Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Last year, the Office of the Correctional Investigator celebrated its 35th anniversary. The office was established in 1973 to strengthen the accountability and oversight of the federal correctional system. The office was given a legislative mandate on November 1, 1992 with the enactment of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.
The office investigates and resolves individual federal offender complaints. As well, it has a responsibility to review and make recommendations on the Correctional Service of Canada's policies and procedures associated with individual complaints. In this way, systemic areas of concern can be identified and appropriately addressed.
The office has 24 staff, and receives between 5,000 and 7,000 offender inquiries and complaints annually. Last year, our investigative staff spent approximately 300 days in federal penitentiaries conducting interviews with more than 2,000 offenders. In addition, our staff met with many other individuals during their penitentiary visits, including wardens, correctional staff, inmate committees, native brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and health care professionals.
Overall, the most common inmate complaints are related to health care, followed by institutional transfers, administrative segregation, and case preparation for conditional release. It should be noted that specific offender complaints related to mental health services are relatively infrequent. However, mental health issues are often a key factor in many complaints received by this office.
For example, offenders may complain about being placed in administrative segregation or transferred into a higher security penitentiary, or having been subject to an unjustified use of force. After investigating, we discover that the placement in administrative segregation or the transfer to a higher security institution or the use of force were the result of a disruptive behaviour due to a pre-existing mental health condition.