Public Accounts Committee on April 17th, 2018

[Carol McCalla]

I would add that public safety is absolutely the number one priority. CSC research has repeatedly demonstrated that parole supervision—and a long time of parole supervision, the maximum amount of time under supervision in the community—has the best results in terms of public safety.

The decision as to whether an offender is ready to be safely released into the community belongs to the Parole Board. Our argument, in this report, is that CSC needs to do more to prepare those offenders in a timely manner for presentation to the Parole Board, where the Parole Board can ultimately make the decision whether it's safe for them to be released.

The reason we have so many recommendations is that it is a complex process. We looked at all the different gate points in the process, up to the preparation for the Parole Board hearing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Lefebvre.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was actually going to go that route in my questions for the Auditor General, but you went there, so I will change my line of questioning.

If you can take your notes, Ms. Kelly, I just have one quick question on them. On page 8, the first full sentence is “Unless exceptional circumstances exist, pregnant women, inmates with significant mobility impairments and inmates in palliative care will also not be admitted to administrative segregation.” I was just curious as to when exceptional circumstances exist. Can you provide me with examples of these exceptional circumstances when pregnant women or women in palliative care could be subject to segregation?

[Anne Kelly]

First of all, there is another part to this, that if any of these offenders are placed in segregation at the first-day review, then they need to be released from seg. However, it could happen that, for example, a serious incident occurs on a Friday night. It would probably happen less with women, because we don't have many women in segregation, but we are talking about women today.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Yes, it's part of your speech. That's why I asked about it.

[Anne Kelly]

If something happens on a Friday and they need to determine the reasons for the incident, they may place somebody in seg, but at the first-day review the case needs to be reviewed and those offenders need to be released from segregation. That's the part that's missing. That's in our policy.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

So, from what I understand, if it's a Friday, then they're looking at possibly two or more days in segregation. Is that what you're saying?

[Anne Kelly]

Yes.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Is that something that has been studied? Is it effective, or is it just because, administratively, internally, you can't do it any other way because you work only five days a week and on Saturdays and Sundays you can't make that determination? They live there seven days a week. They don't have a Monday-to-Friday week. They're there seven days a week.

[Anne Kelly]

Yes.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

I'm asking you tough questions.

Again, I know you wrote the speech or someone wrote the speech with you. I'm just curious.

[Anne Kelly]

No, for—

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

It's shocking to us, seeing that pregnant women and people in palliative care can be subject to segregation.

You're saying that you're doing everything to stop that and get away from that, but you're saying “exceptional circumstances”. What are these exceptional circumstances? I would beg to differ and say that there should not be any.

I'm just throwing that out there.

[Anne Kelly]

It's a fair question.

With regard to the issue of segregation, this is something that's been occupying a lot of our time and attention. A lot of effort has gone into reducing the number of offenders in segregation. Again, there's been a lot of progress in improving the conditions of confinement, and we continue on this path.

In terms of women offenders, on average, it's usually four, but there are some days where there are no women in segregation. That happens quite often, actually.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

All right. I was just curious about that sentence. That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Are there people in segregation for their own safety and well-being? Are they being placed in administrative segregation because there is a threat to them?

[Anne Kelly]

Absolutely. There are a number of reasons why somebody could be placed in segregation. One is, for example, when we receive a threat that somebody is going to kill a particular offender. Until we do an investigation and find out what's happening, yes, some offenders are placed there for their own safety. Some actually request to be placed in segregation for their own safety.

Another, more generally, is when we have a serious incident where there's potentially a stabbing. We need to separate the parties. Normally, we place them in segregation. Our security intelligence officers then do an investigation, a review, to find out what's happening so that we can safely return them to the population. Are there any incompatibility issues? What's the situation?

Segregation is a complex issue. Again, it has certainly taken up a lot of our time, focus, attention, and efforts. Again, the numbers speak for themselves in terms of the progress that's been made.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

To our Auditor General, you talk about segregation in the audit. Is there a differentiation between those who are moved into segregation for disciplinary reasons and others who are being placed there for their own well-being?

[Michael Ferguson]

Yes. I'll ask Ms. McCalla to provide the details, but our concern, particularly in this case, is with the women who are at risk of harming themselves or committing suicide.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mental health issues....

[Michael Ferguson]

They need to be monitored. That's one group of women, let's say. There is another group of women who, because there is an incident, perhaps are at risk because somebody has threatened them and they need to be protected. Then I suppose you have another group, which might be the people who are doing the threatening. They can end up in segregation.

We have all three of those. When I say segregation, I mean cells in the segregation range. They aren't all necessarily treated the same way; at least that's my understanding.

As Ms. Kelly just mentioned, I think part of the issue is about understanding the conditions. To me, what the environment of segregation should be for somebody who is threatening all of the other inmates would be very different from, let's say, that for a pregnant women who needs to be segregated because somebody is threatening her.

If the environment is pretty much the same, if the type of cells they end up in are pretty much the same.... It's the conditions. I think we mentioned that, particularly with regard to the mental health issue. Yes, they need to be monitored, but they are being monitored in cells in the segregation range. That's not a clinical environment for people who need to be monitored from a clinical point of view.

I'll ask Ms. McCalla to correct anything I said that was not right, or to add anything else that needs to be added.

[Carol McCalla]

There is no need for me to say anything.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead, Ms. McCalla.

[Carol McCalla]

We found that CSC had reduced its use of segregation, so the number of placements in segregation had decreased over the three years that we looked at. Under the CCRA segregation legislation, there are very strict requirements to segregate. Primarily, it deals with the safety of the offender or the safety of others.

We focused on the segregation of offenders identified with mental health issues, following the Ashley Smith inquiry, where CSC had committed to restrict its use of segregation for those with mental health issues. In our audit, we took a sample of women offenders identified with serious mental health issues, and we found that a significant portion of them had been segregated, some of them for longer than 15 days.

In response to that, CSC has updated its policy to prohibit the segregation of women offenders with serious mental health issues and significant impairment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead, Ms. Kelly.