We found that the challenge the Correctional Service has in offering its culturally specific programs, which it has developed and has found to be effective, is the low number of women offenders in some of its institutions. The majority of indigenous offenders are in the prairie provinces, and in its other regional institutions there are small numbers of indigenous offenders. Therefore, they have a challenge in having enough offenders ready to start a program at one time, so they may opt to take the general stream of correctional programming so that they can get it sooner.
We've made recommendations to CSC to come up with some options so that they can provide the programs to indigenous women who are interested in taking them.