Thank you. I appreciate that, because it's a very interesting list of issues raised by your colleague.
I never want to be misunderstood about my commitment to or support of the Correctional Service of Canada and dynamic security, and the fact that dynamic security is the best form of security in running a prison. It's the safest form of security in a prison. Dynamic security is in fact all those things you talked about in terms of the positive interaction between front-line correctional officers and inmates. When it works well, it works very well. In fact, if I had had my wits about me when your colleague asked about institutions being safe or not, I would have mentioned that when dynamic security works well, when it's in place, when it's well reinforced and modelled from the top down, you have very safe institutions. I think we should be clear about that.
Needle exchange is one type of harm reduction. There are lots of other types of harm reduction. Needle exchange was studied in Canada for correctional use by the Public Health Agency of Canada in their 2006 report. In 2006 the Minister of Health wrote me suggesting that they were particularly concerned with needle exchange programs and understood the relationship between needle exchange and reduction of infectious disease. Obviously that has to be balanced against other security and operational concerns.
On safety, I've spent a lot of my adult life going in and out of prisons and jails in Canada and other places, and I can tell you that what correctional officers and other staff tell me they're more concerned about is not the presence or absence of needles, particularly when there's a needle exchange. What they're worried about is the random placement of secreted needles when they're doing searches. In fact, European studies have indicated that institutions are more safe with needle exchange and less safe without needle exchange, just for that reason. It's easier to hurt yourself accidentally coming across a secreted needle than you are in a situation where it’s in an identified place. Also, keep in mind that no needle exchange program is pervasive across all prisons in the whole system. Needle exchanges are highly localized, very specialized, and well supervised.
That being said, I have just one very quick reflection on gang messaging through tattooing. Illicit tattooing is part of gang messaging and gang membership. Supervised tattooing is not. What I was referring to were the supervised safer tattooing initiatives piloted by the Correctional Service of Canada, where a prisoner would not have been inked with a gang symbol. It's the underground tattooing that is problematic.