[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, April 22, 1997
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[Translation]
The Chairman (Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport - Montmorency - Orléans, B.Q.): Good afternoon all. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts is meeting pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(d) for consideration of Chapter 30 of the November 1996 Report of the Auditor General on Correctional Service Canada - Reintegration of Offenders.
We have five witnesses today. From the Office of the Auditor General we have Mr. Denis Desautels, the Auditor General, Ms Maria Barrados, Assistant Auditor General and Ms Patricia MacDonald, Director of Audit Operations. From Correctional Service Canada, we have Ole Ingstrup, the Commissioner, and Ms Karen Wiseman, Assistant Commissioner for Communications and Executive Services.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. As is the custom with our committee, the Auditor General will begin with his opening comments.
Mr. L. Denis Desautels (Auditor General of Canada): Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee to discuss our November 1996 chapter on Correctional Service Canada - Reintegration of Offenders. This chapter deals with the management of reintegration activities of approximately 14,500 federal inmates from the beginning of their sentence until their preparation for release. Earlier audits by my office dealt with other aspects of reintegration - programming of offenders and their supervision in the community.
Correctional Service has two main responsibilities - the incarceration of offenders and their safe reintegration into the community. While incarceration remains an important responsibility, these audits examined the second portion of the mandate - the safe reintegration of offenders.
The Correctional Service spent $79 million in 1995-96 on its approach to preparing offenders for release from prison. The Correctional Service uses a case management process to manage the sentences of inmates from the time of arrival in prison until the end of the sentence. This process must be properly managed as it is recognized that long term protection of society is best assured through safely returning inmates to the community as law-abiding citizens.
[English]
Our audit examined what is called the ``case management process'' to determine whether it's efficient and contributes to the reintegration of offenders. We found that the service is experiencing serious difficulties in managing reintegration activities in a manner which ensures the long-term safety of the public. It also confirmed findings identified in earlier audits of the Correctional Service related to systemic weaknesses in the overall management of reintegration activities. I'm pleased to note that the Correctional Service is actively working on addressing the issues raised in the audit.
The Correctional Service's enabling legislation requires it to gather information about the offence, the offender's history, reasons for sentencing, and any other relevant information. However, the service has difficulty obtaining documents such as police reports and court documents from the provinces and municipalities. Not having relevant information can lead to serious consequences. For example, a 1995 National Parole Board review of sixty sensational incidents, generally those involving violent offences committed by released offenders under supervision, listed missing police and court information as contributing to poor-quality release decisions in twelve of the sixty incidents.
The service has negotiated information agreements with some provinces, although such agreements have not guaranteed the availability of information when the service needs it.
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When the service does not have enough information from official sources, it may put too much weight on an offender's version of the events. This can lead to inaccurate assessment of offenders as well as inappropriate programming and release decisions.
[Translation]
It being impossible to obtain all official information, the Service has not decided what minimum levels of information are essential. There is no formal mechanism for deciding when the Service has enough official information on an offender. Consequently, the case management process is stalled until documents are received.
The audit explored two reasons that contribute to why the casework of offenders is not processed more quickly. First, there is difficulty in obtaining official offender information, as mentioned above. Second, offenders are required to do extensive institutional programming in an effort to reduce further criminal behaviour. Even low risk/low need offenders who could be expected to require relatively few programs still have extensive programming requirements. Both factors result in delays that can lead to offenders missing their first eligibility date for parole hearings.
In 1995-96, almost no one with a short sentence of two to three years was ready for their first possible parole review. Federal statutes require Correctional Service to maintain offenders in the least restrictive level of custody. When offenders are not reviewed because of slow case management, the Service does not carry out a timely review of the appropriate level of custody. As well, failure to prepare an offender for safe release from custody at the earliest possible date means keeping offenders in more costly forms of custody. Consequently, unrealized savings are not available for other reintegration activities, such as relapse prevention programs in the community. We reported on that matter in May, 1996.
[English]
Our audit also found that the training and caseload standards of case management officers are inadequate. Correctional officers or guards are not consistently performing their responsibilities to provide input into the recommendation for parole. Most importantly, quality control for parole recommendations is not at a level commensurate with the risk the offender presents to society.
Mr. Chairman, this is the third in a series of chapters that have identified systemic weaknesses in reintegration activities in the service. All three audits identified serious problems in implementing standardized procedures, in developing performance measures, and in establishing quality control mechanisms. Although the Correctional Service has identified problems with the reintegration side of its mandate, it has not yet been successful in resolving them.
The Commissioner of Corrections responded to our audit by appointing a task force on reintegration of offenders to review the issues we raised, identify solutions, and develop a corrective plan. In addition, a member of our own office who was one of the authors of this chapter is currently working at the Correctional Service to assist them in their work to improve reintegration activities.
[Translation]
The Service Task Force on Reintegration reported in January 1997. It provides a framework for changing the approach used to manage reintegration activities. The report reflects a concerted effort to improve the Service reintegration portion of its mandate. Mr. Chairman, your committee may wish to inquire from the Commissioner on progress in implementing the new framework. In the past, Correctional Service has carried out many initiatives to both identify and resolve difficulties with the case management function at institutions. While preparing offenders for release as law- abiding citizens is a difficult task, it is imperative that the Service ensure a continuity and persistence of effort in implementing the required changes. Your committee may wish to monitor the progress made by the Service in effecting the required changes.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. My colleagues and I would be pleased to answer any question the committee may have.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Desautels. Your colleagues have nothing to add? In that case, we shall turn to Mr. Ingstrup, the Commissioner.
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Commissioner Ole Ingstrup (Correctional Service of Canada): Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to make my first appearance before you since my appointment as Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada.
There are five themes in the last three last Auditor General reports that challenge the Service to improve the management of reintegration. These are: implementing change; common practices and standards; quality assurance; performance information; and staff roles, training and support.
The Correctional Service of Canada accepts the Auditor General's findings, and I thankMr. Desautels and his staff for the insight they have provided.
Upon my appointment as Commissioner, I initiated a plan of action to respond to the Auditor General, the Arbour Commission, that you've probably heard of, and the Correctional investigator. We are now looking at three groups of recommendations.
Among these actions were: a review of CSC'S policy structure to ensure it is clear, understandable and supports the rule of law; a task force to examine reintegration as Mr. Desautels pointed out; we have the report now and it has been approved; the strengthening of our national headquarters, to provide the needed focus and leadership in the correctional agenda; and a review of the segregation of offenders.
I also expect a report by the end of this month on a review of employability programs and the productive use of offenders' time in institutions.
