Public Accounts — Issue No. 18 — Wednesday, April 29, 2015 (HTML)

Present: Bruce Ralston, MLA (Chair); Sam Sullivan, MLA (Deputy Chair); Kathy Corrigan, MLA; David Eby, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; Marvin Hunt, MLA; Vicki Huntington, MLA; Greg Kyllo, MLA; Lana Popham, MLA; Linda Reimer, MLA; Selina Robinson, MLA; Ralph Sultan, MLA; Laurie Throness, MLA

Others Present: Carol Bellringer, Auditor General; Stuart Newton, Comptroller General

2. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions regarding the Auditor General Report: An Audit of the Adult Custody Division’s Correctional Facilities and Programs

• Brent Merchant, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corrections Branch, Ministry of Justice

• Stephanie Macpherson, Provincial Director, Adult Custody Division, Corrections Branch, Ministry of Justice

• Elenore Clark, Provincial Director, Strategic Operations Division, Corrections Branch, Ministry of Justice

3. The Committee considered its draft report titled Annual Summary of Activities 2014-15.

4. Resolved, that the Committee approve and adopt the report entitled Summary of Activities for 2014-15 as presented today and further, that the Committee authorize the Sub-Committee on Agenda and Procedure to work with committee staff to finalize any minor editorial changes to complete the supporting text. (Sam Sullivan, MLA)

5. Resolved, that once the report has been approved by the Sub-Committee on Agenda and Procedure, that, on behalf of the Committee, the Chair present the report entitled Summary of Activities for 2014-15 to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity. (Simon Gibson, MLA)

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS


CONTENTS
Page
Office of the Auditor General: An Audit of the Adult Custody Division’s Correctional Facilities and Programs	663
C. Bellringer
P. Nagati
B. Merchant
S. Macpherson
E. Clark
Follow-Up Process for Office of the Auditor General Reports	684
Draft Committee Report	684

B. Ralston (Chair): Good morning, committee members. I’d like to begin the proceedings. Welcome to the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee.

We have an agenda that’s before us. Unless there are any objections, I’m going to assume that that’s agreeable to all members. Okay. That’ll be our agenda.

The first item is the consideration of the Office of the Auditor General report An Audit of the Adult Custody Division’s Correctional Facilities and Programs, dating from January 2015. I will now turn it over to the Auditor General and her staff, and we’ll hear from them. Then, in due course, we’ll hear from the Ministry of Justice, corrections branch.

Office of the Auditor General: An
Audit of the Adult Custody Division’s
Correctional Facilities and Programs

C. Bellringer: With me today from the office are Malcolm Gaston, the assistant Auditor General in performance audit, with overall responsibility for this audit; and Peter Nagati, the director who led the audit. Tracey Janes is also behind us, and she worked on this audit as well.

Jurisdictions across Canada have been challenged with meeting increasing demands on correctional services. As a result of concerns raised about overcrowding in B.C. correctional centres, we carried out this audit to determine whether the adult custody division of the Ministry of Justice is effectively managing capacity to ensure safe custody and providing programs to reduce reoffending.

Our audit report contains eight recommendations. Peter will go through these in a minute.

One, at the time of our audit the correction facilities, we found, were over capacity. At the time of our audit facilities were operating at 140 percent occupancy on average, with individual centres ranging from 107 to 177 percent, when the target was 119 percent.

Second point. We found that inmates were not receiving the programs that they needed to reduce their risk of reoffending. In our 2011 report on the Effectiveness of B.C. Community Corrections we had similar findings regarding the provision and completion of programming in the community corrections division.

The third main point is that the adult custody division needs to map out what it wants to achieve and how it will get there.

We appreciate that many factors contribute to custody pressures, criminal behaviour and reoffending. This audit only examined one part of the criminal justice system. We appreciate that improving outcomes may require strategies and approaches that consider the broader criminal justice system.

I’ll now turn it over to Peter to provide you with a brief overview of the report.

P. Nagati: I do have a very short presentation consisting of ten overheads. As the Auditor General mentioned, British Columbia and other jurisdictions across Canada are challenged with a growing inmate population and increasing demands on correctional services.

Correctional custody is a shared responsibility between the federal and provincial governments. The government of B.C. is responsible for the custody of adults who are serving jail sentences of up to two years less a day or being held while awaiting trial or sentencing or being held pending an immigration review.

The numbers of inmates has increased over the past 30 years. In B.C. the average annual number of inmates has increased by 42 percent since 1990-91. The adult custody division reported that just under 16,000 inmates were admitted into B.C. correctional centres in 2013-14. Of these, approximately half were sentenced inmates and half were awaiting trial or sentencing.

This growth in the number of inmates, as well as the closure of ten B.C. provincial correctional facilities in 2002, contributed to extensive double-bunking in prison cells, almost all of which were designed for single occupancy. In 2010 B.C. was experiencing amongst the highest rates of double-bunking in Canada at 76 percent.

Prison overcrowding can adversely affect staff and inmates. This includes increased tension and risk of conflict between inmates and staff. It also creates greater challenges in separating incompatible inmates, such as rival gangs. And it can also reduce opportunities for rehabilitation. In other words, if staff are spending their time responding to conflicts, it may reduce the amount of time that they have available to offer programs.

To manage those risks, B.C. Corrections developed capital asset management plans in 2007 and 2011. Treasury Board approved $475 million to create over 800 new temporary and permanent cells. This includes the recent expansion of the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre, and it also includes the upcoming build of the Okanagan correctional centre.

Due to these facility expansions and a recent drop in inmate numbers, correctional centres in B.C. have averaged 140 percent occupancy at the time of the audit. On average, this means that over half of the inmates were sharing cells.

B.C. Corrections expects the inmate population to continue increasing. With its expanding capacity, the division expects to achieve its targeted double-bunking rate of 32 percent by 2020.

Moving on to our audit objectives and scope, we examine whether the adult custody division is planning for and providing the facilities it needs to deliver safe and secure custody and also whether it’s planning for and providing the programs inmates need to reduce criminal behaviour.

Finally, we looked at whether inmates were provided with access to facilities and programs that are consistent with current policies and legislation. The first two objectives focused on the effectiveness of the division in meeting its mission or mandate, and the third objective assessed compliance with policy and legislation.

We concluded that the division could not demonstrate that it was planning for or providing the facilities it needs to deliver safe and secure custody. We also concluded that it did not plan for or provide the programs that inmates need to reduce criminal behaviour and that it provided most inmates with accommodation as outlined in policy and legislation but not programs designed to reduce the risk that inmates present to the community.

