25 November 1999
Maria Barrados
Assistant Auditor General of Canada
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for providing us with the opportunity to present the results of our audit of Correctional Service Canada – Reintegration of Offenders, Chapter 1 of our 1999 Report.
With me today is Ron Wolchuk, Principal for the audit of Correctional Service Canada.
During 1994 and 1996, our Office conducted three audits of areas related to the second of Correctional Service Canada’s main responsibilities — the safe reintegration of offenders into the community. Included were audits of the institutional case management process, offender rehabilitation programs, and the supervision of released offenders. In April 1999, we conducted a follow-up and re-audit of key observations and recommendations made in the three previous audits.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin by saying that the Service has made a concerted effort to respond to many of our previous concerns and observations. We believe that it has been moving in the right direction as evidenced by some of the following improvements we found.
It has strengthened its national headquarters organization, which provides overall direction and co-ordination for changes in the offender reintegration processes.
It has implemented a major initiative to streamline its reintegration operations – Operation Bypass. The objective of this initiative is to reduce duplication, consolidate offender reports, and strengthen communication and co-ordination throughout the process. Implementation in all regions had just begun at the time of our audit.
The Service has taken action in response to your Committee’s recommendations concerning the Custody Rating Scale and has begun implementing the Security Reclassification Instrument.
A framework is now in place for evaluating the effectiveness of intervention programs. Some of the programs have been internationally accredited while others are in the process of independent review.
The Service has also increased its capability to acquire, organize and analyze performance data concerning several key aspects of offender reintegration. A new performance management tool – Action Indicators – for local managers and parole officers was to be implemented early this year.
However, notwithstanding the genuine effort that the Service has made to date, further improvement is needed in some key areas. While official offender documents have been arriving sooner, we found that about one quarter of the needed documents (police reports, judge’s comments and the Post-Sentence Community Assessment) were still not received within the required time frame. The lack of such information can affect the quality of rehabilitation planning, slow the process of preparing offenders for parole and affect the quality of National Parole Board release decisions.
Timely casework preparation to meet the offender’s first parole eligibility date is most critical when the offender is serving a short sentence. While we found some improvement in timeliness, Correctional Service data indicated that essential time standards were still not being met for the completion of the initial offender assessment at intake, the correctional plan and rehabilitation programs. Mr. Chairman, your committee may wish to inquire on the progress made particularly as a result of the implementation of Operation Bypass.
While the Service continued to spend a significant portion of its rehabilitation program expenditures on employment programs (areas such as prison industries, vocational training, education and institutional services), it lacked a clear operational strategy with which to manage and fund these programs in relation to their cost effectiveness.
We also found problems concerning the quality control of offender reintegration reports sent to the National Parole Board. While the Service had established policy concerning responsibility for quality control, both compliance with policy and the level of report quality were below expectation.
In 1994, we observed that, among other things, the average time available for direct face-to-face supervision of offenders in the community varied widely across district and local offices. In 1998, we found that there were still problems in achieving the approved standards for frequency of contact with offenders.
In conclusion, we found that since 1996, Correctional Service has done an increasingly better job to prepare offenders for reintegration into society. With key initiatives such as Operation Bypass and a new workload formula in the community just emerging, the change process is not complete; challenges remain and more improvement is still required. We believe that the biggest challenge facing the Service is the implementation of these planned improvements and change across all five regions.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer your Committee’s questions concerning this audit.