[English]
Let me, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, go briefly through the five themes raised by the Auditor General and discuss what CSC is doing about them, bearing in mind that we accept the observations fully.
The first theme is about implementing change. The Auditor General has pointed out that one of CSC's strengths is innovation in corrections; and that too is a very true observation. For example, I have no doubt we have developed what are considered state-of-the-art treatment programs. We have also established one of the most comprehensive risk assessment processes you will find anywhere. We are implementing comprehensive training in legal issues for our staff and managers.
Although recognizing these innovations, the Auditor General pointed out that CSC is not very good at implementing changes; and I agree with the Auditor General on that point too. In fact, consistency is and should be the watchword in our management practices as well as in our correctional policy and procedures. This is why time and again I have emphasized to managers and staff that we must function as one Correctional Service of Canada; we cannot have five or more across the country.
To improve reintegration, the theme of chapter 30, we've established key managers at the national headquarters level, at the regional headquarters level, at the institutions and the parole offices, whose sole responsibility is to focus on reintegration, to improve reintegration. They act as a single group on department-wide issues and policies related to reintegration. Also, all the wardens and the district directors from our parole offices will have to demonstrate to me that they are personally involved in the reintegration process and in managing the improvements to be made in their operational units.
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To reinforce consistency in implementation, we assigned reintegration managers, who report to the wardens in each of our institutions across the land. They were in place by the end of February of this year, and they are developing and implementing changes to case management and programs in order to improve both consistency, as called for in the Auditor General's report, and quality.
Another theme was the lack of common work standards and practices. As an example, the Auditor General saw there was no CSC-wide workload formula for case management officers. Because of this, there was no way to explain wide differences in caseloads among our staff.
Our response has been to adopt a service-wide interim ratio of 25 offenders per officer as the average caseload in all our institutions. Over the coming months, Mr. Chairman, we will be monitoring the implementation and effectiveness of this ratio to fine-tune it if that is necessary. We will develop an appropriate ratio also for community corrections.
Our policy review task force showed us that staff learn how to do their work through verbal instructions from their supervisors or colleagues, and this has some obvious pitfalls when it comes to common standards or practices. Also, we have found that written policies and procedures often have been too long, too repetitive, sometimes a bit contradictory, and even sometimes difficult for front-line staff to understand.
We are therefore simplifying our internal policies and our manuals, and we are training our front-line supervisors to provide clear and consistent direction to staff. I believe this emphasis on the role and training of front-line supervisors is absolutely key. The target date to complete this part of our work for reintegration is set at November 1997.
A third theme was quality assurance. The Auditor General emphasized the need for quality assurance to ensure standards and practices are followed. Quality assurance needs to be a part of day-to-day operations and not just a periodic measurement of compliance to rules. We are implementing a process in which line staff know what the quality expectations are so that they can apply them at all times. Line supervisors will be expected to review staff work using our quality standards, and they will have to give immediate practical, constructive feedback to front-line workers if they are not doing what they are supposed to do. The same standards will be used to conduct periodic audits by staff from outside the unit to maintain the integrity of the overall process. This approach will produce, I believe, a dynamic and interactive quality assurance process.
We do not want to wait until this process is fully in place later this year, so we are conducting a case management audit from coast to coast. The first round of that audit will be completed in May of this year, and measures will be put in place over the summer to improve the situation where necessary.
The fourth theme was performance measurement. Based on the Auditor General's findings, we need some adequate performance information in order to focus our efforts on strengths and weaknesses in our reintegration process. This information is needed, I agree, at the operational level to manage day-to-day operations and at the corporate level to steer the organization in the right direction.
In January of this year we began some regular reporting at our executive committee on national performance indicators. We are working very hard to make sure that data used to measure performance is accurate. By the fall of this year we expect to have in place the required indicators for the operational level, both institutions and parole officers.
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We're also making a determined effort to improve our information on what happens to offenders after the sentence is over - after warrant expiry date - because we think this will increase our ability to measure the true effectiveness, at least in part, of what we're doing.
The final theme identified by the Auditor General, Mr. Chairman, was a need for improved training support and clarity in the roles of the staff involved in the reintegration process. They do basically four things. They conduct risk assessment. They provide information. They make recommendations for parole decisions. They manage the risk posed by inmates.
We know, for instance, there is a serious gap in our ability to maintain high quality in reintegration activities when many case management staff are assigned caseloads with little on-the-job or formal training. To correct this situation we are putting in place some new qualification standards and a ten-day case management course for all new staff in the case management area, a course they must complete before taking up their duty.
New case management staff will also receive very thorough on-the-job training. Only when they have demonstrated proficiency in all areas of knowledge and skills would we certify them and let them do case management on their own.
In February of this year we held a national conference on offender reintegration for staff from all our institutions and community offices as well as members of the National Parole Board. This group of over 300 working-level staff showed a very strong commitment to do quality work using common practices and common procedures. They too, Mr. Chairman, want a simplified, streamlined system.
Other staff who play key roles in reintegration are correctional officers, as pointed out in the Auditor General's report, and program delivery staff. We will be providing more training to these people and also some clearer management direction and supervision in their areas of work.
[Translation]
Mr. Chairman, the Auditor General's findings are constructive and helpful. While critical of CSC's management of reintegration, he endorses CSC's correctional strategy of achieving long-term public safety by safely reintegrating offenders back into the community.
I realize we still have a lot of work to do and that's clear, but the initiatives I have outlined will contribute, I believe, to concrete improvements.
While our job in CSC is to contribute to the protection of society by promoting safe reintegration, we should avoid creating the unreasonable expectation that incidents will never take place. I don't know of any correctional Service that could make such a commitment.
In recent years, unpredicted shifts in the criminal justice system have occurred, such as the 50% growth in the federal sex offender population since 1990, or the 35% increase in the number of women incarcerated in federal prisons since 1989.
We, in the Correctional Service of Canada, are resolutely committed to taking the necessary steps to better cope with such trends or changes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am ready to respond to your questions.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Ingstrup. Does Ms Wiseman wish to add anything? No. We shall then immediately proceed to the first round of questioning. Mr. de Savoye, ten minutes.
Mr. Pierre de Savoye (Portneuf, B.Q.): Thank you, Commissioner and thank you, Auditor General.
Auditor General, first of all, I'd like to gain better understanding of the nature of the problems that you have identified.
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In point 4, you say:
- We found that the Service is experiencing serious difficulties in managing reintegration
activities in a manner which ensures the long-term safety of the public.
