I started my career as a parole officer 35 years ago. I worked both in the institutions and in the community, and it was among the best jobs I have had.
Certainly as a community parole officer, frequency of contact, which is mentioned by the Auditor General, is one key element among many elements that comprise the community supervision framework. Frequency of contact is established when the offender is released into the community. It's based on the offender's risks and needs. That's how you establish whether you're going to see the offender eight times a month, four times a month, twice a month, once a month. Sometimes when they have been in the community for a long time, it's more sporadic.
There are other elements to community supervision. Almost 3,000 offenders in the community are residing in community-based residential facilities. When you reside in what we call a halfway house, you are seen on a daily basis by the people who work in the halfway house. There are other things in place in the community as part of the community supervision framework. Normally the offender has to report to the police so they are seen by the police. We also have electronic monitoring in the community to assist in supervising the offenders.
Offenders in the community are also expected to participate in community maintenance programs, which means they are seen by program officers. Many offenders also have to see a psychologist as a special condition, which means they are seen by a mental health professional. Many offenders also go to work. We also reach out to their family. In some cases, we do urinalysis testing with the offenders, and we do curfew checks. As you can see, community supervision includes a lot of elements.
When the Auditor General looked, frequency of contact is supposed to be documented in a certain place in the casework records. That's not always done. I fully admit we need to be better at documenting.
The other thing is frequency of contact. The offender is continuously assessed, so frequency of contact can change. When released, an offender may be seen by the parole officer four times a month, based on their progress it may be reduced to twice a month. That needs to be clearly documented. Otherwise, the auditors are going to look for four contacts a month and not two. That's something else we need to document.
There are times where it's impossible for the parole officer to see an offender. The Auditor General has raised this, and he has talked to us about it. For example, there was a forest fire in a community, and the parole officer couldn't speak to an offender. The parole officer in that case clearly documented that in the casework record, and the Auditor General's Office accepted that. These are the things we need to do.