Evidence of meeting #4 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was offenders.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
We'll begin the meeting and welcome our guests, Renée Collette and Mr. Don Head. We look forward to your presentations, and as usual, we will allow you to give us whatever information you have.
Mr. Head, I understand that you have approximately twenty minutes, and Ms. Collette, you have about ten minutes, and then questions will proceed to the official opposition. Everyone here knows the routine.
So we will go ahead, Mr. Head, with your presentation.
Thank you.
3:35 p.m.
Don Head Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
What I'd like to do for approximately the next twenty minutes is just give you an overview of the roles, responsibilities, and priorities of the Correctional Service of Canada.
The Correctional Service of Canada, as you are probably aware, is the agency responsible for administering sentences of two years or more. Sentences of two years less a day are the responsibility of the provincial and territorial governments, but anybody sentenced to two years or more is the responsibility of the Correctional Service of Canada.
We are governed by a very unique piece of legislation--the Corrections and Conditional Release Act--as well as by the accompanying regulations: the Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations. We are also subject, like many other government agencies and departments, to about 70 other pieces of legislation, regulations, or various agreements as they pertain to employee relations, financial commitments, obligations, and the way work is delivered.
Our operations are spread out across the country. Many of our facilities, our penitentiaries, operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We're a highly decentralized, structured organization, and the vast majority of our resources go towards paying the salaries of our employees. I'll go into a little more detail about that in a few minutes.
Currently we consist of 54 penitentiaries at different security levels. Under the legislation, we classify offenders as minimum-, medium-, or maximum-security individuals, and our facilities are appropriately classified, as well, as minimum-, medium-, or maximum-security facilities. We also have some purpose-specific facilities, such as regional treatment centres that specifically provide services to individuals who have mental health concerns. We have one special-handling unit in the country, located in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec, which is the facility that houses our most problematic offenders, those who have shown a propensity for committing violent acts within the institutions towards other inmates or staff.
We also have healing lodges, facilities that are specific for providing correctional services to individuals of aboriginal ancestry. And we also have regional reception centres, facilities where individuals who are first committed to a federal penitentiary are subjected to an assessment process used to determine their appropriate initial security-classification levels and to initiate the development of the correction plans they will follow while they're serving their sentences.
To a large extent, our penitentiaries are very much like little cities. They have responsibilities for water, sewage, building maintenance, food, health services, security, clothing, etc.
We also have across the country 16 community correctional centres. These are facilities that house individuals who are out on some form of conditional release. So they're facilities for individuals who may be out on day parole, full parole, or statutory release with a residency clause.
In addition, we operate just under 200 community residential facilities through contractual arrangements with organizations such as the John Howard Society, the Elizabeth Fry Society, the St. Leonard's Society, and the Salvation Army.
We also have across the country 71 parole offices and eight parole districts, and those are the offices where the community parole officers are located. These are the individuals who are responsible for providing supervision and surveillance of any offenders who are out in the community under some form of conditional release or statutory release, and even of individuals who have long-term supervision orders at the end of their sentences, at warrant expiry.
In terms of our structure, we also have five regional headquarters. Correctional Service Canada is divided into five regions: the Pacific region, which covers the province of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory; the Prairie region, which covers Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, and a portion of Nunavut; the Ontario region, which covers the province of Ontario and the eastern half of the Nunavut Territory; the Quebec region, which covers the entire province of Quebec; and the Atlantic region, which covers all the Atlantic provinces. Our national headquarters are located in Ottawa at 340 Laurier Avenue West.
Part of our structure is a special operating agency called CORCAN. This operating agency is responsible for developing employment opportunities and developing the employment skills of offenders so that when they go back into the communities, there is a better chance for them to find and secure jobs.
They also provide opportunities in the institutions for inmates to work. Inmates engage in building various types of furniture and lockers. They also have contracts with DND to refurbish some of their vehicles. There are many different contracts through which CORCAN provides work opportunities for inmates in the institutions.
