Thank you.
The Correctional Service is mandated by law to provide programs and interventions that address factors related to an offender's risk of reoffending. The act stipulates that the Correctional Service must provide a range of programs designed to address the needs of offenders and contribute to their successful reintegration. The act also includes specific provisions for the delivery of programs to women and aboriginal offenders.
From a series of evaluation reports we know that correctional programs work in contributing to public safety and are a good value for money.
Offenders who complete their programs are significantly more likely to be granted a discretionary release and are less likely to reoffend following their release. In terms of value, internal CSC documentation suggests that for every dollar the service spends on correctional programs it saves, on average, $4 in avoided incarceration costs.
Programs address a number of important issues that when dealt with can significantly reduce the risk of re-offending. The Correctional Service offers numerous very good programs, including in the areas of sex offenders, anger management, family violence and substance abuse.
In terms of addiction issues, about four out of five offenders now arrive at a federal institution with a serious substance abuse problem, with one out of two having committed their crime under the influence of drugs, alcohol or other intoxicants.
The main problem with programming is access. The Correctional Service allocates only 2% of its total annual budget to offender programming. Currently, the service spends $37 million annually on all its core correctional programs (including for women and aboriginals). The program funding envelope, which has remained stable over the last decade, includes training, quality control, management and administrative costs. We do not think 2% of an over $2 billion annual budget is enough. The Correctional Service has indicated to us that it hopes in the next fiscal year to reallocate a significant portion of the $48 million it anticipates receiving as part of its Strategic Review initiative to core programming. We look forward to seeing more programs being provided to more offenders as this reallocation rolls out.
The most recent investments dealing with drugs and addiction in penitentiaries have been limited to interdiction initiatives. In August 2008, the Minister of Public Safety announced a five-year $120 million investment in the CSC's Drug Strategy. All funding went to interdiction initiatives, including drug detector dog teams, increase in security intelligence capacity, ION scanners and X-Ray machines. No new funding was allocated to treatment programs for addiction or harm reduction initiatives.
Drug interdiction alone can only go so far in addressing addiction issues and the spread of infectious diseases. Over the last five years (2004/05 to 2008/09), the Correctional Service has spent significantly more time and money on efforts to prevent drugs from entering its institutions. A measure of the success of these efforts is the percentage of positive urinalysis samples, which indicate drug use. Institutional random urinalysis has shown that drug use declined by one percentage point in the last five years. In the last fiscal year (2008/2009), the rate of positive samples was 10.8% (889 positives out of 7,543 urinalysis samples taken in CSC institutions). Five years earlier, it was 11.8%.
For now, offenders have to contend with long waiting lists for programs, cancelled programs because of insufficient funding or lack of trained facilitators; delayed conditional release because of the service’s inability to provide timely programs they require to complete their correctional plans; and longer time served before parole consideration. The situation is becoming critical as more and more offenders are released later in their sentences, and too often having not received the necessary programs and treatment to increase their chance of success in the community.
Thank you.