Mr. Desautels: Mr. Chairman, what we raised in this chapter are operational problems within the Service which mean that part of its mandate, in our opinion, is not discharged to the satisfaction of parliamentarians or the public at large.
In this chapter, we give two or three reasons explaining the difficulties experienced by the Service. Among other things, we point out our problems with the preparation of case files or the documentation that should be found in a file when comes time to make a decision on the release of an offender. Because of that factor, target dates in the conditional release process are missed.
There's also a problem with the programming; that is to say that offenders are required to take part in a certain number or programs while they are being held to prepare them for their parole.
Finally, we raised a certain number of problems having to do with case management work. We're saying that some have too many cases to handle and that there's a lack of quality control overall in the department and concerning the work done by the case managers.
So those are the three sectors where there are rather clear operational problems. I'd perhaps add a more general explanation that we raised in other, preceding audits. We did restate several times that what might serve to explain the situation is that the Service has perhaps not paid as much attention to that part of its mandate as to the incarceration part. We believe the Service has two very important functions and that it must pay as much attention to one as to the other.
Mr. Pierre de Savoye: I'll take one of the elements you have just referred to. In paragraph 10 of your presentation you say:
- In 1995-96 almost no one with a short sentence of two to three years was ready for their first
possible parole review.
[English]
Ms Maria Barrados (Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada): Mr. Chairman, the problem we identified in the chapter is that the entire process takes too long to get people ready. There is a requirement for having documentation ready. That takes too long. Then a requirement for programming is imposed. There are situations where all those requirements - and we question whether all of them are necessary - are met and somebody is not ready in time to meet that first date. We have a chart in the chapter that points out the compression which then is available to prepare the required paperwork for the submission. There's just not enough time.
[Translation]
Mr. Pierre de Savoye: In paragraph 9, sir, you say that the offenders are required to do extensive institutional programming.
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To my knowledge, and you or the Commissioner may correct me if I'm wrong, the inmates are under no obligation to undergo rehabilitation treatment. They must freely consent to it, otherwise the rehabilitation treatment would remain without effect.
So when you say that the offenders are required to do extensive institutional programming, we're not talking about rehabilitation programs, are we? Am I wrong?
Comm. Ingstrup: No, sir, you are not wrong. We offer the inmates programs and explain to them that if they don't participate then there is a very high risk that the National Parole Board might not want or be able to grant them parole, whether it's day parole or full parole. So we must recommend rejection of any request for parole if the inmate has not sought sufficient treatment for his problems, if the problems are treatable.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I could say that, in my opinion, the Auditor General has correctly identified the three areas.
We have made much progress in the area of document preparation. We now have a formal agreement with several provinces. There are three other agreements that are still unofficial, but we are now at a point where we can talk about official agreements. Finally, we're still negotiating with one province.
Recently, we set up a follow-up system or a system to identify those documents that are not ready when they're supposed to be. We will improve the process further to obtain the documents from the provinces, municipalities, courts and police forces.
The Auditor has also said that the programming was a problem because the coordination between what is done in casework management and what is done in the programming area is not very good. For example, inmates have often been asked to take part in programs they don't need. We're cleaning up this whole matter and our target is to increase the co-operation between the two groups.
Mr. Pierre de Savoye: Auditor General, you can tell me if I'm understanding you properly. The fact that the inmates are not ready on time and can't obtain parole whereas they would otherwise be eligible costs a lot of money. Actually, if things happened the way they should when they should, this would not only mean increased safety for the public but this would also mean that money would be saved. Is that what you are saying, Auditor General?
Mr. Desautels: That is essentially the message we have put in our chapter. The fact that case files and individuals are not ready on time does have consequences in several areas and impacts both on the quality of the decisions, and thus the public's safety, as well as on costs to the Service. These are two rather important consequences. Moreover, we should remember that the Act was written in such a way as to make the Correctional Service responsible for trying to attain certain objectives or honour certain principles of the Act. When cases and individuals are not ready on time, the Act's objectives are not attained.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. de Savoye.
[English]
Mr. Silye, a ten-minute round.
Mr. Jim Silye (Calgary Centre, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to welcome the commissioner to his first public accounts committee meeting.
When were you appointed, sir?
Commr Ingstrup: In June of last year.
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Mr. Jim Silye: As I ask some questions I want to make sure there's nothing personal here, it's just looking at the bigger picture and this problem of reintegration and the incidence of reoffending, which I think is of the most concern.
The first question I have, though, is for the Auditor General. While much of the study focused on the reintegration of inmates into the community as law-abiding citizens, does the Auditor General have any information on, or has it looked at, the programs Correctional Services Canada is offering to inmates while they are incarcerated?
The reason I ask that question is that in one institution I know the population is approximately 80% sexual offenders, but while they are incarcerated they are given full access to cable television, including the pornographic movies, and pornographic magazines, some of which would put Hustler and Playboy to shame. These are some of the magazines that are for sale in the prison canteens. If there is evidence of this, and there is, doesn't this seem to be working against the programs Correctional Service Canada is trying to develop to make these inmates law-abiding citizens?
Ms Barrados: In May of 1996 we tabled a report that looked at the programming component of the service's work in institutions. We raised a number of observations at that time. Part of that was some of the same issues we are raising this time: maximizing the allocation of the resources and questioning the assessment of performance and the information available.
We didn't look at some of the other activities in the institution you're alluding to. Maybe the commissioner wants to respond to that.
Commr Ingstrup: Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I'd be glad to.
Over the last number of years we have expanded the number of programs in corrections, I'm not ashamed to say, dramatically. As a matter of fact, until the middle and late 1980s programs were not a thing that was in the centre of corrections at all. For instance, we can't find any numbers on programs from the time before almost 1990. For sex offenders we had two programs in 1989, I know, with 50 offenders. Today we have 100 programs with close to 2,000 offenders, or 1,700 offenders, going through these programs. Obviously we are focusing more on programs than ever before.
To your specific question about inmates' access to the kind of literature you're talking about, I can say the general principle is that the same laws in that area apply inside as on the outside, but there are certain offenders who, because of their particular kind of correctional plan, cannot have access to certain types of literature. I would be guessing if I told you about the reasons behind that, but obviously people who are experts in sex offender treatment can say a lot more about this.
One of the problems we have had in spite of the fact that we have increased the number of programs and our program capacity dramatically is that the number of sex offenders has increased so dramatically over the last few years. As I said, we have close to 4,500 people with sex offences either in the current sentence or previous sentences, which is a dramatic increase. So obviously, rather than giving people unqualified programs, we try to catch up as well as we can and have good quality programs.
