Evidence of meeting #5 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 treatment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Would you say there might be a point of diminishing returns, that we could continue to apply resources to interdiction and we might still find ourselves at some, what I would call, small percentage of the 5% to 7% rate—
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
—and that further expenditures in that area might not produce any further benefits in terms of interdiction?
12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
Sure, but that's why we have 109 recommendations in our report dealing with the whole basket of challenges facing Corrections, one of which is drugs. I think I was quite clear when we issued the report, and the panel encouraged me to say this as the chair, that it's a fulsome 109. We didn't offer Corrections or the government a buffet to select from one item to the other, but we believe that all 109 need to be delivered on at some point, and dollars would be attached to a large chunk of those to get the kind of vision of public safety we saw when we presented that report.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Would it be safe to say that you agree with all our witnesses who have appeared so far that it's a balanced approach between interdiction and reduction of demand that would solve our problem here?
12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
Interdiction is critical because without interdiction you're not going to have effective programming in institutions. Right now, you have people attending—I'll say that word again, “attending”—drug addiction programs and then going back and shooting up in their cells. Why? Because they were able to get access to it. Drugs in the institution are also now, given the increasing profile of gangs in institutions, causing problems in maintaining security in institutions because the gangs are using drugs to basically recruit and hold onto gang members within the institution itself and outside.
I think all need to be done together. Balance, I think, is probably a fair word, but you should never take your eye off the ball—7%, 6%, 5%, 4% is still, in my view, a failure.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Mr. Sampson and Mr. Garrison.
I will now move to Mr. Norlock for seven minutes.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses, thank you very much for attending today.
I'm going to ask for some reasonably short responses. I know how difficult that may be. After listening to both groups of witnesses speak, I think what we really desire here, in the simplest form, are behavioural changes. I think when we're talking about interaction with society and dealing with yourself--because drugs are an offence against yourself before anybody else--it's a degree of self-control. I think Mr. Sampson to a certain degree talked about self-control and the ability to control yourself in many ways. That's what a civil society does; we control ourselves.
What we want is positive self-reliance. Therefore, my question is how the state or you as volunteering individuals, and preferably collectively, inculcate or even encourage that kind of self-reliance and responsibility under the current system we have. Let's prioritize. What are the two or three things that you would like to see increased or enhanced, or not done, in our current prison systems?
12:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Prison Fellowship Canada
I think primary would be to address the programming that is currently excellent, as I understand it, in an integrated way for the individual. A person is not a family dysfunctional person for six months and then another six months later a drug-addicted person and then six months later.... People have a multiplicity of issues, and they need to be addressed as an individual with those issues integrated.
The difficulty in examining programs is that they really can only be effectively examined in their success rate by how much behavioural change has actually occurred. If we are designing programs that can only address one small aspect of several aspects, we need to redesign our programming and perhaps our prison geography to allow for integrated programming, an environment in which people are not afraid to take programming that will lead to behavioural change.
Second, environmentally, we've advocated for attempting to look at the Grande Cache pilot or other similar facilities where the environment could be altered. If you are two hours in a program, once a week, every week, and you then go back to the general population where you must protect yourself, where you can't deal with the things that have been opened up in that two-hour programming, you will continue to build the barriers 24/7, except for that two hours. It is not a safe place in a prison to exhibit behavioural change and/or, as someone might perceive it, weakness. We think that the environment for those who indicate can be reviewed, perhaps in the way that Paul Abbass does for his own programming; that people can be selected to enter alternative environments within a prison system perhaps, a wing of a prison, and that actual change can occur, so that the person with those multiple issues is coming back into society with a chance of actually integrating into society.
Third, there needs to be a continuum. You don't put a person who has experienced behavioural change inside a prison into a community without any supports. So rather than identifying a person's housing and social welfare cheque, which of course is necessary, you identify what that person needs to succeed. You put that in place and then you put the other supports around that in a community.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
I'm not going to give you one recommendation; I'm going to give you 109. But I'm going to try to boil it down. I think your question is what the state's role is. I think the state's role is to provide the opportunity.