We also have five staff colleges where we deliver the vast majority of our staff training. As well, we have one correctional leadership management centre, located in Cornwall, Ontario, where the more senior management training programs are delivered along with training specifically for issues such as crisis management or those for which we need a higher level of consistency across the country.
We have an addiction research centre, located in Montague, Prince Edward Island. This facility is responsible for research primarily on addictions and substance abuse.
Through various partnerships and agreements, we have arrangements with provinces, territories, police services, courts, volunteers, and other NGOs to provide various types of services that are related to offenders.
To give you a quick overview of the offender population and what our staff deal with on a day-to-day basis, on any given day we have approximately 20,800 offenders under federal jurisdiction, with 12,600 of those located in the institutions across the country, and 8,200 under supervision at any given time.
Between 3% and 4% of the offender population are women, and about 18% of the population are individuals of aboriginal ancestry--first nations, Métis, or Inuit. I'll add a note there--and I think many of the members of this committee would know this, Mr. Chair--that this is significantly disproportionate to the overall aboriginal population within the country.
Some specifics about the offender population, some profile data: About 90% of the men that are in the system have previous youth and adult convictions. These are individuals who have spent time in young offender facilities, or provincial correctional facilities.
About 80% of our offenders have substance abuse problems, either alcohol and/or drugs. About 76% of them have committed violent offences at some point in their criminal history. About 26% have committed homicide offences. Currently about 26% of our entire incarcerated population are individuals who are serving an indeterminate sentence for murder or taking a life. Thirty-five percent have robbery convictions.
About 12% have a current mental health diagnosis and the challenges that go with that. Twenty per cent of the population take some prescribed medication for mental health issues. It's estimated that about 26% of the population have hepatitis C, compared to about 0.8% of the Canadian population. It's also estimated about 1.5% of the offender population have HIV.
About 16% of our entire population have some form of gang affiliation, and that has been increasing over the last few years. A large portion of our offender population have a low education, a low functioning level, and various family problems, including violence within the family and sexual abuse within the family. And a great proportion of the individuals have some issues around significant work experience.
Overall in terms of that population, it's split across the service in terms of the security levels that I mentioned earlier. About 19% of the total population are currently located in a maximum security institution. About 58% are located in medium security institutions. About 15% are in minimum security institutions, and about 8% are located in what we call multi-level facilities. These would be facilities such as the regional treatment centres, which would hold both maximum and medium, and in some cases maybe even minimum, security offenders in order to address their needs.
To give you a quick overview as to a day within the correctional environment, on any given day, 20 to 25 offenders are admitted and released. About 12 offenders reach warrant expiry every day. About 580 individuals are accommodated in our psychiatric or treatment facilities across the country. About 3,500 are enrolled in correctional programs. About 3,200 are enrolled in education programs. About 9,000 are employed in some work activity within the correctional environment. About 150 are granted access from institutions to the community through some form that's allowed under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. About 5,300 visitors, volunteers, and contractors enter and leave CSC's facilities on any given day.
Our workforce is comprised of approximately 14,500 staff. Many of them are in specialized work areas. About 41% of our staff complement are correctional officers. About 14% of our staff are parole officers. We employ individuals who perform the duties of nurses, psychiatrists, plumbers, engineers, computer specialists, chaplains, psychologists, food service staff, electricians, architects, financial officers, and aboriginal elders.
Our workforce is augmented through the efforts of approximately 10,000 volunteers, including individuals who are members of our citizens advisory committees. Under our legislation, we are obligated to have in place citizens advisory committees and we have them in every one of our institutions and our parole districts across the country.
To give you an overview of the distribution of our staff complement, about 13% of the total staff complement are either in the national or regional headquarters. Seventy-nine percent of the staff are located in the institutions and 8% in the community. Our workforce is comprised of about 46% women and 54% men. Approximately 7% of the staff complement are people of aboriginal ancestry.
