Okay.
Evidence of meeting #17 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #17 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:20 p.m.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Thank you for that question.
There's a tremendous impact from prison crowding. Prisons have design capacities, and those design capacities suggest staffing ratios. They also suggest space allocation for programs, etc. When you have a prison that's crowded or overcrowded, you're testing the limits of those decisions. You simply don't have the physical capacity or the human resource capacity to deliver programs to everybody at the time that they could best benefit from those programs.
Let me give you two really quick examples. You visited Collins Bay and Joyceville Institutions. Collins Bay Institution today has a count of 460 inmates. For the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2011, there were 208 enrollments into all core correctional programs—460 inmates, 208 enrollments. That doesn't mean there were 200 separate offenders; one offender could be enrolled in more than one program. Of those 208 enrollments, there were only 154 completions—so in an offender population of 460 there are 154 program completions. A lot of that has to do with the physical capacity of the Correctional Service to deliver the program. If you turn your attention to Joyceville Institution, which the committee also visited, today's count is 420. In the substance abuse core program, there were 21 enrollments last fiscal year.
We know that 80% of offenders have a substance abuse history, that 50% of them were intoxicated when they committed their crime. We know there's a tremendous co-morbidity with mental health. Yet out of a count of 420, we saw fewer than two dozen inmates enrolled last year in a core substance abuse program. That has to do with physical capacity to deliver programs.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
Can we expect access to treatment to go down as the prison population increases?
12:20 p.m.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
There are two ways access will not go down. One would be if they expand models like the ICPM, which does get more offenders into programs more quickly, but we have no idea what the outcomes are because the outcomes have never been evaluated. The other is to ensure that physical capacity and human resource capacity increase apace, to make sure that the capacity expands at the same rate—and I would suggest at an accelerated rate, because the status quo was inadequate—as we see the inmate population grow.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
In your report you also talked about the importance of effective programming—how it reduces the chance of reoffending, saves money in the long run, and enhances public safety.
Right now, the programming component of the CSC budget is about 1.8%. Would you agree with that?
12:25 p.m.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Yes. It's under 2% of their operating budget.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you. We're already over on your time.
Now we're going to go back to the government side. Mr. Aspin, please.
December 6th, 2011 / 12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Jay Aspin Conservative Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'll be sharing my time with Ms. Hoeppner.
Thank you, gentlemen, Mr. Sapers and Mr. Zinger, for appearing before us this morning.
My curiosity relates to these various programs you have available. Are they designed per institution or per region or overall? Is there a common thread here?
12:25 p.m.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
The core correctional programs I've been referring to have been designed on a set of principles specifically to be delivered to correctional clients in correctional settings. It's based generally on a program model, a cognitive behavioural program model, and the principles often involve what's called RNR, or risk, need, and responsivity.
Some of the best work in the world on RNR and cognitive behavioural programming has been done in Canada by Canadians, and we're very proud of that.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Jay Aspin Conservative Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON
So you have a set of core programs and refine them or extend them to various institutions based on assessment of what the need is for the various institutions?
12:25 p.m.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
Correctional Service Canada has these core programs that have been tested, validated, evaluated, and that have demonstrated they have the desired impact. They change behaviour, and the measure is often one of recidivism.
These programs are rolled out in various sites at various times. Not every institution offers all the programs all the time, and even those institutions that list a catalogue of programs may not have, for a variety of reasons, all the programs in their catalogue available on any given day.
We will typically see 25% of offenders engaged in a core correctional program at any given time. That has less to do with the motivation of the offender and more to do with the ability of the service to put the program in place and deliver it.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Jay Aspin Conservative Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON
I have one more question, if I may, Mr. Chair, before I yield my time.
Mr. Sapers, obviously this is not the case, but if you were given an unlimited amount of funds, to what two priority areas would you direct funding for programming for help?
12:25 p.m.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
I would certainly put more money into mental health assessment and treatment, and I would put more money into core correctional programs.
Correctional Service Canada does a good job of assessing need. Unfortunately, it doesn't always follow through on that careful assessment with the timely delivery of programs. We know this because increasingly we're seeing offenders requesting transfer from one institution or another just to access programs. We see offenders being asked to waive or postpone parole board hearings because they had not been able to get into programs. We see the parole board denying conditional release because offenders have not made sufficient progress on the correctional plan because there wasn't the capacity to deliver programs.
Having developed good programs and having developed good assessment skills, my emphasis would then be on actually building the capacity to deliver the programs.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thank you.
Mr. Sapers, I would say from the testimony we've heard on providing needles for inmates that there is not at all a consensus that it would be a positive move. In fact, of all the testimony that we've heard.... We've heard a couple of times from Commissioner Head, and we've heard from front-line correctional officers dealing on a daily basis with drugs and drug activity in prisons, and we've heard from counsellors. We've heard from parents, and a man whose son committed suicide.
There was only one group, the HIV/AIDS Legal Network, that may be an expert in certain areas. I'm not sure if they would be in regard to criminal activity using needles in prisons. They were the only group that suggested that; inmates didn't want them.
So there certainly was not a consensus at all.
Mr. Sapers, do you believe that correctional facilities are inherently dangerous places or safe places?
12:30 p.m.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
I'm not sure I actually know how to answer that question.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Okay, fair enough. If you don't know how to answer, that's fine.
12:30 p.m.
Correctional Investigator, Office of the Correctional Investigator
I think that correctional facilities are neither safe nor dangerous; it's how you operate them.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
So you think they are benign situations. They are not safe....
For example, I think that in this room we all feel very safe. I think it's very easy to determine that we feel safe in this room. In a prison, would we feel safe, or would we feel under some sort of a threat?
12:30 p.m.
An hon. member
Mr. Chair--
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
That's fine. You don't need to continue. I understand.
Do you believe, then, that the requests--or some might say the rights--of prisoners...? Some might say that having a needle is a right of a prisoner. Some might say it's not a right. Do you think that request trumps the safety of officers and other inmates who are in the situation? Even right now you are having difficulty describing if it is a safe situation or a dangerous situation. Do you think security trumps requests or demands of inmates within these--