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Public Safety committee We know that most offenders are classified as medium security. That's also where most of the institution-based programming is. Five or six out of ten inmates in a federal penitentiary are in a medium-security penitentiary in a medium-security cell. About one-fifth are classified
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Sure. Thank you for your question and for your earlier comment. I think what the research has demonstrated is really two things, if I can speak at a very high level. One is that the best success for programs occurs when those programs are delivered in the community, so prepari
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee The Correctional Service of Canada, as part of its—
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Okay. My apologies.
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Correctional Service of Canada has improved its training and has committed to training staff up and down the organization in terms of mental health awareness and intervention. They've done a good job of doing that. I have some quibbles about the model of the training and the fr
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee The previous government made significant commitments to correctional mental health, and Correctional Service of Canada was challenged sometimes to keep pace with some of the political commitments that were being made. One of those challenges has been in concluding agreements wit
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee We all know that supervising offenders in the community costs a fraction of what it costs to house them in a federal penitentiary. Moving people down through the system and out into the community under structured, supervised release is not only safe: it is also cheap. We know th
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Correctional Service of Canada is to be credited. It does a very good job of assessing need and screening for a variety of things, including educational attainment and intellectual capacity. Matching program interventions to that need is now really the trick, but it's more than j
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Harm reduction is a critically important part of the approach to drug use and misuse in society and in prisons. The law requires that the Correctional Service of Canada provide health care to professional standards to reflect what is available in the community. A variety of harm
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee We have had some of our own experience with piloting harm reduction measures. A few years ago, there was a safer tattooing initiative piloted by the Correctional Service of Canada whereby inmates were trained how to properly use hygienic tattoo equipment. Then the inmates would p
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Yes, of course, crowded and chaotic correctional institutions are not just bad environments for inmates and their chances for rehabilitation; they are also bad environments to work in. We know that a safe environment for prisoners is a safe environment for correctional staff. If
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Thank you. I think the important element is what those recommendations share, which is that there needs to be a hard cap. Long-term or indefinite segregation has to become a thing of the past. Operationally, 15 days, 30 days, 25 days.... There are different and varying opinions
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Typically they are.
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee The Correctional Service of Canada of course doesn't have any control over who the courts send to them. The decisions about who to police, who to charge, who to prosecute, and who to sentence are all made outside of corrections, and certainly they're all outside of the mandate of
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers
Public Safety committee Thank you for your question about that. I did note that the Ashley Smith coroner's inquest recommendations were noted specifically in the mandate letter, and I was encouraged by that. Ashley Smith died in her segregation cell at Grand Valley Institution in October of 2007. The c
May 31st, 2016Committee meeting
Howard Sapers