We're trying to improve our knowledge about the quality of these programs. We're looking into ways in which we can have outside bodies come in and accredit our programs. Most of us in the administration do not know as much about programs as those who are delivering them, yet we would like to know exactly how credible they are.
So I think we're on the right track, but obviously we are not able to solve all problems overnight.
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Mr. Jim Silye: Mr. Commissioner, you stated in your brief that you have developed state-of-the-art correctional treatment programs.
Commr Ingstrup: Yes.
Mr. Jim Silye: Who gave it that name? You? What are these state-of-the-art programs? And if these programs are so advanced and have a comprehensive risk-assessment component, then why are there so many problems with recidivism - I don't like that word - with reoffending with the nature of the offences that are committed to Correctional Service Canada's inmates?
I ask this question because in various studies done, and one specific study I can show you, there is at least a 50% recidivism rate in federal prisons in a three-year period: 50% of inmates let out will reoffend within three years of their release. If you take it beyond the three years, over 70% of inmates will find their way back into the system.
So state-of-the-art? Since you came just last June, maybe that's why it hasn't shown its effects yet.
Commr Ingstrup: I'm afraid I have to take responsibility for more than last June, because I was commissioner before, back in the 1980s. I do that quite proudly, because when I speak of ``state-of-the-art programs'' it's because people from all over the world are coming to look at what we are doing in the sex offender treatment area.
It is not perfect, but we are trying to do our very best. As a matter of fact, if you look at treated sex offenders as opposed to untreated sex offenders, we have, by and large, a reduction of 50% in recidivism in that group, which means we have half the number of victims we would have had if these people had not been treated.
The same is true, when I talk about the state of the art, of cognitive skills training programs, living skills programs. It is actually the Canadian model that is being sold in Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Scotland, all over the place. I think we can take some pride in that.
But I will never go as far as to say that ``state of the art'' means we can solve crime problems. We cannot. We get some pretty tough people in our system. That's the nature of federal corrections. We don't get them until they have sentences of two years or more, and many of them have had a past that is more than just chequered.
Recidivism rates are always difficult to talk about because they depend on what one measures. If you look at relapse to new offences before the end of our supervision period, which means the end of the sentence, we probably have at the very low end of what you can find if you make an international comparison. That doesn't make us fall asleep. We are still looking for better ways. But given the fact that we're talking about human beings in these circumstances and with the backgrounds they have, I think there is very good evidence of the protective effect of these measures.
Mr. Jim Silye: Another problem area you get into is the case management officers and how hard it is to train them, give them experience, etc. I respect your opinion when you say things are getting better, but I don't find that a 50% success rate is good enough. The Correctional Service should have a better record than 50% for reoffending.
It could be because of the management process, the number of cases, and increasing crime. I know it all makes it difficult. You can't necessarily analyse this statistically, but the way you hire and train people is obviously a serious concern and a concern of the Auditor General as well.
In Calgary I've seen ads placed in newspapers looking for people to work as case management officers. I know you want them to have a degree in human sciences or in the social area, but why isn't the Correctional Service looking to promote people from within the system who have direct experience in working with inmates and asking some of these people to apply? They do have some experience and they might help the quality of your case management officers, which ultimately will improve your statistics.
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Commr Ingstrup: I think I need to explain a little. What we have done in the system we use in corrections, which is called ``unit management'', where we have case management officers, program officers, and correctional officers, those people we called ``guards'' in the old days...they work together. In my view, the case management officers are people who need to know at a more theoretical level something about risk assessment, something about program effectiveness, and what not. But the daily motivation work, trying to get inmates to participate in programs, trying to get inmates to change their mindset in a way that is more pro-social and less criminal, is still with the correctional officer. As a team they do both.
In the past we had a tendency to let correctional officers, just because they had been correctional officers for a long time and were good at that, move into the case management group, and in some cases they really didn't have the qualifications. What we want now is to increase the qualifications in both camps, one, in case management, by asking for university degrees from September 1 of next year, and by giving them additional training, and for correctional officers, by giving them some additional training to be good at what they are doing.
The Chairman: Mr. Pagtakhan.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
By way of introduction, the $79 million for 1995-96 is what percentage of the total budget spent on reintegration?
Commr Ingstrup: It's $71 million. It's about 7% or 8%. Our budget is $1.3 billion, so I guess it's about 7%.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: In your assessment, is that 7% as a proportion -
Commr Ingstrup: Of our total budget.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: Yes. Not changing the total, is that sufficient for financial resources?
Commr Ingstrup: Sir, I really think it is. At least it's too early to talk about the need for more resources. That has often been the only answer we could come up with, but I think it's possible to find a better way of working and, as the Auditor General has pointed out, freeing up some resources that are already there and to make sure we don't waste the resources on things that are not necessary: over-programming, assessments that are too long, too much work on the paper mill. We're actually trying to clean that up. I would be hesitant to ask for more money. I don't think I would get it, either, so it's a fairly realistic view.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: You spoke about qualifications -
Commr Ingstrup: I would be hesitant to ask for more money until we have seen what we can get out of what we have.
You should remember, sir, that on top of that money comes about $100 million for programs, then another $120 million for community supervision and community programs. The whole package actually comes up to very close to $300 million, and a lot can be done within that budget, in my view.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: I was not suggesting that you should ask for more financial resources. I only wanted to establish the agreement that resources are not the problem, the problem is indeed in case management.
That said, you alluded to wanting to have that qualification for the personnel. In your view, what is the key qualification to ensure success?
Commr Ingstrup: For case management officers? If you look at the institutional case management officers, I would say the ability to manage a file, to get all the information needed on the file, to assess the inmate against the established assessment criteria we have, to add a professional judgment about the personality type of the offender we have in front of us, and to find a way of making the inmate connect with the programs that address the inmate's criminogenic needs.
One thing we have done is we have looked at all the needs of inmates and said wherever there is a deficiency we should move in with the program. I'm not sure that is necessary. We can move in where the need is of a criminogenic nature, such that if it's not addressed it will increase the risk of crime. There is a saving in that, I believe. There's also a saving in terms of time.
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Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: Is the cluster of activities best done by one person or by more than one person?
Commr Ingstrup: We believe it's best done by a team of people, including one who has abilities as a case management officer, which I talked about, and also correctional officers. Correctional officers are very valuable. They interact with the offenders. They observe what the offenders are doing 24 hours a day, and they can bring a lot of very useful information to the case management team. What we're trying to do now is to add program people to that team so that it becomes a continuum from the intake of the offender until programs are delivered.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: This leads me to this question: From the previous process to the simplified streamlined approach, what has been simplified?
