Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee.
l'm pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you today to provide input into this committee's study on the government's role in addressing prescription drug abuse.
Mr. Chair, as Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, or CSC, I oversee the operations of Canada's 53 federal penitentiaries, 16 community correctional centres, and 92 parole offices and sub-offices. On a typical day during the most recent fiscal year, CSC was responsible for 22,762 offenders, of whom 15,056 were incarcerated.
It will likely come as no surprise to this committee that substance abuse within the offender population is an ongoing problem. Our data indicates that approximately 80% of offenders arrive at federal penitentiaries with a history of substance abuse problems, many of whom have had issues with more than one substance. Equally concerning, it has been determined that drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crimes for which roughly half of the offender population were convicted. This statistic has remained constant over many years.
Within federal penitentiaries, my front-line staff have the responsibility of addressing the serious threat that drugs pose to the safety and security of institutions on a daily basis. Without question, reducing the supply of illicit drugs has been a priority of my organization. Through measures such as drug detector dogs and enhanced security intelligence, CSC has focused on preventing drugs from entering our institutions, and in turn created an environment that is both safer for our staff and inmates as well as more conducive to the effective rehabilitation of offenders.
In addition to initiatives that seek to reduce the supply of drugs, CSC has been equally determined to reduce demand for drugs. To this end, CSC provides drug treatment and substance abuse programs that assist offenders in their rehabilitation and in addressing the criminogenic risk of substance abuse. Indeed, CSC is widely considered to be an international leader with respect to its substance abuse programming and treatment.
Mr. Chair, CSC is certainly capable of providing insight into both illicit drug interdiction and treatment. However, where CSC may be most helpful to this committee is on the subject of actually administering prescription drug delivery in a very challenging institutional environment.
As this committee may be aware, CSC is mandated to provide essential health care services to all federal inmates. As part of this mandate, CSC must ensure that offenders are afforded reasonable access to required prescription medications. As this committee can no doubt imagine, managing the distribution and administration of prescription drugs to a client base of federal inmates presents a unique challenge due to the high risk that offenders pose in terms of abusing these medications.
Given this risk, CSC has created a system that limits the potential for these substances to be abused but maintains a high level of medical care. The most notable element of our policy framework is the Correctional Service of Canada's national formulary. This document, by which all federal penitentiaries must abide, provides a tool to physicians and pharmacists to encourage the selection of optimal and cost-effective medications. The formulary, which is produced by health care professionals and updated twice each year, provides a list of medications that CSC is prepared to provide to federal offenders when medically required.
By extension, any medications that represent a potential risk for an institutional setting are excluded from the formulary, and if that is not possible for medical reasons, restrictions are placed on how the drug is prescribed and administered.
Of particular relevance, the formulary also provides information for specific drugs in terms of available alternatives, how they are to be safely distributed to offenders, in what dosage and in what supply, for what duration, and under what circumstances.
I believe that the means by which CSC safely delivers prescription drugs to federal inmates is of direct relevance to this committee's study. Although consideration for time prevents me from providing specific details regarding these policies in my opening remarks, I'd be pleased to answer any questions this committee may have on this subject.
Thank you, again, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to appear before you today.