To give you a quick overview of CSC's budget, our annual operating budget is $1.6 billion, of which 60% is for salaries and employee benefits, 30% for operating and maintenance costs, 10% for our capital costs issues. Of the total budget, 89% of our total budget is deemed to be non-discretionary, where we have no ability to reallocate the funds because it's commited through either paying salaries or specific allotments in the budgetary structure.
To give you a sense of where some of that $1.6 billion goes, approximately $430 million goes to the security services, the correctional officers, training of correctional officers, analysis programs in the institutions. About $130 million is committed to delivering health care services within the Correctional Service of Canada. About $157 million is committed to case management activities. This is the work that primarily the parole officers do in the institutions. About $100 million is earmarked for the development and delivery of correctional programs across the country. Some $174 million is dedicated to corporate services--this is everything from financial management to operations of computer systems, human resource activities--and about $8 million is specifically earmarked for chaplaincy services across the country.
Many of the items in our budget are formula-driven, so they're driven specifically by formulas that have been developed in conjunction with Treasury Board as a way of recognizing the flow of the population at any given time.
Simply to give you a very quick sense of some of the challenges the organization is currently facing, some of which I've briefly mentioned, we have more offenders coming into the federal system with extensive histories of violence and substance abuse. This creates challenges for us in terms of developing and implementing effective programs and interventions to deal with those individuals. There's been an increase in the number of individuals coming into the system who have gang affiliations. We're at 16% now. I mentioned earlier the issue of serious mental health needs and the increase there, as well as the increase in the number of individuals coming into the system who are of aboriginal ancestry, first nations, Métis, Inuit ancestries. This is more pronounced in the prairie and Pacific regions than in the three other regions across the country.
We're also seeing more individuals coming into the system who are being classified at the initial intake stage as maximum-security offenders, individuals who pose a higher risk to either escape or to cause significant incidents within the institutions.
On the back end, we are also seeing more individuals being released, as their first type of release, under statutory release. Under the federal system, as a very quick overview--I think my colleague Madam Collette will talk a little bit more about this--an individual who does not access any form of conditional release, day parole or full parole, if he's not an individual who has a life sentence or an individual who would be detained under the provisions of the act until the end of his sentence, would be eligible for release at the two-thirds mark. This is called statutory release. The remaining one-third of the sentence, though, would be under supervision. So those individuals, although they would be going out into the community, would be under supervision.
This is different from the provincial and territorial systems. Their system of two-thirds release is called an earned remission system. At the meeting, if the individuals have earned all of their remission and are released at the two-thirds mark, unless they have a probation order to follow, they are free and clear at the end of the day. So one of the problems we have with individuals coming into the system now who have these lengthy young offender records and provincial histories is they come into the system under the belief that all they have to do is get to the two-thirds mark and they're free and clear, not understanding that the remaining one-third of their sentence, if they're eligible or if they are released at statutory release, will be under supervision.
Another significant challenge we're facing is the increased number of individuals who are coming in with a two-to-three-year sentence. This is a significant shift for us. About 56% of our current admissions are individuals who have received a two-to-three-year sentence. Previously, the average sentence was around the five-year or six-year mark and our overall programming and intervention approaches were geared to those longer sentences.
Individuals coming in with a two-to-three-year sentence are actually not getting the same level of intervention or programming as those who would have had a longer sentence. Now, this is not a cry for individuals to get longer sentences, but it's a significant challenge that the organization is facing.
As I conclude, Mr. Chair, I'll give you a quick overview of some of the challenges we face around our financial situation within the Correctional Service of Canada. As these various challenges I have mentioned come to fruition, or we deal with them on a day-to-day basis, we're challenged to find new and innovative ways to use our existing resource base to meet those challenges, to provide effective programming for the increased number of aboriginal offenders coming into the system, to put in place the right types of mental health interventions and programs to meet the needs of individuals who have those types of challenges, to finding ways to motivate inmates to participate in programs, because the research is very clear that if individuals are participating in the research-based programs that are being offered by Correctional Service of Canada, the chances of reducing recidivism are much greater if they participate than if they do not. We therefore need to find ways of getting them motivated so that they do participate in these programs.