Commr Ingstrup: What is being simplified - it's not in place yet, but we're working on it - is that we won't gather information left, right and centre. There is now a basic list of things that must be in place before the intake assessment is done. Other information can be gathered at a later stage, as long as it is ready by the time parole is being considered. That is a simplification.
We've encouraged our staff to look at the case management manual, which has evolved over a number of years and is, I think, a bit cluttered at this time. So we want to simplify that as well.
We want not to have two teams, a case management team and a program board, but rather one team that works together so that the case is dealt with once and for all, so to speak, in the same forum so that everybody knows what they're talking about.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: To the Auditor General, from your point of view, are the steps being taken likely to lead to success?
Mr. Desautels: Mr. Chairman, we're quite happy and encouraged by the nature of the responses so far to our report, and also, I should add, by the speed with which the organization has responded to our observations.
The one caveat I've expressed before and also in my opening statement is that while these are all the proper responses and the intentions are right, the track record in terms of implementation is not what it should be. So we'll be breathing down the neck of Mr. Ingstrup in the next few months to make sure these plans and these decisions are carried forward and produce the right results.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: You said that approach is now just being developed and put into place. When do you think you will have reached the full implementation of this approach?
Commr Ingstrup: Mr. Chairman, I would hope that by the fall we would see some very significant improvement.
There are areas where some improvement can already be identified. For instance, as you will recall, in Bill C-55, which is before the Senate these days, there is a provision of accelerated day parole. We have gone into all the cases with potential accelerated day parole and are ready to expedite about 400 of these cases. We are ready in the community. We are ready in the institutions.
There is much more to what the Auditor General has suggested, but so far I think there are some encouraging signs.
We also are painfully aware, Mr. Chairman, that the Auditor General is right when he says we are good at developing good ideas and less good at implementing them. So we have strengthened our audit and investigation unit to make sure more focus is put on the implementation. Also,Mr. Chairman, at national headquarters we have actually put a whole branch in place that is responsible for the correctional agenda, including reintegration. We have a director general who, along with his staff, has nothing else to do than to look at reintegration. Those who are second in command in the regions are charged with the same kinds of responsibilities, and now we have the reintegration manager in all our institutions.
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So all together we have the structure in place, at least. I will have to wait until the fall to be able to show to what extent we actually do it, and I'm sure we will get help from the Auditor General in that respect.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: Of the number of people who became repeat offenders after being released because the sentence had expired, in the judgment of the institution how many of them were ready to be released and how many were deemed not ready? Do you have that comparison?
Commr Ingstrup: I would be guessing here a bit. But we have a report, which we are in the process of preparing for the justice committee, on a review of the detention provision that was put into place some ten years ago. There is a section saying we have to review that provision in the fall, I believe it is. There's information about some of these things in that report.
We have seen a very significant increase in the number of people who stay behind bars until the end of their sentence. We started out in the mid- to late-1980s with about 100 on an annual basis. Now we have, I believe, close to 600 people who stay almost all the way to the end of their sentence.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: What happens then?
Commr Ingstrup: After that, sir, obviously the Correctional Service of Canada has no jurisdiction to do anything.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: Are there attempts to follow up on them?
Commr Ingstrup: There's no authority under the law to do anything when the warrant has expired.
Obviously what we try to do is to establish a network of supporting community services that can take care of the offenders when they leave at the end of the sentence. I think the Auditor General and the Correctional Service of Canada are in total agreement that staged reintegration into the community is the safest reintegration. There are some people where we have to say there's not much we can do, so the best we can do for society is to keep them to the end of the sentence, but that group is probably relatively small in number. We can provide you with better numbers a little later.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
We will now go to the five minute round. Mr. de Savoye.
Mr. Pierre de Savoye: Commissioner, this is a coincidence, but this morning I had the opportunity to meet our Minister of Justice, Mr. Allan Rock, because I was accompanying Ms Anne-Claude Girard, from Jonquière, who is interested in matters concerning child sexual abuse. Ms Dalphond-Guiral, the member for Laval-Centre, will be tabling a 37,000 name petition tomorrow morning for Ms Girard basically requesting that the Minister of Justice ensure that sexual offenders who have attacked children receive appropriate treatment so that at the time of their reintegration into society, they represent no further danger. So the subject we're discussing today is particularly timely.
That said, when I was sitting on the Standing Committee on Justice a couple of years ago, and we were examining Bill C-45 concerning sentencing and parole, I asked when did they start those treatments that were to allow an inmate to be socially reintegrated without any danger to society. I put those questions to people responsible for the psychological aspect in the penal system. The answer was that, no matter what the sentence, treatments started during the last six months. I was rather taken aback because that meant that the rest of the time, nothing happens except that people get hardened in a process that's far from being desirable.
Was the information incorrect? Did I misunderstand? Has the situation changed? Basically, what is being done or what do you intend to do to ensure full social reintegration as soon as possible?
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Comm. Ingstrup: I don't think you were given the wrong information at that point because we always said there's quite a difference between the programs we ideally need and the number of programs that actually exist. The reason is very often that adequate expertise is under development. Ideally, our goal is that as soon as we've finished evaluating the risk posed by these individuals, we can undertake rehabilitation and reintegration programs and pursue them at the institutional and community levels. It is possible that, from time to time, some offenders don't get enough treatment. In fact, we're continually improving the situation so that, if possible, we'll have enough programs for everyone to be able to reintegrate offenders into the community when they're granted their full and total freedom.
Mr. Pierre de Savoye: You have to have uniform standards or practices. In that area, what will the standard be? Do you start immediately upon incarceration? Do you wait for the case file to be established, which can take up to three months? What are the standards? What kind of calendar do you intend to use?
Comm. Ingstrup: Based on our standard, we establish the individual's case file, we evaluate the individual, identify his needs and the type of program needed, and ideally, the individual immediately undertakes the kind of program responding to his needs which are different depending on the kind of sexual delinquency involved. There are all kinds, and paedophilia is one of them. Some programs are longer than others. We also have a program that includes a mechanism to evaluate sexual offenders to ensure that we really understand the nature of those individuals. All this is done with a view to better respond to their needs and, of course, decrease the risk.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. de Savoye.
[English]
Mr. Silye, five minutes.
Mr. Jim Silye: Mr. Commissioner, this is the third review on this issue that has been done by the Auditor General. Why hasn't the Correctional Service of Canada addressed his previous concerns and made the changes that would make this system more effective and the public feel they're safer and more protected? This is the third one, and now you're just getting into your task force and implementing the state-of-the-art techniques. Why so long?
