Today the Senate Committee looking into Bill C-10 heard from two very different panels.The first represented Corrections Service Canada (CSC) and the Parole Board of Canada. The second had representatives from the John Howard Society of Canada and the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.
Both of these latter organizations work towards reforming the justice system and helping offenders—many of whom are themselves victims. Given such mandates, it was no surprise when Kim Pate, Executive Director of Elizabeth Fry, and Catherine Latimer, Executive Eirector of John Howard, both came out against the bill.
This opposition met with incomprehension from Senator Lang, who demanded to know how the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies could not support this bill given that it included mandatory minimum sentences (MMS) for a variety of sexual crimes. He went so far as to accuse Ms. Pate of not sharing all of the information on the bill with her member societies.
Ms. Pate had a very interesting and nuanced response: according to her, when it comes to sex offences, MMS can actually dissuade a victim from coming forward. Victims of these crimes are already under immense pressure; often their abusers are in positions of authority, or are the breadwinners in their household. Lengthier prison terms means that an accused who may have pled guilty will instead choose to go to trial, putting more pressure on the victim to recant. Ms. Pate brought up cases of women of colour in the United States advising one another not to report domestic abuse because of the disastrous effects MMS can have on their communities.
Furthermore, testimony from Jan Looman, Psychologist and Program Director of the high intensity sex offender treatment program at CSC, showed that recidivism among sex offenders is very low. According to his data, “90-95% of sex offences are first time offences, and the vast majority don’t reoffend.”
Effectively C-10 will mean that more victims will be less likely to come forward, and sex offenders who are already at a very low risk of reoffending will be locked up for longer.
But, you may ask, shouldn’t they be locked up? That’s where they will receive their treatment, right? Not necessarily.
Pointed questions from Senators Runciman, Fraser and Cowan to the CSC made it clear that treatment for sex offenders and others requiring psychiatric intervention was imperiled by lack of funding and the CSC’s difficulty in retaining professionals within their ranks.
Senator Runciman argued that in cases where correctional officers were replaced with healthcare professionals, such as in St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre in Brockville, Ontario there are excellent results in terms of decreased recidivism and improved prison life in general. However, as Senator Fraser pointed out, in Howard Sapers’ preliminary evaluation of CSC’s new “Integrated Correctional Programming Model,” many programs for specific groups, including Aboriginal offenders, had been removed, resulting in the programs offered being decreased by up to a factor of 3. This “one size fits all” approach at CSC is commensurate with Bill C10’s approach to justice. However, with so many mentally ill people in prison, it is clear that cookie cutter approaches, to both sentencing and programming, will not work.
As witness after witness points to the high effectiveness of prevention measures, community justice initiatives, andalternative sentencing, one has to wonder why anyone would think that solving Canada’s crime problems should involve putting more people in prison.
Though, perhaps we actually have an answer looking for a question; C-10’s myopic approach to criminal justice is sure to create more recidivists through lack of programming and over-incarceration. So Stephen Harper will soon get a chance to be tough on crime—the crime that his own legislation will have created.
