I would certainly put more money into mental health assessment and treatment, and I would put more money into core correctional programs.
Correctional Service Canada does a good job of assessing need. Unfortunately, it doesn't always follow through on that careful assessment with the timely delivery of programs. We know this because increasingly we're seeing offenders requesting transfer from one institution or another just to access programs. We see offenders being asked to waive or postpone parole board hearings because they had not been able to get into programs. We see the parole board denying conditional release because offenders have not made sufficient progress on the correctional plan because there wasn't the capacity to deliver programs.
Having developed good programs and having developed good assessment skills, my emphasis would then be on actually building the capacity to deliver the programs.
