Thank you, and good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members.
Just as a little bit about my background, I have been with the Correctional Service of Canada for 25 years. I started out as a correctional officer at Kingston Penitentiary, so I've worked my way up through various positions within the institution on the security side of the house. On the case management side of the house, I've been at national headquarters for the last eleven years, and I've recently come into this position in the last year. That's a little bit about my background.
I'm very pleased to be here today, and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about issues surrounding women offenders. This is an area that is of key importance to the Correctional Service of Canada and one that is of great personal importance to me as deputy commissioner for women.
By way of background, I'd like to start with a few general comments about the women offender population in Canada. At any given time there are just under 1,200 women under federal sentence in Canada, with about 44% serving their time in one of our facilities and the remainder serving sentences in the community. In terms of the general demographic makeup of female offenders, they tend to experience poverty, are young, uneducated, and lacking in employment skills. Compared to the average Canadian, women offenders have a higher incidence of substance abuse and mental health problems and are more likely to have a history of physical and/or sexual abuse. In short, women offenders have unique factors influencing their criminal behaviour, and so they require an approach that is unique to their specific needs. This approach is commonly termed “women centred” in that it reflects the social realities of women and responds to the individual needs of women in our care.
As the senior deputy commissioner just reinforced, CSC has seen a significant change in the overall offender profile over the last decade. This applies equally to the women offender population. What we have seen in the last decade or so is an increase in women entering our care who exhibit mental health needs or who present complex behavioural concerns. We are also seeing women serving much shorter sentences. Taking into account these and many other factors, we are certainly facing greater challenges for our organization in terms of how we effectively manage women offenders and help them forge a path away from crime and towards more positive life choices.
One of the ways we are building on our capacity to address the needs of women offenders with mental health concerns is by identifying their requirements from the first day of admission. To this end, CSC is improving its screening and assessment process at admission with the implementation of the computerized mental health intake screening system. If we can better identify mental health issues from the beginning, we are in a better position to proactively address them.
For women who are identified as having higher needs or severe mental health concerns, we currently have three options. The first is two intensive psychiatric treatment units, one at Philippe-Pinel and the other at the regional psychiatric centre in the prairies, for those women who require treatment in a psychiatric facility.
The second option is that CSC has implemented the structured living environment, which provides a separate living space and programming area within the institution for women classified as minimum or medium security. It is a therapeutic environment that is staffed 24 hours a day with an interdisciplinary team that can provide specialized correctional, rehabilitative, and mental health treatment.
Finally, for women requiring similar intensive intervention but who are classified as maximum security, CSC constructed security units at each of the five regional women's institutions. These units feature heightened security measures coupled with an interdisciplinary approach similar to the structured living environments that provides intensive staff intervention, programming, and treatment to these higher-risk women.
In addition, important interventions for women with mental health needs are dialectical behaviour therapy, or DBT, and psycho-social rehabilitation. DBT is a comprehensive mental health treatment for women with serious emotional issues and behavioural problems. DBT addresses these issues by targeting skill development in the areas of emotions, relationships, cognitions, and stress. Psycho-social rehabilitation addresses the needs of women who are cognitively low functioning. It helps them regain control over their lives by assisting them with living skills and formulating goals and plans to prepare them for independent living.
In addition, as a majority of women offenders are survivors of abuse and trauma, intervention to address these issues is also offered. Group and individual counselling is available to all women offenders to help address the significant impact these and other experiences have had on their lives.
As I mentioned previously, in addition to mental health concerns, statistics show that up to 80% of incarcerated women have a substance abuse problem. It is vital that we work with women to identify these issues and proactively address their addictive behaviours. CSC has developed a suite of programs specific to women offenders. I'd like to highlight two programs that are dedicated to helping women offenders address addictive and violent behaviours.
The women offender substance abuse program is designed to address the substance abuse needs of all women offenders. The program offers women offenders several levels of intervention from the time they enter the institution until the time of their warrant expiry. This includes maintenance programs in the community.
The second example is the Spirit of a Warrior program, which was developed by the Native Counselling Services of Alberta to address the needs of aboriginal women offenders, specifically targeting violence, substance abuse, and gang association, with the overall objective to reduce reoffending.
In closing, I believe the programs we offer women and the interventions we make to in order to empower them to make better choices are appropriate and effective. While CSC has come a long way in addressing the needs of women offenders, we still have work to do. The nature of our business is such that we must continually evolve and adapt to meet new challenges. I believe we're on the right path, and I look forward to discussing some of this with you today.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
