Evidence of meeting #10 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was inmates.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Marie-Claude Morin NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
If the inmate population increases, will all inmates who want to turn their lives around have access to drug treatment and rehabilitation programs?
12:05 p.m.
As an Individual
I don't know, specifically, the answer to that question. I shouldn't be talking about Bill C-10, which I've not read. It's going to increase the prison population, or some people believe it is. I don't know if that's true or not. Again, I don't know. I'm not working in a correctional facility. I don't know if all inmates are going to have access to rehab programs. That would be my wish. I would like to see that happen, and I'd like to see the government move in that direction.
I know there are some available in the Whitehorse Correctional Centre. I don't know what it's like in the federal penitentiaries. I also worked in Alberta for quite a number of years and in the Northwest Territories. There are small correctional facilities there, and there were programs available. But to say it's going to be available to all inmates at all times, I don't know. I don't have the answer to that question. But I know there are programs available.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to you witnesses for being here and sharing your personal experiences. I can only imagine how difficult they are.
I was 30 years with the Ontario Provincial Police, so I have some knowledge of the criminal justice system.
Mr. Putnam, you asked whether we could do more. Well, we can always do more, but it never seems to be enough no matter what you do, whether you're in government or anywhere else.
I'd like you to comment on the situation today versus 20 or 30 years ago, regarding addiction programs in our institutions. I understand there are territorial and provincial institutions involved and that we're basically dealing with federal ones. But would you say that programs for inmates today are much better than they were 20 or 30 years ago?
12:10 p.m.
As an Individual
I would agree with that totally. Back in those days, as I recall, there wasn't much happening. I see programs happening today. As you said, we never do enough, but we do try to move forward. I agree with your statement.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Looking at before versus today, would you agree that the abuses we had 20 to 30 years ago tended to be primarily with alcohol? The percentage of people going into our prisons was probably the same for those affected by substance, but it was more concentrated on alcohol than it is today. Now we face a combination of alcohol and drugs.
I also wanted to look at the types of drugs that the young and not-so-young folks are taking today. With alcohol you can have one, two, or three beers two or three times a month and you're not addicted. But two or three experiences with crack cocaine usually, if not always, leads to an addiction. Certain other drugs lead to almost immediate addiction because of the power and the psychological effect of the drug. Would you agree with me on that, and if you have any experiences, could you tell us about them?
12:10 p.m.
As an Individual
Back in the day, there was marijuana, heroin, LSD, and these types of drugs. Heroin was usually set aside for the skid row heroin addict. There was marijuana. Alcohol was always there. You would see, working with young people and older people as well, that people might have a couple of drinks a week and carry on with their lives. They might have a couple of drinks a day and carry on with their lives. Today, though, you will rarely see a person staying at those levels for long.
I've seen many young people get into drugs. Their whole attitude changes. Their deportment changes. Their appearance changes. Their whole lifestyle goes downhill rapidly. You always hear of parents who talk about their child in grade 10 or 11 who was doing great in school and playing sports, but who got into drugs and the next year quit sports and fell to barely getting by.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Sylvain Chicoine NDP Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to both of you. Thank you for coming and sharing with us your very harrowing experiences.
I will start with Mr. Van De Mortel. Your experience was due to inmates having drunk an alcohol that had been brewed inside the institution, probably with a still or something like that. Could something have prevented this incident? For example, could you have discovered it earlier? What could have prevented this from happening to you?
12:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes, if we were able to catch it on the search, get rid of the brew, obviously that would have prevented the incident.
Sorry, what was the second part of the question?
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Sylvain Chicoine NDP Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
That was the only part. I wanted to know if more frequent searches would have revealed the problem. I don't know much about stills. Generally, are they kept inside the cells?
12:15 p.m.