Overall, we found that the division’s lack of attention to performance management, evidence-based decision-making and offender programming increased the risk to inmates, staff and public safety. More attention to these areas would increase the likelihood that the division directs time and money into programs and facilities that are effective.

Some of our key findings. For facilities, we found that the division was unable to demonstrate that it has the right amount or types of facilities needed to provide safe, secure custody. The division does assess the safety and security of its facilities through regular inspections, risk assessments, monitoring and reviews of critical incidents. However, the division has not mapped out what safe and secure custody looks like, how it will get there or how it is doing now.

We also found that the division is meeting some, but not all, of its legislated requirements and policy expectations for accommodating inmates. In our sample of 66 inmate files, we found that 70 percent of inmates did receive timely access to appropriate living space. We also found that the division did not consistently house non-sentenced inmates separately from sentenced inmates, as outlined in the Correction Act regulation.

Regarding programs, the division offers core programs for sentenced inmates to reduce reoffending. These programs target issues that contribute to a criminal lifestyle and are intended to influence inmates’ patterns of thinking and behaviour.

For another sample of 66 offender files we examined, we found that the division, in most cases, did not meet policy and legislation expectations to provide offenders with timely access to core programs. The division recommended core programs that aligned with case management plans in only 27 percent of the files that we examined. In total, only 15 percent of the sampled offenders fully or partially completed those core programs.

We also found the division has not ensured that the programs offered are effective. It has no framework in place to drive planning, implementation and evaluation of offender programs, and it has also not determined whether it has the right number and types of programs in place to reduce criminal behaviour. Evaluations conducted by the division to date show that only one of its five current core programs offered reduces reoffending.

As a result of our findings, we developed a series of recommendations for the adult custody division to help ensure that it achieves its mission for safe, secure custody and to provide programs that promote public safety and reduce criminal behaviour. They’re quite lengthy. You can find them in our report, but I’ll paraphrase very quickly.

(1) Articulate what it wants to accomplish and how it intends to get there. This would include defining appropriate occupancy levels for achieving its mandate.

(2) Periodically analyze information collected on safety and security to inform future decisions.

(3) Improve upon current forecasting practices to more fully inform decisions about space and program needs.

(4) Ensure that information collected on the inmate population is analyzed and used to inform decisions.

(6) Implement a quality assurance system across correctional centres to continuously improve classification and case management of inmates.

(7) Examine the impact of housing sentenced and non-sentenced inmates together and reconcile the approach taken with the requirements of the regulation.

(8) Finally, review and improve upon the case management process for offenders to figure out the barriers to inmates getting access to the programs that they need.

That concludes the summary of our report. I would like to very much thank the staff we met during the course of the audit, both at headquarters and at the correctional centres, for the support they showed us throughout the audit. They do very important and challenging work, and they’re very passionate about it.

We’ll now turn to representatives of the Ministry of Justice corrections branch.

Welcome. It looks as though Brent Merchant, assistant deputy minister, is the lead hand there, so I’ll turn it over to him and let him introduce his group.

B. Merchant: Thank you for having us here today. As the Chair mentioned, my name is Brent Merchant. I’m the assistant deputy minister of the B.C. corrections branch. I thank the members for the opportunity to present our response to the Auditor General’s report on the adult custody division.
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With me today are Elenore Clark, provincial director of the strategic operation division; and Stephanie Macpherson, who is the provincial director of the adult custody division.

Before we address the Auditor General’s recommendations, I just want to take a moment to give some background about the corrections branch. The corrections branch is one of the largest branches within the B.C. government and is comprised of four divisions: the capital projects, strategic operations, community corrections and adult custody divisions. Together, that comprises a staff complement of over 2,000 employees.

On any given day the peace officers — peace officers being correctional officers and probation officers — within our branch supervise over 25,000 people under court orders. That’s every day. We supervise 25,000 people in the community and in our custody centres. Yesterday the adult custody division was supervising 2,554 inmates in our nine provincial centres across the province.

Approximately 55 percent of those inmates are remanded. For those that aren’t familiar with the term “remand,” it means that somebody has been charged with an offence, they’ve gone in front of a judge, the judge has not made a determination of guilt or innocence, but the judge has said that this person needs to be held in custody. That’s typically until they can “perfect” bail — that’s what it’s called — or until their next court case.

Forty-five percent of the people that we supervise are sentenced. A sentenced person is one who’s been charged with an offence, gone in front of a judge. The judge has found them guilty of the charge and sentenced them to a period of custody less than two years. Or they could sentence them to probation as well.

Many times people get us mixed up with the Correctional Service of Canada. People who go to the Correctional Service of Canada are those people who have been charged with an offence, gone in front of a judge and have been sentenced to a period of incarceration greater than two years. I know that when I talk to public bodies, the way I explain it is that Correctional Service of Canada, if you use a medical analogy, is the long-term care. And provincial — we’re right across Canada — correctional systems are more like the emergency room. We have a lot of people on remand that come in and out, who have been charged and are awaiting determinations of the court.

Our mandate, while those individuals are under our supervision in the adult custody division is that we’re to hold them until their sentence is complete or until the court orders them to come back to court. That’s our primary mandate — to ensure those things happen.

While under supervision, remanded offenders are encouraged to work closely with their legal representatives on their court case. There’s nothing that we can do to compel them to take programs or engage in work, because they’re neither guilty nor innocent. There’s no legal way for us to have them take programs, whereas with sentenced offenders, we do have some ability to work with them on their criminal behaviour.

Changing people’s behaviour is difficult, and it takes time. The average length of stay in one of our correctional centres for a remanded offender is 34 days. The average time for a sentenced offender is 68 days. So 68 days is not very long to try to change a lifetime of criminal behaviour. I think anybody who has kids will understand the idea that 68 days to change behaviour…. It’s a very difficult thing to do.

The people that we supervise come with a myriad of issues that they present when they come into our supervision: drug addiction, just horrendous home lives when they were growing up — a whole host of presenting problems. It isn’t just one thing. It’s a host of things that we have to deal with. That makes our jobs that much more challenging.

I just wanted to give you a little background of the kind of correctional environment in which we operate.

S. Macpherson: The first recommendation from the Auditor General was for us to develop and implement a complete performance management framework of goals, objectives, strategies, performance measures and targets to achieve safe and secure custody and reduce criminal behaviour. This would include defining appropriate capacity levels for correctional centres.

