Sure.
One of the first observations I want to make, and I guess it's a little bit off the side but it's related to your question, is this. About 80% of the folks we have in prison actually have substance abuse problems. There's another big chunk that have mental health problems. A lot of them are interrelated. A lot of these people would not be in prisons if we had adequate health responses in the community, whether they be mental health or otherwise, but I guess that's not the case right now, and we have to deal with them at that level. Also, I think it gives the lie to those who say drugs are not a problem in the community, because obviously if you have 80% of your people with substance abuse problems in prison, there's clearly a link between substance abuse and criminal activity that's far higher than.... You don't have 80% of the general population with substance abuse problems, so there's clearly a link there. That's something we should be concerned with. We have problems with illicit drugs in prisons. That has been something that was identified in the transformation study by Mr. Sampson.
Correctional Service has been moving, with the support of our national drug strategy, to implement new instruments to help them control that. We have X-ray machines, ion scanners, itemizers, and increased use of drug dogs, and a tip line was established. All these things are helping. I know from my correspondence that people actually are complaining about the ion scanners detecting drugs on their clothes. They say they didn't have drugs with them, but the way these things work is that, if you've been in contact with drugs in the past couple of days, the ion scanners will pick them up. So clearly they're working.
It's like fighting crime. Will we ever solve the problem entirely? That's something to be hoped for. But any improvement will certainly help make the prisons safer for the staff who work there, which is important, and also I think improves the prospects for rehabilitation and recovery, because if you get the drugs out of prisons, you change a bit of that cycle of substance abuse and you also take away some of that underground activity that takes place within a prison, which perpetuates criminal associations, gang activity, and the like. So for that reason it is an important priority, and we hope to see results over time. This is still just beginning to be rolled out. Technology is still being introduced in prisons, and we hope it will make a big difference.
There's another side to it as well, which we're also addressing through the transformation exercise. Again, it is that issue of treatment and improving the treatment we're giving to those who are in the prisons. Where there is a big gap, I think, is actually where they're released into the community. That's where we really need to provide a lot more support.