So we have some challenges around reallocating the money we have available in order to meet these current challenges posed by the changing offender population profile.
One of the other challenges we face from a financial perspective is an issue within the organization we commonly refer to as rust-out. A significant number of our buildings are 30 and 40 years old and were not meant to be used in the way that is occurring on a day-to-day basis right now. As the buildings get older, the maintenance costs go up, and this is money we have to find from within the organization to deal with that. The more we divert the money to deal with the rust-out issues, the less opportunity we have to deal with the program and intervention needs of the offenders.
I'll stop there, Mr. Chair. That was a very quick overview. I know the committee will probably have more specific questions.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you.
That was, of course, a lot of information to digest; however, I'm sure there will also be additional questions that we'll save for after our next presentation.
Ms. Collette, would you please proceed?
3:55 p.m.
Renée Collette Executive Vice-Chairperson, National Parole Board
I am pleased to be here today. My name is Renée Collette and I'm the Executive Vice-Chairperson of the National Parole Board. I'm also the current acting Chairperson of the Board. Who are we? My comments will be of a more general nature, as I prefer to let you ask the questions.
The National Parole Board was established in 1959 to act as an independent administrative tribunal. We do not have any surveillance responsibilities. The NPB thus operates at arm's length from government. Its powers are spelled out in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, as are the powers of my colleague's organization. We are governed by Part II of the act.
The NPB has the authority to decide the opportune moment to conditionally release offenders into the community as well as to revoke the parole of offenders who breach their release conditions. As well, it can order that offenders remain incarcerated until their statutory formal release date, as my colleague eloquently explained, specifically those offenders whom we have reason to believe could commit a serious offence resulting in death or serious injury, or a serious drug-related offence.
The NPB also administers the Criminal Records Act and has the authority to make decisions, to grant and to revoke pardons. Furthermore, the NPB makes recommendations to Cabinet with respect to the royal prerogative of mercy.
Each year, the Board reviews between 22,000 and 24,000 cases. Parole decisions are written down and documented and available on request to the public. Approximately 21,500 parole decisions have been made public over the last five years. Our hearings are open to the public. Those wishing to do so, including members of this committee, may ask to attend a hearing as an observer. I invite you to do that. Over 5,600 people, including victims and members of the media, have attended parole hearings in the past five years.
Who are the board members? We are 45 full-time members appointed for five-year terms and also about 40 part-time members appointed for three-year terms. Board members are appointed for their competency and are thoroughly trained in risk assessment and decision-making before sitting on hearing panels or making file decisions. They are recruited through a process that identifies the most qualified and are appointed by the government. Our members reflect the multi-cultural diversity of Canada, and their backgrounds represent all walks of life—education, social work, medicine, law, police, and business as well as private and public service management.
Our legislation, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, defines the board's mandate as contributing to the safety and protection of the public by making decisions on the timing and conditions of release that will best facilitate the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into the community. Therein lies the value of parole, contributing to public safety and to the gradual and supervised reintegration of the offender into the community.
Our legislation guides and directs the decision-making process. It directs us on how to conduct hearings, what we have to consider, the timing of these decisions, and when we have jurisdiction and when we do not; it requires us to follow procedural safeguards and respect the duty to act fairly; and it protects board members from civil action if they have done their job as the law and policy require.
Our decisions are subject to appeal to the appeal division of the board and to the Federal Court of Canada.
The CCRA includes two basic principles that are fundamental to the work of the board: the protection of society is to be the paramount consideration in the determination of any case, and we are to make the least restrictive determination consistent with the protection of society.
Who are the individuals affected by our decisions? All federally sentenced offenders serving sentences of two or more years in a federal institutions, and provincially sentenced offenders serving sentences of at least two years in seven of the ten provinces and in the three territories that do not have their own parole board. At present, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have their own provincial parole boards. Therefore, most of our work involves federally sentenced offenders.
