We have learned that any treatment program under 90 days for drug-addicted offenders is apt to be ineffective. In Alberta, most of our programs are about 42 days long. About 70% to 80% of our people go through residential treatment, to begin with. They come out of treatment on a high. They think they can do it. But almost immediately they're facing challenges that they never imagined. At that point, we deal very closely with them. Our treatment team sees them once a week. They attend the court at least once a week. We keep them honest by doing frequent and random urine tests to make sure they're staying on board. We reward them when they're doing well. We get them hooked up with 12-step programs, which are important. We connect them with relapse prevention programs in the community and with other outpatient programming. We try to get them back on track. We work to put back in their lives some of the things they've lost, like ID. We try to interest them in education. Some of these people have great potential, but they don't have much education, so we're trying to get them back into the educational system so they can return to the workforce.
On December 8th, 2009. See this statement in context.