Public Safety committee  If you want, I can maybe complete that—

Public Safety committee  Certainly. I just want to add to Mr. Sapers' response here by simply saying that we can certainly inspire ourselves from the work that has been done by the UN special rapporteur on the convention against torture, as well as the standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisone

Public Safety committee  I just actually misled Mr. Sapers, and I want to correct the record. The numbers of psychiatric beds for women went down. It was actually 20 beds prior to the reorganization, and it is down now to eight beds. So that is from 20 beds to eight beds. The money saved there was real

Public Safety committee  Perhaps I can add to Mr. Sapers' answer. There is an executive committee, and everybody has roles and responsibilities. Part of the issue is that if you make every member of the executive committee responsible to some degree to look after aboriginal issues, nobody ends up being

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Perhaps you'll let me comment on this. I think personally that if I were asked to pick only one performance indicator on whether the actions of the Government of Canada were improving the situation of aboriginal people in Canada, I would take the incarceration rate. Let me tell

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Just to perhaps complete Mr. Sapers' comments, it's important to note that the Corrections and Conditional Release Act has very specific provisions dealing with aboriginal people. There's a statutory requirement imposed upon the service to deliver programming that meets the needs

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If I can just add to Mr. Sapers' comments, part of the issue is also where the programs are being delivered. The best programs that are the most relevant for aboriginal people are being delivered in minimum security institutions. Only 10% of the aboriginal inmate population resid

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If I can add another element to this, the Correctional Service Canada exceeds the aboriginal employment equity requirement. About 10% of the CSC's workforce is aboriginal. Unfortunately, we have penitentiaries where the inmate population is 50% or 60% aboriginal, and there's an i

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. Over the last decade, the Prairies region has led growth in the incarcerated population in federal corrections. It is now the largest region, both in geography and offender population. It also has the largest concentration of the

Justice committee  Given the prevalence, I think that in order to raise awareness among judges so that they can better tailor their sentences and maybe even provide guidance to the correctional service, you would be better off to broaden it to any cognitive deficit as well as any relevant mental he

Justice committee  As I indicated before, the demand for services is extraordinary in corrections. I mentioned that a little more than 60% require psychological and psychiatric services. In terms of diagnosis, more than half of those who suffer from mental health issues have a diagnosis of a subs

Justice committee  Both courts and communities are realizing more and more that individuals with mental health issues are often criminalized and brought to court, to the extent that a number of cities in Canada have set up specialized courts to deal with cases of that kind. This is a very good atte

Justice committee  Yes. When correctional services receive an accused who has been given a sentence, they have to look to see whether the judge has expressed any reservations or documented any problems. If so, they have to take them into consideration when the sentence is administered. In that case

Justice committee  Resources of course may be part of the answer. I think the challenge is the complexity with regard to the offender population and the profile of that inmate population. What we've seen over the years is that now we have over 60% of the inmate population requiring psychological or

Justice committee  With respect to correctional programs, the Correctional Service of Canada basically delivers cognitive behavioural treatment to many offenders. The treatments are based on three principles. The first one is a risk principle, which states that more intensive treatment should be