Our response to the recommendation is that we have launched a new strategic plan. In front of you, with your package, you would have received it. It’s the larger sheet of paper. We finalized that late last year.

We have restructured all of our working committees within the division. We have a number of different committees that focus on specific program areas. Each committee chair has been given terms of reference that specifically ask them to develop a framework for performance management, to link their committee to the strategic plan and to the action items recommended in the Auditor’s report and to identify specific performance measures for each committee. They use existing key indicators, which we have developed, to guide their decision-making process.

Going forward, we will develop new key indicators to measure performance in a much broader way. We will consult with national and international correctional jurisdictions to determine best practices related to the occupancy levels.

The second recommendation of the Auditor General is for us to periodically assess trends in safety and security within and across correctional centres — to understand how differences in operation, design or capacity contribute to incidents — and use the results of that to reduce the risk of reoccurrence.

Our response to that recommendation is that we have activated an executive electronic dashboard of incident-
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based key indicators, and that would be another of the handouts that we provided. Each of our wardens and headquarter staff monitor those performance indicators on a daily basis.

We have also established a provincial workplace safety committee to focus on these issues across correctional centres and recommend and implement changes to work practices, policies and training. What we will continue to focus on is to conduct regular reviews of unsafe conditions across correctional centres and use the results to reduce risk of reoccurrence.

This includes continuing to assess trends in safety and security and refining how that review is documented and to explore ways to understand how differences in operation, design or occupancy may contribute to the incidents that occur.

E. Clark: The Auditor General’s third recommendation asked that we develop and implement an approach to forecasting our facility space as well as our program needs that accounts for the complexity of the inmate population — things such as changes in population groups or shifts in population trends.

In response to that, we have validated and monitored our long-term forecasting methods without outside agencies such as B.C. Statistics, as well as Simon Fraser University. With SFU, our work has focused on a simulation modelling initiative that forecasts the number and the complexity of the inmate population. These forecast outcomes, we know, will help us in determining how to better define facility and program needs.

We’ve also enhanced our short-term forecast methodology, and, as a result, in 2014-2015 we ended the year within two percent of our forecasted count.

B. Ralston (Chair): Do you want to enter the polling business, perhaps? [Laughter.]

E. Clark: Moving forward, we intend to further review the outcomes of the simulation modelling initiative and then incorporate the results of that initiative in order to better define our facility space and program needs.

S. Macpherson: Moving on to recommendation 4, the recommendation is that we should ensure that decisions regarding facility space and programs fully reflect key characteristics of the inmate population, such as security, designation, population classification and legal status.

Our response to that recommendation is that we have established subcommittees, as I indicated earlier, that are tasked with utilizing and designating facility and program space to address the demands, needs and characteristics of the inmate population. We have been working on designing the Okanagan correctional centre to include program and flexible-use space to meet the changing characteristics of the inmate population.

Examples of the uniqueness of the population include gender, whether it’s male or female; complex needs of the inmate — we have a number of inmates with mental-health needs; health care; indoor and outdoor programing; classification; and their legal-hold status, whether it’s remand or sentence.

We will in the future continue to review and implement approved recommendations of the subcommittees. We will review the complex nature of the historical inmate population and extract business intelligence that will help guide decisions regarding facility space and programs.

E. Clark: The Auditor General’s fifth recommendation asks that we periodically assess the effectiveness of our programs that are intended to reduce reoffending and use those results to identify and implement improvements in our programming. In response to the recommendation of the Auditor, I can tell you that we base our programs on the validated principles of risk-needs responsivity. These principles are widely accepted, both nationally and internationally, as the gold-standard approaches in correctional practice.

We utilize risk-needs responsivity in our approach to providing programs to inmates. In doing so, we consider that the risk principle indicates that we must identify the right offender through the use of risk and needs assessments. The level of treatment services needs to be appropriately matched with the level of risk of the offender. Higher-risk offenders should receive more intensive and extensive services than lower-risk clients, who should receive minimal or sometimes even no interventions, depending on their risk level.

The needs principle says that we must apply the right intervention, and we do that by making sure that our programs and our interventions target areas of a person’s life that are linked to their criminal behaviour.

The literature says that there are eight dynamic factors that are closely associated with reductions in recidivism. The top four of them are most closely linked to reductions in reoffending. Those are pro-criminal attitudes, behavioural and emotional stability, pro-criminal associates and marital and family relationships.

Finally, the responsivity principle says that we need to utilize the right delivery with our programs by applying those programs in such a way in order to account for an individual’s specific needs, such as literacy or cognitive levels or motivation.

How that translates for us is that we, first, assess the risks and needs that individuals have. We identify the right offender and the specific needs that they present. Then we develop individualized case plans, considering the risks and needs, as well as other factors such as length of time in custody and legal hold status, such as remand or sentenced. Finally, then, we apply those evidence-based interventions that have been proven through re-
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search to be linked to reoffending.

In addition to this work, I can also tell you that we continue to evaluate and improve our adult custody programs that are designed to reduce reoffending. Examples of successful programs that we’ve evaluated include the violence prevention program, which reduces reoffending by up to 35 percent, and the integrated offender management program, which reduces offending by up to 48 percent.

Looking into the future, we intend to continue to assess the effectiveness of our cognitive behavioural programs that are intended to reduce reoffending, and we intend to strengthen our process of documenting how those results are used, in order to identify and implement improvements to our programming.

The Auditor General’s sixth recommendation asks that we “implement a quality assurance system across our correctional centres in order to monitor and continuously improve the classification and case management of inmates.”

In response to that recommendation, we’ve begun work on a one-client case management initiative, which will result in an enhanced case management approach, as well as a governance structure and an information management system to support that approach.

We have implemented an electronic inmate assessment tool that leverages existing systems to provide structure and consistency to the classification process for inmates. We’ve also revised our inmates needs assessment guidelines and the training for correctional officers to utilize that assessment tool. And we’ve completed a business plan to inform the design of a case management quality assurance system.

Moving forward, we will develop the one-client case management framework, as well as the governance model and the information system to support it. We’ll continue to refine our inspections process to ensure quality assurance, and we’ll monitor the results of key performance measures in order to focus our quality assurance activities appropriately.

