Public Safety committee  The Correctional Service of Canada, as part of its—

Public Safety committee  Okay. My apologies.

Public Safety committee  Sure. Thank you for your question and for your earlier comment. I think what the research has demonstrated is really two things, if I can speak at a very high level. One is that the best success for programs occurs when those programs are delivered in the community, so preparing people for the earliest possible access to the community to access those programs tends to be very much more effective.

Public Safety committee  We know that most offenders are classified as medium security. That's also where most of the institution-based programming is. Five or six out of ten inmates in a federal penitentiary are in a medium-security penitentiary in a medium-security cell. About one-fifth are classified as minimum security, and those you would think are the ones most apt to be released into the community the quickest.

Public Safety committee  The previous government made significant commitments to correctional mental health, and Correctional Service of Canada was challenged sometimes to keep pace with some of the political commitments that were being made. One of those challenges has been in concluding agreements with provincial and territorial health providers.

Public Safety committee  Correctional Service of Canada has improved its training and has committed to training staff up and down the organization in terms of mental health awareness and intervention. They've done a good job of doing that. I have some quibbles about the model of the training and the frequency of the training, but at a high level I think they're to be commended for putting the time, energy, and resources into increased training.

Public Safety committee  We all know that supervising offenders in the community costs a fraction of what it costs to house them in a federal penitentiary. Moving people down through the system and out into the community under structured, supervised release is not only safe: it is also cheap. We know that there were some significant changes to the principles and purposes of the CCRA back a few years, in Bill C-10.

Public Safety committee  Correctional Service of Canada is to be credited. It does a very good job of assessing need and screening for a variety of things, including educational attainment and intellectual capacity. Matching program interventions to that need is now really the trick, but it's more than just providing educational opportunity and it's more than simply raising numeracy and literacy levels from perhaps grade 8 to grade 10 or grade 12.

Public Safety committee  Harm reduction is a critically important part of the approach to drug use and misuse in society and in prisons. The law requires that the Correctional Service of Canada provide health care to professional standards to reflect what is available in the community. A variety of harm reduction measures are available outside prison walls, and some of them are already available inside penitentiaries.

Public Safety committee  We have had some of our own experience with piloting harm reduction measures. A few years ago, there was a safer tattooing initiative piloted by the Correctional Service of Canada whereby inmates were trained how to properly use hygienic tattoo equipment. Then the inmates would pay for the use of that equipment and would pay the costs of being tattooed.

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I think the important element is what those recommendations share, which is that there needs to be a hard cap. Long-term or indefinite segregation has to become a thing of the past. Operationally, 15 days, 30 days, 25 days.... There are different and varying opinions.

Public Safety committee  Yes, of course, crowded and chaotic correctional institutions are not just bad environments for inmates and their chances for rehabilitation; they are also bad environments to work in. We know that a safe environment for prisoners is a safe environment for correctional staff. If you take a look over the years, particularly at the correctional officers—the CXs, the security officers—you see that they have a very high usage of sick leave, of long-term disability claims, and of bringing occupational health and safety concerns to management.

Public Safety committee  There are—

Public Safety committee  —certainly examples of employees of the Correctional Service of Canada, of people under contract to the Correctional Service of Canada, and of visitors and others who have legal reasons to be in the institution. There have been examples over the years of all members of those categories of individuals bringing contraband into prisons.

Public Safety committee  Typically they are.