Public Safety Committee on Feb. 25th, 2020

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

I can certainly have my office provide the committee with a precise answer. When it comes to statutory release, the bulk of inmates are being released at two-thirds of their sentence. For indigenous people it's over 70% and for non-indigenous people it's slightly over 60%.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

I have one last question, and this isn't referred to in the report. I wonder if you can make a comment.

I have talked to many correctional officers. There is a real concern about solitary confinement not being able to be used as it has in the past and that their tools as far as discipline goes are really being constrained. Do you have any thoughts about this?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

This government brought in new legislation to eliminate solitary confinement as defined by the Nelson Mandela rules or the standard minimum rules for prisoners. The idea was to ensure that inmates are spending at least four hours outside their cells, with the possibility of more human contact. It's a step in the right direction, but I still question whether it's going to be sustainable over time and whether the “due process” protections are sufficient for the loss of liberty and the harsh conditions of confinement that remain, because four hours....

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Dalton.

Mr. Lightbound, you have five minutes, please.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Sikand. He has some important questions to ask.

Mr. Zinger and Ms. Kingsley, thank you very much for coming here and for your report. It's been very helpful and it sheds an interesting light on corrections.

I'd like to hear a specific recommendation regarding terminally ill prisoners and their potential release. I would like to hear your comments on the benefits you have observed in your studies, and more broadly, on the benefits of parole, rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

We produced a report on the matter of inmates aging and dying in prison. This segment of the prison population has been growing in recent years. It is now over 25% of the prison population. These are people aged 50 and over who have many health problems, both physical and mental.

We looked into these issues and interviewed more than 250 incarcerated individuals and other released detainees. We were quite struck by the fact that a segment of the prison population is quite aged, and these inmates are experiencing all kinds of health problems. We are talking about people with Alzheimer's or dementia, people who are terminally ill or need palliative care. We find it difficult to understand why the Correctional Service is not developing a national strategy that would facilitate the transfer of these individuals into the community.

The Correctional Service has consistently told us that one of the problems is the lack of available beds in long-term care facilities or seniors' residences. Our response to Correctional Service is not to try to cope with the number of beds available in the community, but simply to purchase and create spaces. The cost of keeping an aging person is staggering. The cost can be two to four times higher than the norm, which is $120,000 per inmate. You can multiply that by 2 or 4 to find out the cost of keeping someone in an institution. That makes no sense, and I think it's a matter of human dignity. The risk is negligible for these people and, I repeat, it makes no sense.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Sikand has two minutes, and I'm sure, given his usual efficiency, there will be quite a number of questions.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, MP Lightbound.

Thank you, Dr. Zinger.

My apologies for the previous rapid round. Just to close off the first question, and as I was saying, this is a constituent who lives in the riding but works at a corrections facility situated just outside the riding, and it's a women's facility.

As to the effectiveness of the strip searches, what trauma-informed methods would be used if the search of the women were to be replaced with body scanners or other technology?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

I think you allude to the part of the report that.... In an institution where they have this count that gets triggered so that one out of every three women have to be strip-searched coming out of where they see visitors, there's no evidence to show that it has mitigated any sort of risk to the institution with respect to contraband or bringing in drugs.

It is not a process that is done uniformly across the country, and some institutions are ensuring the safety of those women without having to do those searches. We have to be cognizant of the past traumatic events that happened in the lives of those women. Over 80% of these women had been either sexually or physically abused, so strip searches should be done, of course, when there are reasonable grounds to believe that the women have brought in something, but there has to be evidence. It's not proper or ethical to do such random searches.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Sikand.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to continue on this subject specifically to propose that you immediately cancel strip searches, because this practice is not applied uniformly across the country.

Why is it used in some places and not in others? Is this done only after a visit or before to ensure that there is no contraband? Why is it not consistent? What could we actually replace them with?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

In fact, we always have to talk about best practices, which is one of the problems within the Correctional Service, which is a highly decentralized organization. Depending on local situations, some wardens take initiatives. I think it would be important to standardize best practices within the Correctional Service. In my opinion, that is the main issue.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

It could be a matter of providing training on the trauma caused by this type of search.

You also mentioned the transgender people who are incarcerated. Should officers be made more sensitive to this situation and receive more in-depth training on this issue?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Personally, I think training is always important. In my opinion, these kinds of policies that apply as they stand to the entire inmate population are not always the best way to prevent drugs from entering penitentiaries. I think it has to be done on a case-by-case basis and there has to be dynamic security, where correctional officers play a key role in gathering intelligence on the entry of drugs. That's the kind of thing that needs to be promoted, dynamic security as opposed to static security.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Harris, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you. I'll give Dr. Zinger an opportunity to answer my previous question.

Given the direction of the problem of overrepresentation of indigenous persons, have you seen any indication that the recommendations of the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have actually been implemented or had any effect on the situation of indigenous persons in prison, and are they being taken seriously?

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

I can only answer with respect to recommendations that are targeting the criminal justice system, but more specifically corrections.

I can tell you that, in the calls to action as well as the inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women, there were many recommendations that mirrored those of my office. The most important one that I think requires a lot more rethinking and effort is the one I spoke about, which is to shift some of the funding and responsibility for more of those section 81 and section 84 agreements, which would allow the Minister of Public Safety to enter into agreements with indigenous communities and groups for the care, custody or supervision of indigenous people.

In my view, that would be the greatest contribution of the calls to action for corrections. Their contribution should be a huge shift of resources.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thanks for that particular focus.

I want to talk about the issue of support and resources for those on parole in the community. I'm looking at your recommendations 11 and 12 and your discussion about resources allocated in that direction.

Obviously, there were benefits for those being supervised, but are there benefits also for the notion of reintegration into the community being a positive thing, and does that have implications for public safety and risk management as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Answer very briefly, please.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Again, we spend an inordinate amount of funding on incarceration, with returns that are not great. When I talk about indigenous people, when you look at recidivism or reoffending rates of those who come from the prairie region, we're looking at 70% reoffending rates. That certainly has a public safety aspect to it.

It's the job of corrections to ensure that the reoffending rate is the lowest possible. It's not currently that by serving time at Saskatchewan Penitentiary or Stony Mountain Institution, or Edmonton Institution, you are going to be able to address some of those long-standing issues related to mental health, sexual abuse—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Dr. Zinger, we'll have to leave that answer there. Thank you.

[Dr. Ivan Zinger]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Shipley, you have five minutes.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Dr. Zinger, for your report and for being here today.

Your report noted that in 2016-17, there were 8,886 offenders released for community supervision. That is the highest number in the past decade. Why are so many offenders being released?