Commr Ingstrup: What can I say? If you look at the three previous reports, some of the findings have been addressed - maybe not all of them, maybe not fully, but some of the concerns certainly have been addressed.
We hope that the overarching themes in the Auditor General's report - that is, be more conscious about implementation, have national standards in place, get serious about what we are saying - are now being addressed in a particularly forceful way through the task forces we have established. Not just chapter 30, but the three latest reports of the Auditor General, along with the Arbour commission report, have been the focus of all the work we are doing.
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Mr. Jim Silye: Mr. Commissioner, the Auditor General refers to incarceration as ``the costlier form of custody'' in isolation. He does that separately. He doesn't really look at the overall cost. It's not just the cost to the Department of Justice and your budget of $1.3 billion that is involved. The total criminal activity in this country costs the country a lot of money, anywhere from $10 billion to $20 billion, depending on the value of the items stolen and things like that. When an inmate reoffends, I believe there are extra costs, which I don't think the Auditor General has put into his evaluation. It's not just what it costs to keep a prisoner in jail for the full term. They're released earlier and they reoffend and there's the extra cost of the police force, the court system, the legal costs and then incarceration again.
What really does cost more, in your opinion - locking them up for their entire sentence or letting them out earlier where there is a 50% chance they will reoffend? Is there an answer to that question?
Commr Ingstrup: It's a borderline policy we're talking about. But the first point I would make is that I think 50% is an arbitrary number. My number for people who commit offences while under release is significantly lower than that. As a matter of fact, we're down to less than 20%. When you think about the number of people we have in our custody, although this is not ideal, it's not a bad result.
Obviously, even if you keep offenders till the end of their sentence, they are going to go back into society, and the question in my mind is not whether it's best to keep them to the end of their sentence or release them earlier but in what condition do we want them back. For instance, if we look at research on sex offender treatment, the way I read it is that if we did not treat these sex offenders at all but kept them to the end of their sentence, opened the door and wished them good luck, we would have twice as many recidivists in that group as we have today, where we combine the reintegration into society program and relapse prevention program.
That would indicate to me that a larger number of people would come back to the institutions than what we have now in one way. I'm saying ``in one way'' because the parole system we have now also takes people back to prisons who have not committed new offences but who display a behaviour that indicates a risk of reoffending. If, for instance, we see persons with a pattern of committing sexual offences while under the influence of alcohol, they will be released with a condition they cannot drink alcohol. Now, if we see them do that anyway, we will often take them back into the institution. That is done in order to prevent or to reduce the risk of their committing a new offence. That represents a cost as well, I admit that, but I think Canadians are better off in the long run.
We're looking now at what happens after sentence expiry so we can have a fuller comparison of these things. But all of my professional knowledge in this area tells me that a good, well-functioning conditional release system, where we have a leash on these people while they go back to the community, at least for the first period of time, is a much better safety feature than just keeping them one or two months or maybe a year more and then letting them go. I would be worried if that happened.
Mr. Jim Silye: If you were the warden -
[Translation]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Pierre de Savoye): Mr. Silye, you've already gone beyond the time you had available. If you don't mind, we'll give the floor to Mr. Shepherd.
[English]
Mr. Alex Shepherd (Durham, Lib.): Just to continue on that theme, my observation of the present system is that it's an aging process, that we basically age people. In spite of what you were just saying about recidivism, is there a study relating to the length of incarceration based on the age of the offender? In other words, the longer he or she is in the institution, the less likely he or she is to reoffend simply because they are older.
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Commr Ingstrup: I think, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Shepherd, it's an established fact that as people grow older they are less and less inclined to commit offences. We have the peak of offences at a fairly early stage in the population's life. However, it is a very slow process, and I don't think that just keeping them in order for them to grow older would be a way that could be recommended. It would dramatically increase the prison population.
But one should not forget that while people are getting older, we can support that reduction in their recidivism inclination by giving them these programs. The reason we know the programs are effective is that the control groups we have out there to compare with obviously are getting older as well, so they move at the same rate.
Mr. Alex Shepherd: You talk about this study you're working on to deal with the productive use of offenders' time in institutions. I too have reviewed and gone through one of your maximum security institutions. Some 75% of their time is spent in the cells. As I understand it, that hasn't changed appreciably over the years. Why do we need a study to tell us that, and what are you going to do about it?
Commr Ingstrup: There are a couple of things I can mention here. One is that there was a survey done of inmates that asked them how they spent their time. I thought it was unacceptable when I heard that many inmates said they spent their time playing cards and doing exercises in the exercise yard. To me, this is just not the Canadian way of going about one's life. By the way, I don't think it's the way of going about these people's lives when they come out of prison.
So what we would like to see is an expansion of our work programs in the institutions. In an oversimplified fashion, what we're looking at is that inmates and people at the institution should be accountable for eight hours of activities per day, either in work, education, programs or a combination of those things.
We have an industrial program called CORCAN, and it has, by the way, improved its operations quite a bit this year. We're looking forward to breaking even. But the fact remains that CORCAN only occupies about 1,900 inmates out of our 14,000 prison population. My view is that the rest of them are not gainfully occupied. If they are, we don't know about it. So what we would like to do is to have a good study as to how we can make sure there are eight hours of productive activities a day.
Mr. Alex Shepherd: How do you get them into the program if they don't want to go? Secondly, I understand that through budgetary reductions you've in fact reduced your spending on CORCAN.
Commr Ingstrup: CORCAN is a special operating agency. It has a production and a sales capacity. That also means it has an earning capacity if it is done well. CORCAN is on a revolving fund basis. But if it is done right, it will meet two objectives: one, the ordinary industrial objective of either breaking even or making a little profit; and two, to enhance people's employability when they get out of prison. That is really in many ways the correctional program component of CORCAN, that they have something to offer to society. I don't think people have much to offer and a good chance to get a job if they say they were pumping iron and playing cards at their institutions.
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CORCAN actually showed this year it was capable of increasing dramatically its sales. We're up 25% or thereabouts, to $48 million worth of sales this year. Although the billing system will not be complete until some time in May, or whenever it is that all the bills and things are coming in, we expect that for the first time in the history of CORCAN they will actually break even. So my view is that it is a good program.
There's also correctional evidence that people who have gone through CORCAN's employment programs recidivate at a lower rate after release. I have not personally studied that in detail, so I don't know if there are modifications to that, but the indications are promising. Also, frankly I think that Canadians, and certainly my minister, expect that when people are incarcerated, they and we take the incarceration seriously. I've sometimes used the phrase they are to serve their time, not to waste their time.