B. Merchant: The seventh recommendation was to “examine the impact of housing sentenced and non-sentenced inmates together and implement an appropriate approach for meeting the requirements of the Correction Act regulation.” We have followed the Correction Act regulation, and we will continue to review and monitor the impact of housing sentenced and non-sentenced inmates together.

E. Clark: The Auditor General’s final recommendation asks that we “review the case management process to identify and address barriers to offenders getting timely access programs that they need to reduce their criminal behaviour. This includes evaluating and improving the reliability of our risk-needs assessments that are used to identify programs for offenders.”

As I mentioned previously in response to this, we’ve begun work on the one-client case management initiative. That will result in an enhanced case management approach, governance structure and information management system to support that. We’ve completed a business plan to inform the design of a case management quality assurance system.

Looking to the future, we’ll develop a road map to implement that one-client case management framework, which we expect will improve the link between risk assessment, case management and programs.

Finally, we’ll review and refine our assessment tools that we use to identify programs for offenders.

B. Merchant: In conclusion, I just wanted to point out that…. I co-chair a federal-provincial-territorial body called the Heads of Corrections. The people that sit on that committee are the assistant deputy ministers of corrections from all of the provinces and the three territories. I co-chair that with the commissioner of corrections, Don Head, of the Correctional Service of Canada.

I know I only look 25, but I’ve been in corrections for over 30 years. Sitting on that body, B.C. Corrections is recognized as a leader in the field of corrections by our provincial counterparts across Canada. It’s something that we’re proud of. Sometimes when we get a report that says we’re not doing a good enough job, sometimes it gets personal. I know you’re not supposed to take things personally.

Can we do better? Yes, we can. Our history in the corrections branch shows that we continually seek ways to improve the delivery of our programs and our services. We want to do a better job.

MLA Throness, who’s here today, is the Parliamentary Secretary for Corrections and recently released his report to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Suzanne Anton. It provided recommendations on how to improve the safety of inmates, staff and communities where correctional centres are located.

I thank MLA Throness, and I thank the Auditor General for the recommendations. As we address those issues and put in place the various changes they have detailed, our branch will improve. With that improvement, we will move to an environment that provides a higher level of safety for the inmates, our staff and, ultimately, the citizens of British Columbia.

R. Sultan: Brent, can you give some idea of the magnitude of your operating budget and your capital budget and how rapidly it has or has not been growing in recent years?
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B. Merchant: This fiscal year our operating budget is just a touch over $220 million. Our capital budget right now is…. We were granted $185 million some years ago to do expansions at a number of facilities across the province. Those expansions and builds have now been completed.

Currently, we’re working on the Okanagan correctional centre, which is a little over $200 million of capital. The construction will be completed at the end of September 2016. That’s housed on the land owned by the Osoyoos Indian Band, near Oliver. It will be 378 cells, and 18 of those cells will be for female inmates.

R. Sultan: Well, reading between the lines of the Auditor General’s report, one could draw the conclusion that part of the situation we face is the need to very, very significantly increase the number of spaces. Would you agree?

B. Merchant: I’m not sure I’d use the word “significant.” I would have a number of years ago, as the Auditor General has pointed out. Back in probably ’08, I think it was, we were at about 177 percent usage of our cells, which means just about every cell is double-bunked. Since that time…. Yesterday, for example, we were at 126 percent.

Do I think we’ll ever get to one inmate in one cell? I think that’s very difficult, because at that point you may end up overbuilding for what you need. I think we are on track. As I said, the Okanagan centre will open probably in the first part of 2017. If that centre was to open today, like right now, we’d probably be at about 105 percent of capacity. But today, with the space we have, it’s 126 percent.

R. Sultan: Recognizing that a very significant percentage of police incidents seem to involve people with mental illness of one sort or another, one might assume that that carries over into the corrections branch population as well. That, I suppose, might lead to the speculation: are we housing a lot of people in our prisons who really might be better housed in some sort of institution dealing with their mental illness?

B. Merchant: Diagnosed, we have 56 percent of our population that we supervise, both in the community and custody, that have either a substance abuse problem or a mental health issue. B.C. is one of the only jurisdictions in Canada that has a director of mental health, a psychologist that frames our programs. We’re one of the few jurisdictions in Canada that screens people on admission for mental health, so we do train our staff to deal with mental health.

I’m not sure…. It’s a larger problem than just corrections, and it’s probably a largely problem than health. It’s a societal problem. I’m starting to get into the area of being a politician here, so I’d better stop my talk.

K. Corrigan: Chair, I have a number of questions, and you can let me ask as many as you deem fit in the first round, and then I’ll come back.

I’ll make a comment first. I appreciate this report. I think it’s really worthwhile. I was the public safety critic for a number of years and heard repeated concerns about our correctional centres, largely from staff. We did have an excellent report from the Office of the Auditor General a few years ago on community corrections. Some of the recommendations were very similar — lack of planning, lack of really analyzing the data.

Frankly, given that that was several years ago, I am surprised that some of the lessons learned — presumably learned — with regard to community corrections were not applied to correctional facilities in this province, because many of the concerns are very similar. So that’s an initial comment.

B. Ralston (Chair): Would Mr. Merchant perhaps…? Do you wish to respond to that or to wait?

B. Merchant: I just took it as a comment. I didn’t know there was a question there.

K. Corrigan: I do have a great deal of respect for the officers. I’ve toured some of the facilities and know that the officers do a great job and are very professional in the work that they do.

I wanted to ask a very specific question about the Okanagan correctional centre, which is going to be coming on line in the next while. That’s a P3 facility. One of the comments that was made, and it’s also referred to in the report on page 21, is essentially that there may be changes to the design in order to incorporate responses to the recommendations that have been made in this report.

My question is: given that it’s a P3 contract, and we know how inflexible those contracts are, have there ended up being extra costs associated with any of the design changes, if there are physical design changes? Are there associated costs or change orders that are associated with that facility as a result of this report?

B. Merchant: Well, the changes that were taking place address the comments within the Auditor General’s report. Did they result in change orders? No, they have not. Each time we build a jail, we learn from the last jail we built and what other jurisdictions across Canada and the States have incorporated into their designs.
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K. Corrigan: Okay. So there are no costs, because the contract was signed a while ago.

I wanted to also express concern…. No, maybe I’ll ask a question, and then I’ll let it go on to somebody else. I’ll come back to this later.

One of the things that is not covered in the report is staffing levels. I know that the staff, the officers that work in the facilities, are very concerned, particularly in the newer correctional facilities. The staffing levels are, I think, as high as 1 to 40. Certainly, the response that we’ve heard about that is that that is acceptable.

