We looked to see if CSC itself had evaluated the effectiveness of the programs. They had conducted recent evaluations of their general stream of correctional programs, as well as their specialized programs for aboriginal women. For the general stream of programs, they looked primarily to see their impact on reoffending, that is, whether women returned, once they were released into the community. They found that the programs didn't have a significant impact; however, for aboriginal women, they did have an impact.
A key challenge for CSC is that women do not tend to reoffend. They have a very low rate of reoffending once released, so the impact of these programs was very hard to identify. What we call for in our report is for CSC to evaluate how well these programs target the risk factors, for example substance misuse, which, for women offenders, is identified as a high criminogenic need. It's a factor that can lead to reoffending.
How well do the programs themselves address those? That's the primary way that we saw women offenders get treatment for substance abuse or sexual abuse. They're multi-targeted programs, and CSC needs to assess how well those programs address those specific risk factors.
Another thing we pointed out was that they should have a hand-off to the community. We saw that many women were staying in custody once they had completed their correctional programs in order to get access to counselling. That counselling could be provided in the community, and CSC research has also shown that it is much more effective in the community than in custody.