Dangerous and Long-Term Offenders

• Author: Hy Bloom, Richard D Schneider
• Pages: 325-347

325

chapter eleven

Dangerous and Long-Term Offenders

A. INTRODUCTION

In Canada, and most other part s of the world, signif‌icant concerns in rela-

tion to high-risk violent offenders have been well docu mented i n the media

and have been the focus of high-prof‌ile inquest s resulting in legislative

amendments. Governments have employed a number of different methods

in acting to protect societ y against the risk of violence posed by such offend-

ers. Canada has had legislation focused on t he high-risk offender since 1947,

which was rewritten i n 1997, and then again in 2008. Part XX IV of the

Criminal Co de1 provides for the category of long-term offender in addition

to the classif‌ication of dangerous offender. Now, for the f‌irst time, a mech-

anism allows for supervision in t he commun it y for a li mited period of time

after a determin ate sentence.

The number of offenders designated as dangerous offenders has in -

creased steadily since the 1970s as illustrated below in Fig ure 11.1.2

◆There has been a notable increase in the number of offenders desig-

nated as dangerous offenders (DOs) in the last th irty to forty yea rs.

Whereas in September 2000, there were 276 active DOs, the number

increased to 573 by the end of 2014, 91.3 percent of whom had indeter-

minate sentences.

◆The majority of DOs were designated in Onta rio and British Columbia.

◆There are currently four women wit h a DO designation.

1 RSC 1985, c C-46.

2 Public Safety Canada, Cor rections and Conditi onal Release: Stati stical Overv iew 2014 (Ot-

tawa: Public Safet y Canada, 2015) at 107.

326 MENTAL DISORDER AND THE LAW

◆Aboriginal offenders account for 29.7 percent of DOs and 21 percent

of the total inmat e population, which represent 12 percent and 4 per-

cent increases, respectively, since 2000.

Figure 11.1: Number of Dangerous Offenders Designations

At the time of writin g, there remain within feder al jurisdiction, in addit ion

to the DOs, twenty-two d angerous sexual offenders and four habitu al of-

fenders designated as such pursuant to predecessor habitual a nd dangerous

sexual offender provisions introduced into the Cr iminal Cod e in 1947 and

1948, respectively.3

According to Langevin and Cur noe,4 relatively little is known about what

clinical features distinguish DOs from the sex offenders (who are well-rep-

resented in the DO cohort) who are not found to be DOs, and from offend-

ers in general. They suggest t hat the paucity of clinical writin gs on DOs has

something to do with thei r relatively small numbers, compared to non-DO

offenders. Necessarily drawing on t he larger pool of sexual and v iolent of-

fenders, the authors hypothesized that, compared to general offenders (and

a group of offenders resembling DOs in offence nature and severity, but not

found to be DOs), DOs would have more severe early life deprivation and

3 Ibid.

4 Ron Langevin & Suza nne Curnoe, “Are Dangerous Offender s Different from Other Of-

fenders? A Clinica l Prof‌ile” (2014) 58(7) Internat ional Journal of Of fender Therapy an d

Comparative Criminology 780.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

1988

1987

1986

1985

1984

1983

1982

1981

1980

1979

1978