As an Individual
They come up with some pretty good hiding places. It can be in the toilet, in the back of the toilet, in garbage bags, just hidden amongst stuff. It's all over the place, and it is nasty stuff. It does take a lot of time and it takes a lot of effort. These are conscious decisions. These aren't addicts needing their fix right now. This is a conscious decision over a period of a couple of weeks, fixing this brew, waiting for it to get ready, and then consciously drinking it. There's a lot of effort put into doing that.
In our situation in Whitehorse, a lot of times we're understaffed, so searches are hard to do as much as we would like to, which is why it could have been missed.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Sylvain Chicoine NDP Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Thank you. I understand better.
You say it takes weeks. Therefore, there are various areas where the cells aren't searched for weeks. If it takes weeks to produce alcohol, I suppose that the cells aren't searched very often.
12:15 p.m.
As an Individual
We try to search them as often as we can, but as I said, our manpower right now is low, so we don't get as many searches in as we want to. We would love to go through every unit at least twice a week, just go right through, but it disrupts everything in the facility for that day. It takes extra officers on the floor, and you've got to move all the inmates out of the unit so you can go there and do a proper search. As I said, right now manpower is the big issue with that.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Sylvain Chicoine NDP Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Could you also talk about your experience with people who don't want to get back on track. Some witnesses, in other committees, have told us that about 20% of criminals arriving in the penitentiary have no wish whatsoever to try to get over their addiction problem.
How do you do the screening, inside the penitentiaries? I suppose these 20% are separated from the other 80% who wish to change and make the necessary efforts. Do you think that the screening, or the way that the penitentiary wings are divided, is satisfactory?
12:15 p.m.
As an Individual
It's hard to determine who wants to and who doesn't want to. You've got to get them clear off the drugs and stuff first in order for them to actually make the clear decision as to whether they really want to stay off them and move forward with their lives.
When we have certain inmates who continually try to bring drugs in or are continually smoking to get high and getting caught, we do separate them. We do put them in celled units where they do get locked down at night, rather than having a dorm where they're up and free during nights. We do what we can to separate those, I guess, problematic inmates from those who aren't.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Sylvain Chicoine NDP Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
So it's difficult to sort out the inmates. In the beginning, I would think there are assessments, but even those don't really make it easy to find out who truly wants to get over their addiction. I guess, since it's always the same people who come back, that there is a core group made up of those 20% of hardened criminals, who maybe more often come from street gangs or criminal gangs.
How do you proceed? Are members of these gangs sent to other wings of the penitentiary? I guess these are the people who want to have drugs brought in. They are your hardened criminals, I think. That's how I see things, but that might not be the case. I would like to hear your thoughts about that. Is it possible to separate members of criminal gangs from the other inmates, the first-timers? Is it difficult to separate the inmate population in such a way?
12:20 p.m.
As an Individual
When we do initially bring them in, and we do have the ones who repeat, we do know their history, especially with us, since it's a small community. We do keep them separate. We do keep them in the celled units rather than in the dorms with the general population.
We do our best to keep first-timers separate and on their own, to see how they're going to react before we move them, integrate them into the general population and other areas.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, sir.
We'll now move back to Mr. Leef, please, for five minutes.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
I'll move through some of these questions rather quickly. They're predominantly for Mr. Van De Mortel.
I think Mr. Putnam said in his statement that a lot of people are unaware of the environment and the things that go on behind the walls of a correctional facility. Certainly members of this committee got an experience with that last week.
I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that in direct supervision, which you talked about, they have activities and programs being run and developed by the officers. They have television access, Xbox games, and those sorts of things.
Would it be fair to say that when they're in those units and environments, they're not bored?
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Then we wouldn't attribute use of alcohol and drugs in the environment boiling down to a simple issue of boredom and a lack of things to do.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
In talking about searches and your opportunities, you talked about staffing levels.
On a different perspective, would you say there is a degree of personal entitlement that resonates with the inmates and creates a rift when officers want to come in and search a unit? They feel entitled to their space and their cell, they don't want you searching, and that creates conflict between inmates and officers. That may also contribute to some officers not wanting to search or those searches being reduced because of that level of entitlement. Would that be a fair comment?