[Translation]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Pierre de Savoye): Thank you, Mr. Shepherd. If you don't mind, we'll give the floor to Mr. Nault, who certainly has more very interesting questions.
Mr. Nault.
[English]
Mr. Robert Nault (Kenora - Rainy River, Lib.): I want to ask the Auditor General a question. On the second page of your presentation you talk very extensively about the difficulty in obtaining documents and the fact that this has had, in your view, a dramatic effect and serious consequences as they relate to letting people out. Maybe you could give me the layman's version of why we seem to have difficulty getting court documents from the provinces and municipalities when we have to make a serious decision as to whether or not we let somebody out.
Quite frankly, I'm shocked that that's the problem, and that because of that there's an inability on the part of the service to decide what minimum level of information is essential. It's somewhat dangerous to even have to suggest in your report that is a contributing factor to letting the wrong people out on the street. It would seem to me common sense would dictate that if there weren't the proper information, there's no possible way anybody would get out. So you wouldn't have to deal with a study that said 12 of the 60 incidents were based on poor information. Can you give us an explanation as to why that's happening and how best to correct it, in your mind?
I was under the impression this is a federal jurisdiction, so the Department of Justice has authority to suggest very strongly in legislation, if need be, that we get that proper information. In fact, you say, even though we've negotiated information agreements, we still don't get what we need. I can't believe that can be a major problem when all it takes is a photocopier to photocopy the file of an individual and send it to the Correctional Service so they can get on with doing their job, which is the other side of the coin after they've been convicted.
Ms Barrados: I'll try to address the question.
The difficulty arises because of the different jurisdictions and different timing and purposes for documents. You get police reports, crown briefs, this kind of information, which is used and then filed. The person who is convicted will be passed through the system. The documents move in one direction, and the individual goes in another direction. The Correctional Service is in the position of trying to get them after the fact. We note this is something where there has to be a will to cooperate to improve this, because there's a tendency for each jurisdiction to use the documents for their own purposes. That's quite a natural thing. But then when it comes to the Correctional Service being able to do their work, they find they don't have the material they require.
We made two types of recommendations. The first is to work on improving that coordination and cooperation among the different levels of government and different jurisdictions that are part of the judicial system. The second one, which the Correctional Service itself has under its control, is to look very closely at what they require. It's a long list of things. So they need to make sure they really need the information they requested before they could move somebody through the process.
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Mr. Robert Nault: But that doesn't answer the question as to whether or not, in a country where letting people out on parole is so very important to the psyche of the nation, we have a safe society. What you're suggesting is that a big part of the problem is the information flow among jurisdictions. People are making very serious decisions as to whether or not an individual should even get parole based on someone else's sense of how that person is doing in the institution and without knowing the total background of an individual.
I'm trying to find out if in fact there's a way of correcting this legislatively without this whole issue of cooperation. There shouldn't have to be a discussion about cooperation. There should be a guarantee that if an individual is incarcerated in a federal institution for more than two years, that file automatically follows that person, so that information exists in the system. Why is that not the case?
Ms Barrados: Perhaps I could just add two comments.
The concerns about information are at the beginning of the process in terms of having all the information that is required in order to do the proper assessment and to move people through the process. The second part, which is the one you raised, is in terms of making parole decisions. Another part of the difficulty the service does face is that they don't always know where everything is, so if there are mental health records, for example, they may not know they even exist. Then in hindsight, if there's a serious event, an investigation, this may surface as something they should have known about.
[Translation]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Pierre de Savoye): Thank you, Mr. Nault. Mr. Silye.
[English]
Mr. Jim Silye: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In preparing for this meeting I came across an article in the Fraser Forum, the publication of the Fraser Institute, that was written in 1996 by Paul Brantingham and Stephen Easton. They do a statistical analysis of crime, including the cost of crime, who pays, and recidivism. There's one particular thing in the article I agree with. We all know crime is a very important subject and problem for all Canadians. We're reviewing it all the time. I'd like to quote one of their final paragraphs:
- The Canadian justice system does not encourage scrutiny. Data on how well we do on catching
criminals, convicting them and keeping them from reoffending are not easy to obtain in any
systematic way. Yet any thoughtful analysis of social justice surely requires that we know how
well and efficiently we do what we are doing. We need to know the characteristics of the
offenders and how they find their victims. We need to know all we can about who is caught and
how often and how they are treated once they are apprehended, how much is spent and how
much we all pay.
This is a hypothetical question, and I can get away with it here because it's not the House of Commons and the Speaker won't rule me out of order. Say you were the warden of an institution where 80% of the prisoners were sexual offenders, and you were trying to implement a program of rehabilitation and to decide whether or not they should serve their full sentence and you were trying to do something for them so that when they did get out they wouldn't reoffend. You say people in prison have the same rights as those outside of prison, but that's another subject. Would you allow cable television that shows the pornographic films I referred to in my first question? Would you allow the purchase of the filthiest of pornographic magazines for those inmates? Would you allow that, or would you take that away from them?
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Commr Ingstrup: Mr. Chairman, I think it's important to distinguish clearly between the two categories, cable television and the filthiest of pornographic journalism.
Mr. Jim Silye: All of those are available.
Commr Ingstrup: With regard to cable TV, I think it's very important, sir, that we prepare inmates for their return to society - and they are coming back, virtually every one of them - as well as we can. One of the ways to do that is to make sure they understand how society works and what is happening out there. TV is one way of doing that. That's what they're going to do as soon as they're out, and that's what they did before they came in.
When it comes to pornographic material, if one defines pornographic material as material that degrades one of the sexes or that contains violent sexual activities and that kind of stuff, that is not allowed in our institutions. I cannot guarantee these things never get in, because there are a lot of contacts, but pornography as defined that way is not supposed to get into our institutions, and I don't believe it's being sold anywhere.
But if you're looking at sexually explicit material that doesn't have these characteristics I mentioned, things that can be bought at the corner store, then we have it in our institutions alongside a lot of other information. I think it's a judgment call as to how much of it and where the limit is. As you mentioned, sir, it's not a clear line. But I think to create a completely artificial environment within institutions, where we have no way of observing how the inmate reacts to real life impulses, is to take away from us a tool to assess that inmate as to his potential danger when he comes out.
When it comes to sexually explicit material, we don't allow display of that, for instance, on the walls of our institutions. We think this is something our male and female staff should not be exposed to, and we don't think inmates should be exposed to it either.