I've probably been in more correctional institutions than anyone in this room, maybe all of you together--all voluntarily, I must admit. That includes in Canada, provincial, federal, in the U.S., in Europe. I came across a superintendent of a youth facility in the U.S. and I asked him what his role was as superintendent of this particular institution. He said, “My job is to give that second chance to the guy who never had it the first time. When they come looking for the third and fourth chance, they can wait in line behind the guy who still hasn't had a second chance. My job is to give him a second chance.”
I think, to boil the state's responsibility down into a very simple phrase--it's far more complex than that--it's to provide the opportunity for the inmate or the individual to change their life. That means, taking a look at this report, the physical environment to do that. Most of your institutions were built before we were born, when there was a single population with not a lot of problems. Gangs were the guys outside, not the guys inside. There weren't these huge complex issues facing individuals. The institutions are simply not designed to do what Ms. Clitheroe spoke to, to give a guy time to go back to his cell as a safe environment and live what he learned in the two hours in class. They're just not built that way anymore.
I can go on--I'll ask you to take a look at the 109 recommendations--but government's job is to provide that opportunity.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
Very good.
I'll ask this to Mr. Sampson, but it's based on what Ms. Clitheroe said, and based on the facts. If 70% of the inmates within the federal institutions have a drug problem, given that some of the 70% probably have less of a drug problem or are easier to rehabilitate.... Let's take the bottom of the 70%, the worst 40%. Mr. Sampson probably knows the numbers. I forget the number of people in our federal institutions. But I suspect that 40% of those people.... And then you want to give them a safe place in which to live and get healthy. I guess I would have to ask if there is a reasonable ability for the state to provide that, given that the state has limited funds with which to do so.
You know, we all want, those of us who are believers, to get to heaven, but sometimes getting to heaven, given the world we live in, is a more difficult thing than some of us are able to do.
Mr. Sampson, if nirvana is being able to provide the 40% with the kind of treatment they need, is that at all possible, given the resources the state has? What are your thoughts on that?
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Unfortunately, Mr. Sampson, we're going to have to wait for your thoughts on that, because Mr. Norlock took up the extra time.
We're going to go back to Mr. Hsu, please, for seven minutes.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to start out with a question to Ms. Clitheroe. I'd like to understand the economics of how drugs get into prisons. We've talked about the demand side and about interdiction, which is like a tax on the transaction. What about the supply? What is to be gained by somebody going to the trouble of bringing drugs into a prison? What is the currency that is used in the transaction? I want to understand the supply side of how drugs get into prison, the economics of how drugs get into prisons.
Can you help me with that?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Prison Fellowship Canada
Is your question why someone would bring drugs into prison, what the economics are of bringing drugs into prison for those who are throwing it over the wall, the family member or whoever is bringing it in?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Prison Fellowship Canada
I think it varies from individual to individual. Certainly on an anecdotal basis there's great profitability in taking what would be an average street supply and putting it into a very limited demand-supply situation.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
But prisoners don't have any currency to pay for it. How does that work?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Prison Fellowship Canada
Do you want to speak to that?
12:45 p.m.
Director, Prison Fellowship Canada
Well, there really is lots of currency that a person has. They're trading all kinds of different contraband. It's not only alcohol and drugs or pills or whatever that is coming into the system illegally. There is all kinds of contraband available, and it's traded fairly freely in the system.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
That's in the system. But what I'm trying to understand is what the person who brings the drugs into the system comes away with. In what does the supplier of the drugs from the outside get paid? What is the benefit?
Do you see what I mean?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Prison Fellowship Canada
It can be paid in cash; it can be paid by some arrangement of group or gang activity; it—
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
You are saying that somebody in a gang outside of the prison will pay somebody to bring drugs in for their....
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Prison Fellowship Canada
That person will be released one day; there will be debts owing.... It can be any number of economic advantages. It doesn't have to be cash. It could be protection; it could be debts owed.