MANDATE

The Correctional Investigator is mandated by Part III of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act as an Ombudsman for federal offenders. The primary function of the Office is to investigate and bring resolution to individual offender complaints. The Office as well, has a responsibility to review and make recommendations on the Correctional Service's policies and procedures associated with the areas of individual complaints to ensure that systemic areas of concern are identified and appropriately addressed.

MISSION STATEMENT

The Office of the Correctional Investigator, as an Ombudsman for federal offenders, is committed to maintaining an accessible independent avenue of redress for offender complaints and to provide timely recommendations to the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada and the Solicitor General which address the areas of concern raised on complaint.

OPERATIONS

The Office, over the course of the reporting year, received 7,993 complaints. The investigative staff spent 344 days in federal penitentiaries and conducted in excess of 2,800 interviews with inmates and half again that number of interviews with institutional and regional staff. In addition to responding to individual complaints, the Office meets regularly with inmate committees and other offender organizations and makes announced visits bi-annually at each institution during which the investigator will meet with any inmate, or group of inmates, upon request. We had, over the course of this reporting year, in excess of three hundred meetings with various offender organizations, including inmate committees, lifer groups, black inmate associations, native brotherhoods and sisterhoods.

The areas of complaint continue to focus on those long-standing issues which have been detailed in past Annual Reports. A specific breakdown of the areas of complaint, dispositions, institutional visits and interviews are provided in the statistics section of the Report.

Among Areas of Concern identified in this year's Annual Report are:

• Aboriginal Offenders
• Institutional Violence
• Women Offenders
• Inmate Programs
• Conditional Release