Christy Clark seeks tougher rules for high-risk offenders

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Premier Christy Clark says electronic monitoring of former high-risk offenders should be a "second line of defence" to keeping them off the streets until they are ready for release.

But Ms. Clark said Friday she's awaiting a closer look at the issue as part of a review of crime issues underway by MLA Darryl Plecas, a former criminologist.

She made her comments in response to the murder of Surrey's Serena Vermeersch, 17, last week. High-risk offender Raymond Lee Caissie, 43, has been charged with second-degree murder in her death.

"Whether or not (released offenders) are monitored seems the second line of defence," Ms. Clark told reporters following her keynote speech to the annual convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities.

"The first line of defence is to keep them out of communities. That's where we should be putting our primary focus. Whether we think of electronic monitoring after that? That's something we are currently discussing."

She added that provincial Justice Minister Suzanne Anton raised the issue in a call this week to federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay about the issue of managing the release of such offenders.

Ms. Clark said the B.C message to Ottawa has been clear.

"What we have told them is the outcome we want, which is a tougher system and a tougher set of rules for high-risk offenders who are a real danger to their communities. That has to be fixed."

Mr. Plecas, the Abbotsford-South MLA and a former director of the Centre for Public Safety and Criminal Research at the University of the Fraser Valley, was appointed a year ago as chair of a panel of former RCMP leaders and others to look at ways to drive down B.C's crime rate. Mr. Plecas is parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice for crime reduction.

Ms. Clark's comments come after the provincial justice ministry this week released figures to The Globe and Mail that show that the use of electronic monitoring has declined sharply in recent years.

In British Columbia, 172 people were tracked in 2009-2010, but only 73 were tracked in this manner in 2013-2014.

The justice ministry declined to make Ms. Anton available on Friday to discuss the trend.

However, they issued a statement suggesting the decline may be due to changes to the Criminal Code relating to Conditional Sentence Orders, judicial sentencing practices and the decline in the number of people who have been sentenced to a period of community supervision.

"That said, there have been no changes to the program's availability over this time period and BC Corrections has not conducted studies specific to the causes of declining numbers of Electronic Monitoring cases," said the statement.

In a scrum with reporters earlier this week, Ms. Anton said she supports a more extensive use of electronic monitoring. "It's something that possibly could be used more."