Evidence of meeting #9 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was gang.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Mr. Bonnefoy, have any of your corrections staff been threatened or in some other way intimidated?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
Yes, we have had staff threatened, but we have an employee protection protocol and we have policy to help our staff to understand what to do in the event that they're threatened.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Has that been just within the institution, or in their home settings or community settings?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
I'm not aware of anything outside of the institution.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Do you normally lay charges when there's that kind of intimidation?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
Within the institution?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
Yes, if it warrants criminal charges. We work very closely with our local RCMP detachment.
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
I don't have an exact date for you. We started Pathways approximately 10 years ago.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
How successful has it been, or do you have a monitoring system in place?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
We do have a monitoring tool, and it has been very successful. It is one of our key tools to give offenders an opportunity to disaffiliate from street gangs--
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I'm sorry for interrupting, but is it specifically geared just to the aboriginal community, or is it broader than that?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
It is geared towards the aboriginal community. It's based on an aboriginal holistic model, but other offenders who are not aboriginal are able and welcome to participate in the programming and the initiative as well. It's been effective for aboriginal offenders and non-aboriginal offenders.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
In terms of no recidivism or at least disaffiliation from the gangs, do you have any percentage numbers or absolute numbers?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
I don't have numbers in front of me right now. We can get you those numbers, but I do know, for example, this last fiscal year we had transfers to minimum security and transfers to healing lodge. We had 119 the previous year and we had 145 this year, so we continue to see success in that regard.
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Do you track the prisoners after their release who have come out of that program?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
Yes. As a service we track statistics for a certain amount of time post warrant expiry.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
In terms of disaffiliation, can you give us any numbers as to how successful it's been?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
I can't comment on that right now. I don't have those numbers with me, but we'd be happy to try to get those for you.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
I'm left with the impression from your brief and the comments you made, if I understand, that if individual prisoners are identified as being part of a gang, they are kept together, and then the gangs are kept apart. Is that how it's working?
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
Locally, as I said, it's a really rapidly changing environment and that is why we use an intelligence-led risk management approach. We are continually gathering information, and we try to make sure we mitigate the risk that criminal organizations present in our institutions. So we do have certain groups that are kept apart from other groups because they are unable to get along together and they provide a safety risk to each other and to other inmates.
Warden, Stony Mountain Institution, Correctional Service Canada
Yes. There are some groups that are kept together. That is part of our population management. We keep certain groups together because they can't get along with any other groups. We also want to minimize their impact as far as the drug trade and recruiting are concerned, the impact on other offenders as well.
Conservative