I’m wondering if the Auditor General has any comments on staffing. It doesn’t seem like this was actually, particularly a concern. Was there any thought about staffing levels?

P. Nagati: The short answer is no. We did not look directly at staffing levels. Indirectly, though, we recommend that the division get a better sense of what it wants to accomplish and how it will get there, with regard to achieving its mission and mandate.

Once it does so, it should have a better sense of what it needs with regard to resources, including staffing.

K. Corrigan: Okay. I’ll leave it there for now, Chair, and come back later, if I may.

L. Throness: A few questions for both the Auditor General and our staff today. First of all, I want to thank the Auditor General for reaching out to me and offering to meet about our respective reports, which we did, and we had a good discussion a couple of weeks ago.

In my experience in touring the centres — I’d ask the Auditor General this — almost every cell I saw was equipped with capacity for two, but your report seems to equate any double-bunking as overcrowding. Could you speak to that?

P. Nagati: The information that was available to us suggests that the facilities were designed for single occupancy.

L. Throness: There are three levels of security within the institution — secure, medium and open custody. Open custody is like minimum security. Your report doesn’t distinguish between double-bunking in any of these different custody situations, so perhaps it might be less risky for an open custody inmate to be housed with another one, rather than a maximum-security inmate.

I wanted to ask our staff: how do we risk-base the way we place inmates in double-bunking?

B. Merchant: When an inmate is admitted to any one of our centres, they go through an extensive admitting procedure, one of them within the first 24 hours. Usually, on admission, they’re seen by a medical health professional — a nurse. They’re seen by a mental health screener. They’re seen by a classification officer.

They’re assigned to a unit and a bed space, based on their history with us, based on their charges, based on all of the factors that we know about that individual. Then they’re placed in an appropriate living environment that mitigates as many risks as we possibly can.

I do have to state that when you’re dealing, in a correctional centre, with the clients, the individuals that come into our centre, there is always the risk of violence. We can’t mitigate every risk, as much as we want to, and we try to do that as effectively as we possibly can. With the group of people that we supervise, the very nature of correctional centres, we can’t mitigate all of those risks.

L. Throness: But would you say in general that a person in secure custody would be more likely to be alone in a cell, rather than a person in open custody?

B. Merchant: Typically you would find that, yeah. But it is still based on the risk, because you can still have two secure-custody people living together in the same room with minimal risk. It depends on the individual.

L. Throness: My second question is also for staff. The ministry has placed great stock in evidence-based programming, and they made that very clear to me as I did my review. I was surprised to see the observation of the Auditor General that four out of five programs were not backed up by evidence. I noticed in your presentation here that you cited two that were.

Do you disagree with the Auditor General here, and how do you explain that difference?

E. Clark: We do rely on principles of risk-need responsivity, as I explained in the presentation. In terms of our programming, there is a variety of different programs that we apply. Some have been evaluated and found not to be effective in an environment. Then we go back and revise and reimplement and try again.

The two I cited have been found to be successful. The violence prevention program is a program that targets individuals who have demonstrated general violent behaviour as distinguished from domestic violence. That has been found to be effective. The integrated offender management program that we indicated on the screen is a reintegration program whereby we work with individuals in custody and as they transition out into the community to reduce their reoffending. We have listed those as two specific programs.

L. Throness: But the other three — we can’t demonstrate that they’re effective?
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E. Clark: I’m sorry. I don’t have the materials with me here today and so can’t cite the specific statistics.

We evaluated the relationship violence prevention program, and we found that it was effective in the community but not as effective in custody. That is due to a variety of factors, such as length of time in custody; it’s an artificial environment — things such as that.

The substance abuse management program — I don’t have that information with me here.

B. Merchant: What we have done is evaluate programs. If a program isn’t effective, an evaluation doesn’t…. You don’t just walk in and, two weeks later, you’ve got an evaluation. For a lot of these evaluations, you have to look over a three-year period to get meaningful results. When we do have them, we do change our programs. It’s also, probably, a term that we use that Peter is familiar with: core programs, which would take a much longer explanation here.

Another example of a program that does work that wouldn’t be considered a core program for us is the therapeutic community at Nanaimo Correctional Centre. We’ve evaluated that. That’s been a program that’s been in place for years. It has the highest rate of addressing criminal behaviour of all the custody programs.

I go back to the length of time we have with people that we supervise, that we can give programs to. On average, they’re there for 68 days. It’s hard to develop a program that will be effective for those types of people.

Now, the therapeutic community has a requirement that people have to have a sentence greater than four months. Those people that have a sentence greater than four months have a 48 percent reduction in recidivism. But people who are at 68 days, you know, it’s a real leap of faith if you think that we can change a lot of behaviour in 68 days — as much as we try. We have to develop programs that will maybe do it on the instalment plan, if people continue to come back with us.

D. Eby: I really took to heart Mr. Merchant’s comment that when he read the report, it was hard not to take it personally. I really feel that the corrections branch is caught between a rock and a hard place here. The Auditor General has set out some very reasonable expectations that the public has around corrections, and the government has provided corrections with a budget that has been cut by 29 percent between 2001 and 2012.

When you are put in a situation where your staff ratios in the service plan go from one staff member for 20 inmates to one staff member for 45 inmates, to make that budget — and now it might be as high in some institutions as 60 to one — it’s not a surprise that corrections officers see more violence and that there’s double-bunking. There are consequences that follow budgetary decisions that have been made. I do think, and I do believe, that corrections is doing the best they can in the circumstances. But I do think that the Auditor General is right that we all have to do better.

The challenge, I think, is that we are already spending a huge amount of money on corrections. It’s about $73,000 per inmate per year, when I divide the operating budget by the number of inmates. We’re looking at about 3,000. And social housing with mental health supports costs $35,000 a year.

I think there are ways that we can spend smarter when we know that a full third of the prisoners in our system are mentally disordered and half of them are waiting for a trial. They’re not even sentenced. If we can get them through the sentencing process faster….

My question to Mr. Merchant, with that extended commentary, is quite simple. Is he able to draw a connection between the budget cuts between 2001 and 2012 — I’m afraid that’s the last number I have — and some of the impacts that the Auditor General has seen in terms of the ability to set up programming and hire people for programming and reduce double-bunking and get people through the system, not just in corrections but maybe in the legal system as well?

