2005 C.I.P.A. Winners

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Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services

Criminal Justice Video Network

Justice Technology Services is the IT division for the Ontario government's Justice Cluster ministries: the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, the Ministry of the Attorney General, the Democratic Renewal Secretariat and the Ontario Native Affairs Secretariat. Operating out of offices in Toronto and North Bay, with approximately 300 staff, the division works with its Justice Cluster partners to support IT infrastructure and create innovative solutions such as police and ambulance dispatch, offender information and tracking system, a sex offender registry and emergency planning and response.

In November 1999, Justice Technology Services commissioned CGI Group to complete a feasibility study on deploying videoconferencing technology. The study recommended the implementation of a province-wide videoconferencing network for remand and consent-bail hearings to create efficiencies in the delivery of justice and improve public safety. Implementation and installation of the videoconferencing network began in September 2000.

Challenge

Transporting accused persons between correctional facilities and courtrooms for in-person remand and bail hearings takes considerable time and police resources. There are increased risks to the public, courts and corrections personnel from potential escapes and assaults.

In remote parts of Northern Ontario with limited highway access, the average cost of transporting an accused person by plane to a court hearing, accompanied by one or two police officers, is about $1,500. In many cases, small communities must send their entire police force to accompany an arrestee. By using videoconferencing, arrestees no longer have to wait days in custody before a flight to court and, for the first time, individuals are receiving access to justice within the proscribed 24 hours.

Transportation to and from the courthouse can be difficult on prisoners, too. Typically, a remand appearance before a judicial official takes only a few minutes to complete, but when the accused has to be transported to court to appear, it can take an entire day. The accused is awakened early, misses hot meals and programs, is strip-searched twice and spends a majority of the day in a court holding cell, which is often overcrowded.

The challenge for Justice Technology Services was to implement a more effective, efficient and secure system of conducting remands and bails for all justice stakeholders across the province.

Objectives

The objective of the Criminal Justice Video Network is to work with the Government of Ontario's justice partners to implement videoconferencing as a more efficient way of completing remand appearances by in-custody accused. Eventually, Justice Technology Services wants its network to reduce by 50 per cent the number of appearances before courts, with their associated transportations.

The solution is also aimed at improving the safety and security of the public, courts and corrections staff, the judiciary and the police. Videotechnology is intended to relieve the pressure on overcrowded court holding cells, minimize the opportunity for escape and assaults during transfers and reduce the ability to import contraband into correctional facilities.

Solution

The Criminal Justice Video Network has been successful in bringing all of the justice partners together to create a province-wide network that uses videoconferencing technology to link correctional institutions and policing facilities with Ontario criminal courts.

To date, the project has installed 57 videoconferencing units in criminal courts, 52 units in correctional facilities and 23 units in policing facilities. About one in three transportations are being eliminated by the use of video technology.

The remand appearance via video usually takes two to three minutes to complete. At the scheduled court dial-in time, the accused is escorted to the video suite in the correctional facility. In the courtroom, the presiding judicial official addresses the accused, the Crown and defence counsel in the usual manner. The accused can be viewed from one of several TV monitors in the courtroom. If a lawyer wishes to speak privately with the accused, he/she enters a "privacy booth" located in the corner in the courtroom. The judicial official sets the next date to appear and the accused exits the video suite.

In the words of Doug Dalgleish, superintendent of the Maplehurst Correctional Complex in the Town of Milton: "We know the value of the Criminal Justice Video Network because on average we send between 150 and 200 inmates to court each day. Each one of those movements represents an amount of work preparing the inmate for court and processing him or her back into the institution upon return.

"Video remand avoids that level of processing, resulting in significant savings in Admitting and Discharge staff time and police time related to transportation. Most importantly, it mitigates contraband being introduced into the institution by inmates returning from court. This makes it safer for staff, police and inmates, and in the end contributes to our most important mandate - community safety."

In the North, justices of the peace no longer travel to corrections facilities and police stations across the region. Instead, they now sit in the designated court and the police dial in to court for remands.

The system has created benefits beyond making routine procedures more efficient.

Videoconferencing technology has proved to be an important tool in the expansion of the WASH (weekend and statutory holiday) courts system. Judicial officials now sit in a designated court (or courts) for the region and the policing facilities use videoconferencing as a way to present their arrestees and avoid travel to the sitting court, which may be located some distance away.

Lawyers are now able to book teleconferences with in-custody clients. Calls can be booked and made from anywhere in North America, seven days a week. Dedicated phones have been installed in participating correctional facilities throughout Ontario. The service is open to all lawyers, with the cost of calls for clients with Legal Aid certificates paid by Legal Aid Ontario. The initiative is expected to improve accessibility and reduce delays to the justice system due to lack of lawyer-client communication.

Criminal courts use videoconferencing to take remote witness testimony. Legal Aid Ontario uses video equipment in the correctional facilities to interview accused persons requesting certificates. Correctional Services uses video for inmate medical assessments.

Innovative Use of Technology

The Criminal Justice Video Network project has been successful in developing video partnerships with the larger justice community as well as municipal police services and other Ontario ministries. The participation of all partners in the justice system, not just an individual stakeholder, is unique.

The project overcame technology obstacles at some locations. Videoconferencing normally requires high-speed telecom service, but at several sites this service was either unavailable or too costly to implement. Justice Technology Services found the solution by installing equipment to split large-bandwidth telecom service, allocating the required channels to the video network.

In remote fly-in sites, where high-speed capability was not available, locations were connected by videophones using the existing satellite telephone service.

A 2005 CIPA Winner!

For its exceptional and innovative application of information technology to solve real-world business problems and bring greater benefit to all its stakeholders, Justice Technology Services has been awarded a Silver Award of Excellence from the 2005 Canadian Information Productivity Awards in the Organizational Transformation Not For Profit category.

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