Who are these offenders? My colleague described them to you, but let me give you a brief profile. The majority of them are repeat offenders. Nine out of ten have already been convicted of an offence in either youth or adult court. Two thirds have already served time in a provincial adult facility and one in four has already served time in a federal institution.
The vast majority of federally sentenced offenders in Canada, or four in five, are serving definite sentences. Their incarceration will therefore come to an end at some point and eventually, and inevitably, they will be released into the community. Offenders serving life or indeterminate sentences are also legally eligible for parole and we are required to apply the same criteria to these cases.
What kind of information do we base our decisions on? We depend heavily on information that comes to us from a variety of sources, including police, crown attorneys, courts, provincial corrections, federal corrections, federal parole officers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, private agencies, as well as victims of crime.
Our decision-making process is very systematic and disciplined. The risk assessment involves a thorough and comprehensive review of the offender's past, present, and future. The past means the complete history--for example, the nature and severity of the current as well as previous criminal offences; family background; education; employment; peer groups; criminal association; history of drug or alcohol abuse; previous prison terms as well as previous releases on bail, probation, or parole; and impact of the offence on the victim.
The present includes whether the offender has addressed the question of change; a review of institutional behaviour, participation in programs, and the benefits derived; whether the risk of reoffending has been reduced; whether the offender understands the severity of the offence and harm to the victims; and whether the offender recognizes the factors that contributed to his criminal behaviour
Regarding the future, there is an assessment of the offender's release plan, community support, employment prospects, availability of release and prevention programs, supervision controls, and special conditions necessary to manage risk in the community.
What are the outcomes of our decisions? Over a three-year period, nearly three-quarters of those on full parole completed their sentence successfully; 15% are returned for a violation of release conditions; 10% are returned for conviction of a new offence, and out of that, only 1% for a violent offence. Outcomes for day parole are even better.
Under the Criminal Records Act, the NPB receives over 25,000 applications for pardon each year. I have to say that it's going up. Pardons are granted in 98% of cases. Since the Criminal Records Act was introduced in 1970, nearly 350,000 Canadians have been granted pardons. All but 3% of these are still in force, indicating that a vast majority of pardon recipients remain crime-free in their communities.
This was a short summary. I thank you for your attention, and I'm ready for your questions.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you very much for your presentations. I appreciate that very much.
I just want to clarify one statistic, Mr. Head. In your presentation, did I hear correctly that 54% of the people working in the institutions are men and 46% are women?
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
4:05 p.m.
Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada
That's across the entire spectrum.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay. I wondered if I had heard that correctly.
We will begin with the official opposition.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Mr. Chairman, will we be putting our questions to two people simultaneously, or will we be questioning Mr. Head first, and then Ms. Collette?
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
You may direct your questions to whomever you wish, Monsieur Ménard--either one of the witnesses.
Mr. Wappel, are you going first?
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
Congratulations on becoming the chair of this committee.
Thank you very much for your presentations. It brings back a lot of memories to listen to your presentations.
Mr. Head, I have just a few quick questions.
You gave us the stats on the breakdown of types of offenders in the 54 penitentiaries. How many people are in the special handling unit, otherwise known as supermax?
4:10 p.m.
Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada
Currently we have about 70 individuals in there.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
That's a very small percentage of the total number of inmates.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
I believe you said they're there primarily not for what they did in terms of crime, but because they're violent within the system.
4:10 p.m.
Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada
That's right, or for the potential threat of violence that they pose. Most of the individuals in there have been involved in some very serious assault on another inmate, ranging from beating to murder. A few individuals are being held there because of the potential threat and the means they have for carrying out those threats--the ability for them to muster resources to do something.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON
If my recollection is correct, when I was there Clifford Olson was there. Is he still there?
4:10 p.m.
Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada
Yes. We have a series of individuals. Normally we wouldn't go through who was being held at what facility, but they're individuals who--
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada
No, but normally we wouldn't disclose where individuals were staying. But individuals who pose--