B. Merchant: I don’t think I can answer that, really, with just a few words. But I’ll try to do it in pieces, and then you’ll see if I’ve hit what you’re looking for.

MLA Corrigan, you made a similar comment on inmate-to-staff ratios, so I thought I would start with that. To me, it’s always in the press about the inmate-to-staff ratios, and people say we have one staff to anywhere from 40 to 60 and now 62. That simply isn’t correct.

Every living unit is staffed by one correctional officer. But in addition to that, you have staff who are looking in on that unit through, basically, smoked glass. They provide another set of eyes. We have program staff that come into those units on a frequent but irregular basis. We have supervisors that go through those units on a regular basis. We have chaplains that go through those living units. We have other staff.

If you have four living units, you have one staff in each one of those living units. Then there are two staff that provide not indirect supervision but they rotate through those units to provide additional supervision. If you’re a correctional officer and you walk into a living unit, you can tell if the living unit is riskier or less risky on any given shift. If it appears to be riskier in that living unit, those floater staff go into those units, and they double up. It isn’t that we have one staff for this immense number of inmates. We have more than that — much more than that — except it’s how they’re deployed.

In addition, we have personal arm transmitters on every one of our correctional officers. In the paper they’re usually comparing it to North Fraser Pretrial. The response time to activate your personal arm transponder to having that unit flooded with staff is 15 seconds. I know
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a lot of damage can happen in 15 seconds, but it’s a standard that’s much higher than most other places.

Yes, we have violence in our centres, but that inmate-to-staff ratio, for me, is almost an urban legend. We’ve had these ratios…. We’ve had this staffing model for 13 years. We’ve added staff to that.

In terms of our budget. On the one side, sure, I’d love to have more money. But at the same time, I’m a taxpayer too. I believe that we make the best use of the resources that we have. With our programs, if I had a whole lot more money, would I have a lot of better and different programs? That money has nothing to do with it. The programs are important for us, and we are constantly trying to get programs that have better outcomes than what we have right now.

The money part of it is not a factor for us, because our staff teach the programs. They like to do that. It isn’t that we’re bringing contractors in to teach programs. We train our staff to take groups of inmates and give them the programs. We’ve found that’s the most effective way.

The model that we have, with our direct supervision and the way we do programs, is trying to be modelled in every jurisdiction across Canada now. The other jurisdictions use indirect supervision, which means the inmates come out of their cell in their living unit, and they mill around unsupervised. People look in glass and see if they’re okay, and occasionally they walk in. That’s an absolutely unsafe environment that I won’t tolerate. The way we do that is much safer than those other jurisdictions, and those jurisdictions are trying to change to the way that B.C. Corrections does.

I’m getting a bit too passionate about it, so…. I’m hoping I’m answering some of your questions there.

D. Eby: I’m certainly enlightened by Mr. Merchant’s answer. I certainly would have thought that a budget cut of a third would have had an impact on services, but I’m glad to hear he’s able to address the issues raised by the Auditor General within his existing budget.

B. Merchant: But our budget has increased over time. When our budget was cut in 2001, it was cut by 30.5 percent. For the adult custody division, that was $48.5 million. That was significant, and it hurt. But since that time, our budgets have increased. We’ve been able to adjust, and I think we still offer just an exceptional program when you compare it to other correctional jurisdictions across Canada and the United States.

D. Eby: I’m glad to hear that because, like him, I don’t like taxpayer dollars going into prisons. I think it’s not the highest and best use of taxpayer dollars.

The issue, though, that I would raise, then, with Mr. Merchant is that the Auditor General has said some pretty damning things about your programming, that only one in five actually reduces recidivism.

Another statistic. Neil Boyd has said that 17 percent of the corrections officers have witnessed the unnatural death of an inmate, either a suicide or a homicide. Almost one in five corrections officers has seen this happen in the last year.

When I hear statistics like that and I hear the Auditor General, my understanding had always been that, well, if there more corrections officers, if there were better programming, we could deal with these issues. I’m hearing that that’s not the case.

How do we deal with recidivism, then? How do we fix what you’re doing with recidivism, to get these inmate numbers down, to save taxpayer dollars so we’re not spending them on prisons, with what is endlessly frustrating to my constituents, which is the rotating door of our criminal justice system — people in and out, serving life sentences 90 days at a time?

B. Merchant: Well, one of the things that Elenore had mentioned is that one-client case management. It isn’t just a matter of having people in custody. These people are both in community and custody. On the community side, where 90 percent of the people we supervise are in the community, we have them for, on average, 272 days.

When you have somebody under your supervision for 68 days or 272 days and one person who’s got 68 days is in an unreal environment…. It’s in the correctional centre. One of the things you try to change for criminal behaviour is your criminal associates. Okay, so you’re in a correctional centre. It’s pretty hard to change your criminal associates in that thing. Your criminal ideations are hard to change in that environment because what do a bunch of people who are in jail talk about? That’s the culture in a jail. So it’s hard to change things in what’s not a real-world environment.

Now you’re into the community, where you have them for 272 days and you may not have all the influences that are in a jail. We have better outcomes in community than we do in custody. Some 23 percent of the people that we have in community don’t come back; 50 percent in custody do come back.

There’s a reason for that. The reason is the time and the environment and the programs. That’s just a reality.

Many jurisdictions in the States have 80 to 90 percent of their people coming back. I’m not saying 50 percent is a good number. I’m not striving for 50 percent to come back. I want less and less people to come back, so we will modify our programs.

The Auditor General’s comments and MLA Throness’s comments are correct. We’ve got to do better. We’re going to start working on trying to get employment opportunities for those people that are in correctional centres, working with other ministries to have a community of practice that focuses on those individuals and get all the community, ministries and agencies focusing on them.
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Rather than, you know, the individual going through a whole series of ministry or agency help, we want to focus it. So that’s what we’re trying to do.

S. Robinson: I have one question for the Auditor General and then a number for Mr. Merchant. Recommendation 5 suggests periodic assessment of effectiveness of all programs. What does “periodic” mean, for the Auditor General? Is that every couple of years? Once a year? Every few months? What would be a more specific recommendation for assessment?

C. Bellringer: We didn’t define it in the report. My first reaction would be that less than a year would be too frequent. Over a year…. Certainly, there are times when…. You don’t have to do it every year, exactly, but you get into a little bit of a longer time than that, into the second year, and you might want to have a look.

