Every offender is given a correctional plan after intake and assessment. The Correctional Service of Canada prescribes the plans or programs. You have the men and women in the service who are doing those assessments and saying that they think the criminogenic needs of the prisoners will be addressed if the prisoners are in a particular substance abuse or cognitive program.
Offenders understand that successful progress against their correctional plan is what the parole board will be looking at. Of course it is a motivator; it is designed to be a motivator for them to be involved and engaged in those programs.
The problem seems to be getting into the program. Once you are in, completion rates tend to be pretty good, and the core correctional programs that I mentioned—the ones that are being replaced by the ICPM, the integrated correctional program model—have been very well validated. They do have an impact. They are not perfect, but they do have an impact. They have demonstrated their value.
If your question, simply put, is whether some inmates just want to play the game, sure they do. But that's not the general experience. The general experience is that they are prescribed a correctional plan and work to get into those programs. They understand that the parole board will be looking for program completion. We know that most releases from federal penitentiaries now are not as a result of a discretionary release by the parole board; they are a result of statutory release.
Much of the reason for that is that people are waiving and postponing their parole hearings because they have not been able to gain access to the programs, and so they know they are not going to be supported for parole.