An open letter to MP Bob Zimmer, MP Todd Doherty, Shadow Justice Critic Lisa Raitt, Justice Minister David Lametti and the Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
Dear elected representatives:
Thank you for the work you do on our behalf. I know that your job is not an easy one.
One of your roles is to ensure public safety and my letter is in regards to an issue that is of great concern to many: our current laws around those that commit serious violent crime, but are found "not criminally responsible due to mental disorder" or NCRMD.
Please allow me to quote from a news article about the judgment on the violent attack that occurred in a Fox Creek, Alta. work camp in 2015, where my cousin David Derksen was murdered.
Curtis Galbraith in Everything GP, Nov. 8, 2018, writes: "In a one hour and 15-minute reading of his decision, Justice Ken Nielsen found that while (Daniel) Goodridge did cause the deaths of David Derksen and Hally Dubois, plus committed the assaults on three others, he is not criminally responsible, as set out in the law in the Criminal Code of Canada."
If you know anything about this incident, you will know it was not instigated by the victims, that it was a horrifying, surreal event, the kind we may see in a horror movie or in our worst nightmares. If you have not been aware of this case, I would encourage you to look into it.
So where is the offender today?
Quoting from a July 15, 2019, article by Janice Johnstone on CBC online: since then (his trial), he's been held at Alberta Hospital Edmonton. After a hearing last month, the Alberta Review Board said Goodridge, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia and cannabis-use disorder, continues to pose a risk to public safety.
"It is the opinion of the board that while he is currently being treated and is exhibiting no active symptoms, the risk of relapse is very high, and that should he relapse, he is likely to commit a violent act against a member of the public," the board said in its written decision. "Mr. Goodridge is a significant risk to the safety of the public."
He will continue to be held at Alberta Hospital on full warrant but has been allowed to make supervised visits into Edmonton and has unsupervised grounds privileges at the hospital.
His behaviour on all supervised passes was described by a psychiatrist as "excellent." At the discretion of his treatment team, Goodridge may given more freedom in future.
The public is left to assume that at some point, at the discretion of his treatment team, this man will go free, as his behavior at Alberta Hospital is exemplary. He is getting his medication and he is testing negative for cannabis.
But what will he encounter when he is eventually released? Very likely cannabis.
Who will be monitoring him to ensure he is taking his medication? Perhaps no one.
This uncertainty should not be and points to an error in our current laws around the sentencing of NCRMD offenders.
However, one person or incident alone is not a reason to change a law. As evidence of a wider problem, I provide statistics I heard at a guns and gangs conference in February , which I attended with law enforcement and interested educators. Todd Negola from Penn State University, talking about our most common offenders, cited these statistics about psychopaths (or anti-social personality disordered):
They make up 0.5 to one per cent of the population.
They make up 15-25 per cent of the prison population.
35 per cent of rapists are psychopaths.
44-51 per cent of cop killers are psychopaths.
90 per cent of serial killers are psychopaths.
Four per cent (other sources say up to 21 per cent) of corporate executives are psychopaths.
Half of pimps and hostage takers are psychopaths.
Psychopaths have 90 per cent recidivism rates to reoffend
Psychopath make up 85-90 per cent of violent recidivism.
If these numbers are correct for Canada as well, it would make sense for us to improve how we treat and restrain these members of our population. We need to clarify our NCRMD law to make it safe for the public, as well as the offender.
It seems unconscionable to me that we would release, unsupervised, an individual who is so very likely to reoffend, when keeping them either in a facility, or at the very least, under probation, would keep them and the public safe.
I am a mother of adult children. If one of my children committed a violent crime, I would rather visit them in a facility where they were safe, or deal with the hassle of their probation requirements, than see one more innocent individual attacked by them.
The judge told my aunt and uncle and their family that the only way the law could protect the public from those suffering from mental disorders that commit this kind of violent attack, is for a change in the law.
That is why I am writing you.
I am asking for changes to the law around the release and probation of violent offenders who use the Not Criminally Responsible due to Mental Disorder (NCRMD) provision. I am asking that if these NCRMD offenders are released into the public, that they be required to be on lifelong parole.
Thank you for your time.
