfortable with the technology, but those were all of a minor nature and nothing indicative that the equipment is flawed or that the clients we selected were inappropriate.
Mr Leadston: For the individual who's wearing an ankle bracelet, at the workplace they're aware of the status of that individual?
Mr O'Neal: Yes, they would have to be made aware of it, and I think that's the case with other employment temporary absence passes, that the employer is made aware of that fact.
Mr Leadston: The employer may be made aware, but the employees may not be.
Mr O'Neal: That's correct.
Mr Leadston: In terms of cosmetics, if it's a female, where would you place it? On the ankle?
Mr O'Neal: It's still placed on the ankle, and the reason is that other types of devices affixed to a wrist were not as secure. It's much more difficult to slip a transmitter off one's leg over one's foot than it is for some individuals who are small-boned to slip a device over their hand. Also, the particular technology we use has some proprietary technology that would generate an alarm if the device were removed from the person. Even if an individual were able to slip it over their foot, which I would argue is extremely unlikely unless the person was akin to Houdini -- that's not going to happen, and the device would register an alarm, at any rate.
Mr Leadston: If the band is cut --
Mr O'Neal: It generates an alarm.
Mr Leadston: It will, so the band is connected to the same circuitry as the unit.
Mr O'Neal: Yes.
Mr Tilson: There had been a pilot project in Ontario, I believe from 1989 to 1991. Can you tell us briefly what the success or failure of that pilot project was?
Mr McKerrell: At that time we were testing out the technology; it was earlier, obviously, in the evolution of the device. We operated it in only one institution, the Mimico Correctional Centre here in Toronto, and we found that the technology worked just fine. It was on the basis of our own experience plus the other jurisdictions in Canada's collective experience that we decided we should move in this direction.
Mr Ramsay: Mr O'Neal, what's the cost of these units and what's the cost of operating them?
Mr O'Neal: Perhaps the best way to do it, rather than talk about the cost of the specific units, is to talk on a broader level about the cost of the entire program in a given year, assuming a certain number of clients on the program. We had $3.2 million budgeted for the program; that's assuming all the equipment necessary to have 400 clients on the program on a constant basis. If we had a running balance of 400 clients, we'd be looking at $3.2 million for the fully burdened costs: the technology, the staffing etc. That works out to approximately $22 per day per client in fully burdened costs.
Mr Ramsay: To Mr McKerrell, on the programming, is correctional services working with the other ministries of government? One of the concerns brought up earlier is that as government is cutting down on all programming dollars, since you have cut completely this type of programming and are going to rely more on community programming, a lot of that programming is funded by the provincial government, and as we've seen, there are a lot of cuts across the board in other ministries that would provide some of that programming, whether it be the Ministry of Community and Social Services, possibly the Ministry of Health, possibly other government sources. Are you coordinating with other government ministries and agencies as to the availability of programming dollars so they'll be there in the community for your clientele?
Mr McKerrell: It's a matter of ongoing contact with both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Community and Social Services for access to correctional clients and these various kinds of programs going on in the community. These issues of access to community-based programming apply whether we're talking about the electronic monitoring or whether it's someone on probation or parole or any of the correctional clients released into the community. These are ongoing negotiations, discussions, points of contact between staff in correctional services and also in the service units of Comsoc and in health.
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The staff maintain good levels of contact out across the regions, for want of a better word, in terms of the range of services available, where people can be referred. You're familiar with the blue book process. There's ongoing contact between our front-line staff in correctional services and corresponding front-line staff in health and community and social services and also with the social service agencies so we can get people connected in. As Mike indicated, part of the training for the electronic monitoring officers -- and they were all people who had been engaged in different jobs in correctional services already -- was to train them in how to access these kinds of programs in the communities.
Mr Ramsay: Of course the concern is that all these well-intentioned people who are points of contact with people from your ministry are under the very same pressures you have been under and will continue to be under, ie, the financial constraints. This is the concern, that even though there seems to be some coordination, their budgets are also shrinking and therefore community programming is going to be shrinking. That's the concern, that we're getting to the point where we're going to lose critical mass in the community and not be able to supply the programming required for all the various clientele out there.
Mr McKerrell: I'm sure correctional clients won't be given priority over anyone else, and they'll be taking their place in the group of individuals looking for the services in the community.
Dr Todres: One added feature is that we now have a deputy ministers' gang that's dealing with justice matters. We meet on a very regular basis; we actually meet quite frequently. Larry Taman, the deputy AG, and I have spent a fair amount of time with our colleagues talking about the vision for the justice system and making the kinds of points you're making, that the issues we face are not restricted to the Attorney General and the Solicitor. We have a lot of partnerships, and we recognize that they too are looking at streamlining but that we have to, as best we can, ensure that needs are met across all the ministries.
Mrs Boyd: I am curious about the rigidity of the schedule that's set up. When you talk about data entry, I assume part of the data entry is the detailed schedule a person would have.
Mr O'Neal: That's correct.
Mrs Boyd: If, for example, someone missed their bus, is there a way for them to report they missed their bus? Is this interactive with the client?
Mr O'Neal: Yes, it is interactive. The client would be aware of the number to call if there were a problem, in fact would be encouraged to report whenever that kind of situation surfaced. The electronic monitoring officers are available; there is someone at the number the client would call on a 24-hour-a-day basis.
Mrs Boyd: One of the concerns would be that you wouldn't want to set this up for failure, and we all know that however well-thought-out a schedule is, it's going to go wrong once in a while, so part of it is to encourage people to take responsibility for reporting in. I assume part of the sanction if someone weren't where they were supposed to be would be around, "Could you have reported it or not?" and that sort of thing, so it really is an encouragement around that.
Mr O'Neal: We have graduated enforcement built into the program model. It's not a simple case of, "You were five minutes late; therefore you're coming back to the institution." The situation would be assessed against the client's general performance on the program, whether it was the first instance of its kind etc, and would be responded to appropriately.
Mrs Boyd: If the person is at their home, is this a strong enough signal that they could be doing garden work and that sort of thing?
Mr O'Neal: There are certain limitations. I'd prefer not to state what they are, for program integrity purposes. The device was not intended to accommodate a person working the fields or being out of the home proper; it was intended to keep the person in the home.
Mrs Boyd: It's an inside device.
Mr O'Neal: Yes. There may be some exceptions, but again I'd prefer not to describe those in detail.
The Chair: If we're to hear the tape, which is 10 minutes, perhaps Mr O'Neal could assist us in setting up the tape now. Is it in the machine? You're ready to go?
Mr O'Neal: Ready to go, with any luck. I should mention that this video was prepared by the OPP video group, and it's an electronic monitoring officer administering the unit on the leg of a colleague. Any scars on the leg have nothing to do with that unit being affixed. Video presentation.
The Chair: Dr Todres and staff, we thank you very much for your excellent presentation. We are adjourned until Monday, April 22 at 3:30.
The committee adjourned at 1801.