I think there are some unrealistic views of what we actually have in our institutions. I know some inmates have done things in that area they're not supposed to do, and unfortunately they attracted attention to that area in a way that maybe allows us to exaggerate a bit.
[Translation]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Pierre de Savoye): Thank you, Mr. Silye. Mr. Pagtakhan.
[English]
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: The point Mr. Nault raised is that the absence of information from the police or court accounted for 20% of the basis for poor-quality decisions respecting release. There is the remaining 80% that was the basis for poor decision-making, obviously. You alluded in paragraph 11 that the correctional officers or guards are not consistently performing their responsibility to provide input into the recommendation for parole. My question is, what proportion of the cases do these particular deficiencies constitute as a basis for poor-quality decisions?
Ms Barrados: Mr. Chairman, I think I need a little bit of help in clarifying the question.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: Paragraph 5 indicates that in 12 of 60 cases there was poor police or court information. That would constitute about 20% as a basis for poor-quality decision-making. Obviously the remaining 80% accounts as well for poor-quality decisions. I'm trying to ascertain what are those factors that account for poor-quality decisions. In paragraph 11 there was an allusion to it. To what extent does the deficiency account as a basis for poor-quality decisions and henceforth would be a basis for attention?
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Ms Barrados: The reference that we have explictly in the audit report talks about 12 of 60 in which there is a problem. So we're only talking about that proportion that is a problem.
Those were decisions that were made of the study done for the National Parole Board. It was looking back at decisions that were being made and asking if the National Parole Board had all the information, and then looking at that information and making a judgment as to whether, if they'd had complete information, they would have made a different decision. That was the conclusion. We use this information to demonstrate the importance of good information.
Now, the information that goes to the National Parole Board does get put together by the Correctional Service in terms of providing a set of information the parole board can make their decisions on when somebody is going through this case management system. So all the processes and the comments we're making about case management and how that needed to be improved through the information from the front and the managing of that system - all that applies.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: If I may interrupt, what proportion of the basis for poor decision-making does paragraph 11 account for?
Ms Barrados: I don't think I could even fairly estimate that.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: A significant component, or a minor component? I just want to have a sense of the degree of seriousness.
Ms Barrados: We think it's very serious. I think it would be inappropriate for me to put a number on it, because there's such variation in the institutions. When we did the audit work, there were regions and institutions where the practices were really quite good and there were others where the practices were really not so good. Because of that variation, it's sort of hard to put a single number. We didn't attempt to do that.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: Then I have two questions for the commissioner. The first is on paragraph 8: no formal mechanism exists for deciding when the service has enough official information on an offender. In your approach today, in your plan for a simplified approach, is this deficiency specifically being addressed? Will there be a formal mechanism? Yes or no?
Commr Ingstrup: Yes, sir, there will, and some parts have already been put together. For instance -
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: A formal mechanism.
Commr Ingstrup: There is point one, and these are the two most important. The first thing is that we now have a list of what is essential information that we need to get into the intake assessment, and that is previous charges, previous convictions, post-sentence community assessment, police reports and interviews and analyses done by staff in the intake units. That is what is needed at the intake stage.
When we get to the decision-making stage or recommendation stage for the National Parole Board, we add a number of more things - namely, reports about how well they did on programs, and something about how well are they expected to do should they be released into the community. We need, at that stage, court decisions, because the court may have said something that would be of interest over and above what we have from the police reports at that stage. That is one thing - clarity about what kind of information is required.
The second step is that a tracking system is being put in place so we know whether that information has actually arrived or not arrived, so we don't end up close to the decision point just to realize that we don't have the information we need. As far as I recall, we are putting that tracking system in our major offender management system, which is a huge computer system that we have, so it will come up.
The third thing we have done is because we share the Auditor General's view, we've been pushing very hard our provincial, municipal, and territorial counterparts to make sure we get that information and we get it on time for our decision-making.
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The fourth element that I think is important is that we now have reintegration managers who are doing quality control, and part of the quality control process will be to check what information is there and what information is potentially missing.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: In a hospital ward, if I may say -
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Pierre de Savoye): This will be your last question. You're already two minutes over.
Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan: Yes.
When we made medical rounds, we had all the tools. We would see the patient and decide when the patient would be ready for discharge so that you avoid relapse, etc. I do not like to make an absolute analogy, but that is the analogy that's clear in my mind in terms of process. At each point we would like to be sure who is in charge on day one, day two, day three, and perhaps in a two-year sentence, in week one, week two, month one or month three, who would be the chief resident, the chief correctional thing and say we have all the information. Are these things now part of your simplified approach process?
Commr Ingstrup: It absolutely is, the clarification of roles. There are two things, and one is that we are developing a role statement, which will be submitted to the executive committee at our meeting in June, of who is doing what to whom and when. The second thing is that we have developed an audit tool, which the local and regional managers can use. We cannot guarantee patients will not come back to us. They will. There's nothing we can do to totally prevent that from happening. But we can reduce the number of managerial glitches, I believe.
[Translation]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Pierre de Savoye): Thank you, Commissioner; thank you,Mr. Pagtakhan.
Auditor General, would you like to add a few comments to wind up this meeting?
[English]
Mr. Desautels: Mr. Chairman, I think I should commend the Correctional Service on the efforts they have demonstrated so far to improve the reintegration activities and to correct the problems we've identified. As I said earlier, I think they reacted quite quickly to our observations and put in motion a series of efforts that seem to be providing the right answers. But as I said before, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, so we'll be watching very carefully how the service delivers on these plans and recommendations.
I recognize it's a hard job to incarcerate while at the same time managing activities that are geared to the reintegration of offenders into the community and turning them into law-abiding citizens, but I think it's a terribly important job. I visited a number of institutions myself in the course of this work and talked to guards and officers as well as prisoners in a number of institutions. I think it's a terribly important function that has to be carried out well for the sake of public safety but also for the sake of the efficient spending of taxpayers' money on this activity.
We have plans, Mr. Chairman, to follow up on this particular series of reports within two years. But also in the course of this year we'll be doing some additional work on the custodial aspects of the Correctional Service, because we did report on that a couple of years ago and that's due for a follow-up. So we'll be back before your committee later on this year with a little more information on the custodial part of the Correctional Service and within a couple of years on the reintegration functions to see how well this is turning out.
[Translation]
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Pierre de Savoye): Our thanks to the Auditor General, to the Correctional Service Commissioner and to Ms Barrados, MacDonald and Wiseman. Everything you have said here is useful to the members of this committee in the context of their work and I thank you. Have a nice day.
The meeting stands adjourned.