Public Safety committee  I'm....

Public Safety committee  I'm not sure I actually know how to answer that question.

Public Safety committee  I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think it's a bit of a false dichotomy. I think an institution.... One measure of institutional safety is also institutional health. If I'm at a high risk of contracting a blood-borne disease because of the extremely high rates of hepatitis C or HIV, then I'm at risk, and I may also be at risk of being stabbed with a needle or punctured.

Public Safety committee  ICPM is an acronym for “integrated correctional program model”. It is an initiative of the Correctional Service of Canada that's being piloted in two regions of the country, but initially in the Pacific region, and it combines core correctional programs. The way it works is that it takes the common elements of all correctional programs--some of the orientation parts of those programs--and combines them into a six-week course.

Public Safety committee  No. The value added.... If I may, I'll just back up for a second. One of the complaints that we've constantly brought to the Correctional Service's attention is that there is too long a delay to get offenders into programs, so in part to deal with that they have developed this new model, which actually works very well at getting offenders more quickly into programs.

Public Safety committee  No, there will be an evaluation.

Public Safety committee  Yes. It's under 2% of their operating budget.

Public Safety committee  The core correctional programs I've been referring to have been designed on a set of principles specifically to be delivered to correctional clients in correctional settings. It's based generally on a program model, a cognitive behavioural program model, and the principles often involve what's called RNR, or risk, need, and responsivity.

Public Safety committee  Correctional Service Canada has these core programs that have been tested, validated, evaluated, and that have demonstrated they have the desired impact. They change behaviour, and the measure is often one of recidivism. These programs are rolled out in various sites at various times.

Public Safety committee  I would certainly put more money into mental health assessment and treatment, and I would put more money into core correctional programs. Correctional Service Canada does a good job of assessing need. Unfortunately, it doesn't always follow through on that careful assessment with the timely delivery of programs.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for that question. There's a tremendous impact from prison crowding. Prisons have design capacities, and those design capacities suggest staffing ratios. They also suggest space allocation for programs, etc. When you have a prison that's crowded or overcrowded, you're testing the limits of those decisions.

Public Safety committee  There are two ways access will not go down. One would be if they expand models like the ICPM, which does get more offenders into programs more quickly, but we have no idea what the outcomes are because the outcomes have never been evaluated. The other is to ensure that physical capacity and human resource capacity increase apace, to make sure that the capacity expands at the same rate—and I would suggest at an accelerated rate, because the status quo was inadequate—as we see the inmate population grow.

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  Yes. We get called about family visits. We get called about concerns regarding search procedures, arranging for personal family visits. To try to link some of these things together, if there is security or intelligence information on an inmate's file that the inmate is somehow involved in the institutional drug trade, that information may result in an involuntary transfer or reclassification in terms of security level.

Public Safety committee  To the best of my knowledge, we have never received a complaint specific to the absence of a prison-based needle exchange. We have received complaints around things like safer tattooing, increased availability of bleach, condoms, or other harm-reduction measures. The questions around prison-based needle exchange come more from those who have expertise in public health and prevention.