Even though the rate of bail violations in Somerset ward has dropped over the last two years, there are still criticisms over the pre-trial detention conditions and the fairness of Ontario’s bail system as a whole.

Since 2012, bail violations in Centretown have dropped 23 per cent, according to an analysis of Ottawa Police Services data.

In 2013 there were 578 charges of bail violation. In 2012, that number was 749.

But Somerset ward still has the highest rate of bail violations in the city, with a rate of 150 per 10,000 compared to the next highest–Rideau-Vanier–which has a rate of 64 per 10,000.

Somerset also makes up 40 per cent of the total charges of bail violation in the entire city.

Daniel Nugent, an Ottawa criminal defence lawyer said this percentage isn’t surprising.

“If you live outside of downtown, you’re less likely to be noticed by the police. But downtown is where all the activity is. If you want to buy or sell drugs, downtown is where to do it. These activities are concentrated by the shelters downtown.”

The way the bail system works in Ontario, anyone charged with a crime appears before either a judge or a justice of the peace where a decision is made on whether a person will remain in jail before trial, or whether they can be released with a promise to appear for trial.

“The most important question is whether or not the person has a record of failing to comply with court orders in the past,” Nugent said. “The justice of the peace determines things like flight risk, the likelihood to reoffend and the likelihood of causing harm. These are all taken into consideration when deciding bail.”

But the variety of restrictions that can be placed on this freedom is where many people come into trouble since bail violation is a criminal offence.

“With a lot of bail conditions, there are a lot of breaches. If you have a curfew and you’re out too late, it isn’t serious, but you’ve breached your probation.” Nugent said. “If you fail to report to your probation officer on the exact day or time, you could be charged with a bail violation.”

These restrictions have caused some to question the fairness of Ontario’s bail courts.

In 2013, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association published a report “Set up to fail: Canada’s Bail Courts” which criticised the system as being “chaotic and unnecessarily risk-averse.”

“Numerous and restrictive conditions, imposed for considerable periods of time, are setting people up to fail – and failing to comply with a bail condition is a criminal offence, even if the underlying behaviour is not otherwise a crime,” the report said.

Abby Deshman, one of the report’s authors, said this data is consistent with the results of her nation-wide study.

She said the main problem with the high number of bail violations is unrealistic restrictions placed on offenders with a history of alcohol and drugs.

“By placing abstinence restrictions on addicts, you’re just setting them up to fail,” Deshman said.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is not alone in its criticism of the bail system, especially after a decision has been made to detain the accused – either before bail has been awarded or after it has been violated.

In 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada criticised pre-trial detention for having “concrete and profound deleterious effects on the accused.”

“There are demonstrated and troubling correlations between pre-trial detention and both the ability to present a defence and the eventual outcome of the trial,” the Court said.  “Moreover, an accused placed on remand is often subjected to the worst aspects of our correctional system by being detained in dilapidated overcrowded cells without access to recreational or educational programs.”

But Nugent said ultimately, the system works.

“In fairness, the bail system in Canada isn’t that bad. It’s a fairly reasonable system. It’s when you breach the system numerous times – I have clients who beat their girlfriend, then get out of jail and do it again. When you repeatedly violate bail, you’ll be charged,” he said.

Deshman said law enforcement should use discretion with setting bail conditions. The focus should be on violent offenders rather than non-violent ones.

“It makes sense to place restrictions on people charged with domestic assault and violent offenders, these help public safety and protect victims,” she said.

In light of the shootings in Ottawa, Oct. 22, the Ottawa Police Services were unavailable for comment for this story.

By: Nichole Ekkert-Vine

A ward minutes from Parliament Hill is the most likely place in Ottawa for people to get assaulted, causing the Vanier Community Association to take special measures to combat what they say are ‘much needed improvements’.

Assaults Mapped By Ward
Source: Ottawa Open Data

In 2013, assault charges spiked at 714 cases in the Rideau-Vanier ward, 95% higher than any other ward according to an open data source from the City of Ottawa.

Source: Ottawa Open Data

The VCA is a community organization in the downtown region that, in addition to providing daily information services to residents, communicates with the Ottawa police and local organization Crime Prevention Vanier to help prevent danger in the area.

VCA Communications Officer Tara Jackson says it is the community liaison officer’s role to “work with many community organizations to better communicate with the police services, as well as helping those organizations understand things like incident reporting at any time of day.”

She also says that some of the bigger safety issues surrounding the downtown area are issues of late-night transportation routes that could use a few changes.

“As an urban neighbourhood close to the downtown core, we still have many streets without street lamps or sidewalks, so we continue to work with the city to bring these much-needed improvements,” says Jackson.

“This infrastructure support would go a long way to improving overall safety in the neighbourhood. In cases where there are street lights, where they occasionally burn out, we educate residents on how to communicate this issue to the city so that they can be rectified immediately.”

Source: Ottawa Open Data

On a similar note, OC Transpo has been taking recent action to combat issues surrounding public safety and transportation.

Troy Charter is the assistant general manager of the transit operations division. He says many of the programs OC Transpo has are aimed at maintaining public safety and “combating violent behaviour in all its forms.”