E. Clark: If I could add to that. When we look at assessing our programs and evaluating the programs, we need to ensure that we have sufficient time to have the data to utilize to do a proper assessment of that.

We usually look at a period of gathering data and looking at recidivism over a period of two years. To do assessments and evaluations sooner than that doesn’t allow us to gather sufficient data, and it doesn’t allow for that time marker of reoffending over two years. We need to track individuals as they complete their sentences, first, and then go out into the community, and then we monitor it to see if they come back over a two-year period.

So anything less than two years is not feasible. As a branch, what we strive to do, also considering that we have a number of programs that we evaluate…. There are different ones. Mr. Merchant mentioned the therapeutic community. There are a couple that were on the screen, and there’s a number of other ones. So with that, we strive to assess each of our programs once every five years.

S. Robinson: If I could follow up. Is recidivism the only thing that is measured, or do you measure violence while they’re incarcerated or other sorts of measures? Or is this the only one that you look at?

E. Clark: The primary measure that we utilize is reductions in recidivism, but we also do look at other markers, such as reductions in the seriousness of offending and the length of time that it takes to reoffend. And there are other markers. Depending on the program and depending on the structure of the evaluation, we can look at other markers as well.

On page 19 of the report there’s this chart of incidents, and I just wanted to ask Mr. Merchant about the safety and security incidents that get reported out. The response that’s noted in the report is that this might reflect an increase in staff reporting.

In my experience, when you have an increase in staff reporting, it’s because something has changed. There is a new form and people suddenly use it differently. But given that you’ve been gathering data since 2007 but the increase just keeps going over time, it would seem that there’s something else that’s going on and not just staff reporting. I’m wanting to know if you’ve taken a look at if that increase really might be linked to the double-bunking and the increase in that.

B. Merchant: There are a number of factors, obviously, with that reporting. When we talk about: has something changed…? Around 2007-2008 we put in an electronic reporting system. Before, it was a paper system, and it was different in every jail. We put in an electronic one, and then for two years we were fine-tuning it to make sure that people were attributing whatever the action was to the proper thing. So there were some ramp-up issues, so to speak. With anything, you’d have that. I think staff are now reporting accurately, and they have for a number of years.

I look at incidents of inmate assaults on staff. You go back to the last three years. In 2012 there were 105. In 2013 there were 82, and in 2014 there were 70. Three years don’t necessarily make a trend line. You also have to factor in how many inmates were in the centre at the time and things like that. So there are those aspects.

The demographic of the inmates has changed over the years. At one time, years and years ago, we were holding drunk drivers. We were holding people on really minor charges. We had the people that had also committed horrendous crimes. But I think, just looking in the paper, you see more organized crime, and you see more violent offenders coming into our institution. That, too, has a big impact. It’s an environment that’s constantly changing.

There was some discussion, certainly, here — David asked some good questions — about programmatic measurement and the challenges that come with having a reduced budget and still taking care of inmates and staff.

Just some comments that Mr. Merchant made. He talked about not beingquite confident that with the short time frame that inmates are housed in these facilities, there’s a real possibility of change. I want to know if this is sort of a belief or a sense of — I don’t know how to describe it — sort of the leadership, that because of the short time frame, they’re just not going to be successful
[ Page 673 ]
at shifting some of this behaviour or having some sort of influence.

The reason I ask that is because I think that when leadership has that kind of attitude, that’s an attitude that’s hard to change. That could actually be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I just wanted to clarify if there is some sense that there are opportunities. You have a group of people who are challenged with mental illness, with drug addiction and criminal behaviour. When they are housed, this is an opportunity to influence and provide some sort of intervention that might shift people out of that lifestyle.

B. Merchant: I can tell that Elenore is chomping at the bit to answer that question. But before she does…. I’ve been the ADM for ten years. When I say that it is a challenge when people only have 68 days to change their behaviour, I’m pointing out a reality of part of it.

But if I have led you down a path to think my leadership isn’t concerned about the inmates that we supervise, I apologize for doing that. Since 2010 when I became the ADM of the corrections branch, we have put in more money and more programs designed to change criminal behaviour than we have probably in the history of the corrections branch. I’m proud of that.

Perhaps it’s terrible to sit here and say, “Gee, I’m a great leader.” But I am. I say that with pride. I’m not bragging about it. I’m just saying that the leadership of the branch is in good hands with me, and it has been. I think that I’ve changed countless lives, and I’ve changed the attitudes and beliefs of the staff that supervise the people we have. I’ll turn it over to Elenore before she jumps in.

E. Clark: Just a couple of additional points — I completely agree with Brent’s view that the leadership of the corrections branch as a whole firmly comes from the perspective of changing behaviours in order to reduce reoffending.

What I also wanted to add is…. Brent spoke earlier about the challenges of that short time frame in order to change behaviours and how we have more time in the community, so it’s more of a challenge in custody. And it is.

What I wanted to ensure was clarified, though, is that…. I mentioned earlier that we utilize the principles of risk, needs and responsivity. One of the pieces is responsivity. With that, we need to make sure that individuals are at a place where they are ready to change their behaviours.

Some of the types of programs that we offer in custody are ones known as essential skills to success, which are aimed at that responsivity principle. They’re aimed at readying the individual to change their behaviour. It’s a continuum. They teach individuals life skills so that when they are released from custody, they’re better able to find employment. They learn how to do simple things like make a resume.

We do those things because when an individual is faced with issues of addictions or homelessness, or they’re not sure where their next meal is coming from, their ability to change their addictions is a greater challenge. Because of that, like I say, we focus on cognitive behavioural programs, which we know will reduce reoffending. But we also focus on delivering other programs to support that cognitive behavioural change.

B. Ralston (Chair): George was next. Just for the benefit of the members, I have George and Vicki, and then I put myself on and then Kathy a second time. I’m going to suggest that before we get to Kathy, we’ll take a break at that point. I’ll start with George.

G. Heyman: Mr. Merchant mentioned that B.C. stands up well compared to other jurisdictions in Canada. But I think it’s fair commentary that every jurisdiction in Canada has experienced to a greater or lesser degree some of the budgeting constraints that B.C. has experienced.

In the course of the last decade-plus I’ve had numerous conversations with correctional officers, who have expressed concern about the impacts of reduced staffing levels and double-bunking on the mood in correctional institutions, the threat of violence, the tension, as well as the constrained ability to deliver programing. I think David Eby’s citation of the Boyd report sort of gives some life to that.

