The Correctional Service of Canada has a number of challenges in terms of meeting the mandate that's been given to it by the government. That mandate has become complicated in recent years because of changes in the population of offenders that are coming into prison being indicators of mental illness, of addiction, gang affiliation, etc., and just compound those issues. Whenever there is a diversion of resources away from doing very specific assessment and program planning and program development, and if that diversion goes more into the security side of the business, the imbalance that we already see in terms of the resources being made available for the Correctional Service to deliver on its twin mandate of safe and secure custody but also timely and safe release just grows. Most of the money spent in corrections right now is not spent on programs. A very small percentage is spent on program interventions.
You had asked earlier about public safety implications. Of course, we can only speculate, but when we see a diversion of resources away from treatment interventions, program interventions, supervision interventions, then we know we're going to undermine the way the system was designed to work. The best chance for success is gradual release under supervision in the community. We know that those offenders who benefit from proper program interventions delivered at the appropriate time, and then get the benefit of conditional release and spend time under the supervision of a parole officer in the community, are the offenders who return to crime much less frequently and have the greatest success. You want to make sure that you don't undermine that.