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Crown attorneys call on Manitoba government to help address ‘dangerously heavy caseloads’

The Manitoba Association of Crown Attorneys (MACA) is calling on the provincial government to help reduce mounting workloads that it says are making it difficult for prosecutors to meet their professional responsibilities.  grievance it filed in April 2023.  It says the grievance it filed back in April 2023 regarding 'dangerously heavy caseloads' won't be heard by an arbitrator until October 2025. 

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Publication date : 2025-01-10
Preparing RCMP body-cam evidence for court will be monumental task, prosecutor says

The RCMP is phasing-in the use of body-worn cameras across the country and expects 90 per cent of frontline members to be wearing them within a year.  Shara Munn, president of the New Brunswick Crown Prosecutors Association, said while the body-camera evidence will be great to have, it will also mean a huge influx of work for prosecutors.

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Publication date : 2025-01-06
N.L. government invests in 18 new Crown attorneys amid severe staffing crunch

Newfoundland and Labrador Justice Minister Bernard Davis announced Wednesday afternoon that the provincial government is investing nearly $24 million to improve the province's justice system.... The investment comes after CBC News reported in numerous stories that Crown attorneys in the province were "suffocating" from overwhelming workloads and a critical staffing shortage.

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Publication date : 2024-11-14
Newfoundland to add more Crown prosecutors

Newfoundland and Labrador has agreed to hire more Crown lawyers following cries of a shortage of prosecutors in the province. The “multi-year investment” will include the hiring of 18 new Crown lawyers, according to a news release.

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Publication date : 2024-11-13
Critical shortage of Crown attorneys has ‘gone on way too long’ and is hurting public safety

The Canadian Association of Crown Counsel, an umbrella group for thousands of Crown attorneys and government lawyers across the country is calling for a big boost in the number of provincial prosecutors in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Publication date : 2024-11-13
Most criminal cases in Ontario now ending before charges are tested at trial

More than half of the criminal charges laid by police in Ontario never make it to trial, according to data from Statistics Canada. The numbers paint a troubling picture of the province’s justice system.  More judges, staff, prosecutors and courtrooms needed, says Crown attorneys’ association.

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Publication date : 2024-11-12


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It’s taking the RCMP longer than anticipated to digitize Canada’s national database of criminal reco

07-09-2017

The RCMP says it hopes to eliminate a backlog of criminal record files waiting to be uploaded to a nationwide database should be eliminated by 2020.Regina Leader-Post file photo

 

The RCMP says it will now need until 2020 to finish uploading nearly half-a-million backlogged files to a nationwide criminal-record database, despite previously saying the job would be done next year.

 

Criminal justice experts say they are troubled by how much time it has taken the RCMP, which manages the database, to eliminate the backlog for a database that is relied upon not only by police officers, who use it to check suspects’ backgrounds, but also by employers and volunteer organizations who use it to vet job applicants and the courts who use it to make bail and sentencing decisions.

 

“Prosecutors would like to see this get resolved across the country … so we can have an up-to-date picture of each individual coming through the court system,” said Rick Woodburn, president of the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel.

 

Over the last decade, Canada’s auditor general has repeatedly taken the RCMP to task for how much time it has taken to enter fingerprint and criminal history records into the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) database, and rated the agency’s level of progress as “unsatisfactory.”

 

In 2015, Tom Stamatakis, national president of the Canadian Police Association, told Global News that public safety could be at risk. He used the example of a parolee who has a run-in with the law.

 

“If that person has contact with the police and the police check the database to find out the person’s status but the information isn’t there, you could potentially release someone who should be arrested for breaching parole conditions.”

 

That same year, an RCMP spokesman told the CBC that the backlog of files would be cleared by 2018.

 

But internal agency records obtained earlier this year by Alberta blogger Dennis Young through an access-to-information request revealed that as of August 2016, there were still 570,639 criminal files that hadn’t been uploaded to the database, which contains more than 4.4 million individual files.

 

The records showed that from 2013 through 2015, there were 388,122 new criminal convictions, but only 58 per cent of files related to those convictions were entered into the CPIC database — this despite a boost in funding during that period, from $1.7 million to $2.8 million, to address the backlog.

 

This week, the National Post asked the RCMP for an update and was told by spokesman Sgt. Harold Pfleiderer that the backlog peaked in the fall of 2016 and that the number of criminal files waiting to be entered into the CPIC database now stands at 442,325.

 

Historically, the system relied on paper-based files, Pfleiderer said. But the force has been working with other police agencies to develop a fully automated and digitized system that will allow criminal record information to be uploaded in “near real-time.” This system should be completed by the end of the year, he said.

 

Further, “a plan has been put in place to prioritize the elimination of the backlog holdings,” he wrote in an email. “Priority files that contain either sex, weapons, or violent convictions are targeted to be fully updated by early 2018. The remainder of the backlog is projected to be eliminated by 2020, keeping in mind that these timelines may vary depending on other RCMP and government priorities.”

 

Currently, the force has 69 analysts working to eliminate the backlog and a budget of $3.9 million, he added.

 

Woodburn said he worries that the lack of a reliable nationwide database could result in criminals being treated like first-time offenders by the justice system when, in reality, they have committed crimes in other parts of the country.

 

“Our criminals are very transient now. It used to be that they liked to stick to their hometown. They are travelling across the country, they know they’re mobile, and they’re committing various crimes in various areas. The problem is that CPIC is not picking that up,” Woodburn told the House of Commons standing committee on justice and human rights in April.

 

Because of the gaps in the database, Woodburn, who is based in Halifax, said it’s not uncommon for he and his fellow prosecutors to have to call up other jurisdictions to verify whether someone has a record in those places or not.

 

Pfleiderer said if police agencies or Crown attorneys need criminal records updated for court purposes, the RCMP can expedite those requests.

 

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/its-taking-the-rcmp-longer-than-anticipated-to-digitize-canadas-national-database-of-criminal-records