What we see particularly with individuals who come into the federal system is that they've gone through the provincial system a number of times before they end up coming our way. Given that our provincial and territorial colleagues, unfortunately, do not have the same suite of programs that we have available, offenders are at first reluctant to become involved in programming.
One of the things I think is worth noting, and the minister alluded to it, is that we take a lot of time and effort doing front-end assessments of offenders. We look at all kinds of social and economic histories, including individuals who may have been using substances, drugs, alcohol, or anything else. We identify in that first 90-day period whether an individual has a substance abuse problem and what programs to get them involved with. At that point our staff, particularly the parole officers, and even our program delivery officers, start to engage the offenders to convince them that it's in their best interest to follow their correctional plan and to participate in those programs.
As time goes on, there's always a cohort in the population who are very deeply entrenched in their criminal behaviour and will not participate in programs. A lot of the security threat groups, or gangs as they're commonly referred to, will resist that, but a lot of inmates, as time goes on, see the benefit of participating in programs. They see the opportunities it provides them in terms of moving to lesser security within the system. They see the opportunities that are available to them in terms of other employment opportunities within the penitentiaries, and they see the opportunities that are available for them in terms of conditional release, such as day parole or full parole.