The number of evaluation requests for criminals to be declared dangerous offenders has increased so much in recent months that the psychiatrists at the Philippe-Pinel Institute are no longer up to the job.
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“It is currently impossible for us to respond to the exponentially growing volume of requests,” said the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry in a letter filed in court Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse.
Usually, the institution must carry out approximately 40 evaluations annually, despite funding being available to respond to only 15 requests.
But in the last year, there have been 60, causing many delays in court.
Deadlines exceeded
This is what happened on Tuesday, in the case of 41-year-old pedophile Jeffrey Howard Hébert, guilty of having moderated child pornography forums on the dark web.
In addition to having photographed children from 2 to 4 years old who were playing naked in their garden from his residence, he had amassed more than 135,000 photos and 2,646 videos of child pornography.
He has been awaiting his assessment since July.
“He is currently 18th in the waiting list,” according to Pinel.
The problem is that according to the law, such an evaluation must be done in 60 days. In the event of a problem, the period can be extended by one month, indicates the Criminal Code.
This means that almost systematically, deadlines are exceeded.
Far from improving
And the situation is not likely to be resolved any time soon, due to the lack of resources.
The Philippe-Pinel Institute only has a handful of experts to carry out these assessments and retreats are expected in the coming months.
“The others all have professional activities parallel to the processing of these requests”, indicates the institute.
In the case of pedophile Hébert, the parties will return to court in the coming weeks.
- Listen with Dr. Gilles Chamberland, psychiatrist at the Philippe-Pinel National Institute of Forensic Psychiatry on QUB radio: