Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to what I would call an omnibus resolution which certainly covers a plethora of criminal items. However I would like to concentrate my remarks on the subject of correctional facilities. It is after all perhaps the most high profile, most expensive and in many ways most important feature of our correctional system today.
As hon. members know, we have a great variety of correctional facilities operated by both levels of government, the provinces and the federal government, and in some cases by the voluntary sector. At the federal level we have institutions varied by security level: maximum, medium and minimum security levels. In addition Correctional Service Canada operates halfway houses called community correctional centres and contracts with the voluntary sector to operate other halfway houses called community residential facilities.
This was not always the case. Until about 1960 the system consisted of nine Gothic maximum security institutions built decades ago. Some of those structures are still with us today. However it was realized that the vast array of individual differences among offenders required an array of correctional approaches if the system was to achieve its fundamental principal purpose, that of protecting the public.
Public protection requires safe and secure custody which I can assure hon. members is well achieved by today's system of institutions and inmate classifications. It also requires programming that prepares offenders for their eventual release back into society and conducts that release in a careful and gradual manner. This too is achieved very successfully today.
The variety of institutional styles that exist allow for placement of offenders at the security level and with access to the correctional programs they require. By providing programs such as anger management, substance abuse reduction, psychiatric treatment and counselling, offenders can be helped to overcome the factors that caused them to adapt criminal patterns in the first place. They can be tested and observed to ensure that they are overcoming these factors. They can be carefully supervised as they move from prison back into the community.
We often hear about initiatives in other countries to privatize correctional institutions. This is not a course of action that has been adopted by the federal government. Nor does available evidence about the experience in other countries justify doing so. However it is often not realized to what extent we already have partnerships with the private voluntary sector.
Through arrangements with organizations such as the Salvation Army, the John Howard Society, the St. Leonard's Society and many others a network of halfway houses is operated to supervise and assist offenders as they make their first important steps back into the community.
Some may say we should not be releasing offenders into the community as freely as they allege we do. I ask them if it would be better to hold those offenders until the very last day of their sentences and then thrust them back on the community anonymously, without supervision, support or controls. I submit that we in Canada have chosen a better way, gradual release with conditions, supervision and assistance after a careful assessment of risk.
Almost all offenders will return to the community. Our system of justice demands it. After serving prescribed sentences most offenders must be returned to the community. We have little choice about that. The choice we have is how that release will take place and how it can be made as safe as possible, not just for the immediate future but for the long term. Treatment, risk assessment, careful release planning and graduated movement through several security levels and then into the community is the way to achieve the goal of public safety.
The record demonstrates the validity of this approach. Of all the 5,000 offenders released each year on some form of conditional release, 90% complete the balance of the sentence without committing a new offence. This record of a successful completion of conditional release has improved steadily during recent years. This is strong support for the approach we have adopted.
There are those who would measure the criminal justice system by only one test, how much punishment it dispenses and whether it is constantly being made tougher on offenders. Obviously those who break the law can and should expect to pay a price and to receive an appropriate sanction. If the purpose of the criminal justice system is to uphold society's values it must be seen to give appropriate weight to the offender's transgression.
Is our penal system perfect? No. Can it be improved? Surely it can. The government is responding. As we speak here today an all-party subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is studying this issue. It is reviewing the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. It is inspecting custodial facilities across this land. It is hearing from all the stakeholders, the prison population, the frontline corrections officers, the guards, prison administration, victims groups, prosecutors and members of the general public, among others. It is seeking the opinion and the advice of these people. It is drawing on the experience of these individuals who deal on a daily basis with Correctional Service Canada.
After the subcommittee completes its investigation and studies it will prepare a report for the House and the solicitor general. If necessary, legislative change will be proposed and debated in the House. I am confident this nationwide consultation on the Corrections and Conditional Release Act will improve the overall effectiveness of Canada's correctional system.