In cases such as the Transecure and SafeStop programs, OC Transpo has made effort to reduce the risk of danger or assault to their commuters.

“Operators are expected to use their best judgment and accommodate all requests by finding a place as close as possible to that requested where the customer can safely exit the bus,” says Charter.

“OC Transpo and Ottawa Police Services have also been working together on regular joint zero-tolerance blitzes with respect to criminal activity and conduct issues.”

Charter says these ‘safety blitzes’ are usually done on Friday and Saturday nights when ridership is at its highest, and consist of everything from checking proof of payment to laying drug and alcohol charges in and around transportation areas.

He says this is just one of many ways that OC Transpo has recently worked with Ottawa police to crack down on crime and assault in the downtown core.

Rideau-Vanier councillor candidate Marc Vinette agrees that lack of safety downtown is a concern, and something he has first-hand experience with.

“I see some crazy shit which is but a fraction of what I hear from local merchants and residents,” says Vinette.

“Rideau-Vanier has a lot of assaults because there are a lot of wasted people. The ones on illegal drugs prey on drinkers. So do gangs, of which there are many.”

To rectify the issues of safety in the ward, Vinette says that elected or not, he wants the city to stop focusing on the topic of assault awareness and start teaching children at a young age the necessary tools they need to defend themselves physically and psychologically.

He agrees with what he calls the ‘obvious solutions’ such as better lighting for walkways and more foot patrol on the streets, however what he wants to do to combat rising assault rates in the area is to teach children what they don’t learn in school.

“The first lesson will be situational awareness. Practicing the lesson will lower your chance of victimhood to near nil,” says Vinette.

“Pretty soon, you’ll see a drop in assaults. Sound trite? If so, you’re selling yourself short.”

Drunk driving increased almost 50 per cent in Ottawa’s Capital ward between 2012 and 2013 and Ottawa law enforcement can’t explain why, but they think it’s a sign of good policing.

“We have no idea what impaired drivers are doing, we just know what our enforcement is doing,” said Sgt. John Kiss of the Ottawa Police Service and a board member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Ottawa.

“Maybe it was a single policeman that got transferred to Capital ward and really dedicated to impaired driving, made an arrest a month,” Kiss said.

He said the increase of 12 impaired driving arrests in Capital ward from 25 to 37 was not statistically significant.

Kiss said drunk driving in Ottawa is pretty consistent across the city and its wards from year to year.

According to Ottawa Police statistics, 700 people were arrested for impaired driving in Ottawa in 2009 and 676 people were arrested in 2012. Last year, 647 people were arrested for drunk driving.

Rideau-Vanier ward had the highest average arrest rate from 2012 to 2013 at 1.65 arrests per 1,000 people.

Average impaired driving rate per 1,000 by ward, 2012-2013

David Gilhooly, a criminal defense lawyer who specializes in drunk driving cases, thinks charges have actually decreased in Ottawa.

“I think there’s fewer than there were even 10 years ago even though there’s more rigid enforcement,” Gilhooly said.

But even without a compelling spike in impaired driving arrests, Kiss acknowledged that Capital ward could be a problem for the police because of the proximity of Byward Market bars.

The Ottawa Police Service partnered with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario in 2011 to start the Last Drink Program to trace the bar that over-served a customer before they were arrested for impaired driving.

Liquor inspectors use the information to focus their enforcement efforts on problem bars. The commission has a three-strikes policy in which bars are allowed three infractions before they lose their license, Kiss said.

Kiss declined to name specific establishments in Byward Market but said police are aware of several “bad children” bars in the area.

And the young adults that represent a significant portion of Gilhooly’s clients frequent those “bad children” bars.

Gilhooly said many of his clients are people in their early twenties who don’t understand in practical terms how many drinks will lead to a blood alcohol concentration exceeding 80 milligrams, or 0.08, the legal limit for a fully licensed driver in Ontario.

People 18 to 24 years old accounted for 25.8 per cent of all impaired driving arrests from 2009 to 2012, according to police statistics.

There is no hard-and-fast rule for determining a drinker’s limit because blood alcohol concentration is affected by factors such as how fast a person drinks, their gender and body weight and the amount of food in their stomach, according to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

Ontario’s Smart Serve certification program for food service workers says drinkers should restrict themselves to one standard-size drink, such as a 341-ml bottle of beer or a 5-oz glass of wine, per hour.

Kiss said police are also concerned about young adults driving under the influence of drugs and have recently started to put more attention on drug-impaired driving enforcement.

“It’s been there all along we’re just getting better at recognizing it,” he said.

Kiss said there are technologies for roadside drug testing similar to the Breathalyzer test used for drunk driving. Ottawa Police Service currently does not use any roadside drug-testing technology.

Steven Del Duca, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, introduced legislation Oct. 21 that would see drug-impaired drivers face the same penalties as drunk drivers. The Liberals have a majority in Queen’s Park and it is expected to become law.

Impaired driving arrests by ward, 2012-2013

Ottawa impaired driving statistics, 2009-2012

Impaired Driving in Ottawa Stats (Text)