This is both to the ministry and the Auditor General staff. My question has to do with whether, within the ministry or within the course of this audit, there was any look at any jurisdictions outside Canada to compare levels of program delivery and levels of double-bunking or not double-bunking in terms of impact on violence in the institutions and impact on reduced recidivism, if any. Was any comparative study done with other jurisdictions about the beneficial aspects of rehabilitative programming leading to gainful employment on release? And is there, to your knowledge, any cost-benefit analysis of increased program delivery within institutions leading to lower recidivism and therefore reduced costs of both incarceration or delivery of other social programs?

I think Mr. Eby gave a good example of the relative cost of providing supportive housing to people with mental health issues, as opposed to the cost of incarcerating them. I would think that if there are studies along those lines, whatever they show would be useful information to help design some of the programming we’re talking about, some of the programming that has been recommended and some of the measures to review both staffing levels and adequate capacity within the institutions.

C. Bellringer: We did a limited amount of research in putting the background material together, but no, we didn’t bring any international examples into this report.
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B. Merchant: There were so many questions there. We talked about social housing and things like that. One of the programs we brought up, the integrated offender management program, had a significant reduction in recidivism.

Our integrated offender management. We’ve partnered with Social Development with the homeless intervention project, where we work with that ministry to work with the inmates prior to their release and look at how they can transition back into the community in a manner where their housing is looked after and that social safety net is there for them. We’ve had success in doing that.

Are we addressing those different things? Yes, we are. We’re working with other ministries. We’re looking at…. It’s almost like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I mean, I can tell somebody to quit drinking and do all these other things, but if they don’t have a place to live and they don’t have any food, it’s pretty hard for them to start thinking those higher thoughts about how they’re going to address their criminal behavior.

We’re trying to do that, with our interactions with other ministries and other agencies in the community, to make sure that when they transition into the community, it works well. We’ve shown that success at the Nanaimo Correctional Centre, where we have partnered with the John Howard Society. They have a residential program within Nanaimo. It’s run on the therapeutic model principles. Some of our inmates who transition from Nanaimo Correctional Centre therapeutic community transition into the community, and it’s been very successful. So we try that as much as we possibly can.

In terms of the studies and the report and that, I can’t speak to the Auditor General and what other studies they have looked at — national or international programs and things like that.

G. Heyman: Thank you. It’s good to hear about some of the initiatives that the branch is undertaking, either on its own or in cooperation with other agencies.

I remember a comment you made earlier that, yes, we’d like to have some more money in the system; on the other hand, as a taxpayer, I don’t want to spend money unnecessarily.

Speaking for, as much as any of us can, our constituents, I think there are two kinds of interests. The first one, generally, always is protecting us, in whatever way you can, from people who perpetrate crimes so we’re not victims.

Then, the second one is seeing if you can keep people from being repeat offenders, because that reduces the threat. For some people, that would be not only reducing the threat but because there’s some social good to be had there.

I mean, the easy answer, of course, is to say: “Well, here’s a problem. Let’s spend money on it.” But that’s not generally acceptable to most people without any evidence. However, I think if there are ways to target expenditures in the short and medium term that actually have beneficial results socially and reduce expenditures in other areas over a longer term, that would be a compelling point for virtually anyone in our society and, hopefully, in the Legislature as well.

I hope that whether or not…. I’m sure there must be examples in other jurisdictions, in Canada and North America, and in other places in the world, where there are different approaches to how programs are delivered, how people are housed within institutions.

It seems to me that there must be people who’ve studied them. If not, there may be studies that would be worthwhile guidance — if not immediately, over a period of time — to the corrections branch, government, all of us as legislators and the Auditor General, as well, in indicating paths that have been successful, have had good results, have saved money and which we might adopt as models.

V. Huntington: Given Mr. Merchant’s concern that a lot of the recommendations really don’t fit too well in a structure where your average incarceration period is 68 days, did the Auditor General’s office consider that issue as it looked at some of its evaluations?

C. Bellringer: I did want to just draw one thing out. I certainly am hearing a response to our recommendations that does indicate an attention to the programming. That’s a good thing. But when we did do the audit, we did point to the fact — and this was from interviews throughout the system, not just at one level but rather at various levels — that providing programs was not the division’s priority. We state that in the report on page 22.

“Instead, the division told us” — this is quoting out of the report — “that it places highest importance on the safety and security within facilities.” For us, it was an indicator that there was not enough attention being paid on finding the solutions to those things.

No, we did not propose a model and look at the research to propose what it should be. We do think that’s the ministry’s responsibility to do so. That would be something that we would be expecting to see in the performance framework piece that is the first recommendation. It’s a broader piece to see how you are going to measure and measuring the effectiveness of the programs themselves, appreciating, as well, the difficulties around it.

We’re most certainly sensitive to that, but also understanding the patterns that are available and, as you say, other connections to other ministries as well as other areas within the same ministry, to go across the board.

Again, we did not do an audit of that to determine whether or not there was good communication across the various ministries that would be impacted by finding that solution. We merely made the comment that the broader solution is something that goes beyond something that
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just the adult corrections is going to be able to handle.

It’s not a full answer to your question. We were aware of it and sensitive to it but still think that further attention could be paid to it.

V. Huntington: Thank you. These comments aren’t meant to be harsh, but as you read over the report, you develop — I developed, at any rate — a general sense of a lack of good management technique, of a lack of application of correctional science, of limited evaluation of the success of some of the programming and a lack of good case management technique.

I may be wrong. I think probably the correctional officials feel that’s not the case. But where is the disconnect here between what we’re reading and how the ministry feels it is organizing itself and doing its job? Is it, from your perspective, a lack of time in the field for people to do the job in the way that the Auditor General feels some of the work has to be done? Is it a lack of training for management technique or skill? Is it a lack of expertise in some of the fields?

Where is this disconnect starting to show between what the audit showed and how you’re responding to it? I really do feel that you’ve taken a good look at how to go forward. I’m really looking forward to that action plan and evaluation of it as time goes by.

There is, I felt, a perception overall, from my perspective, that the management of the corrections branch wasn’t what it ought to have been. I’d like to know where that disconnect is.

B. Merchant: As I said earlier, obviously, I’m biased, so I think the management of the branch is very good.

In answering your question, the disconnect…. Maybe it’s easier to say where we are connected. I agree that there’s always a better way to do things. There are other programs that we need to look at and other paths that we have to go down to try to have better outcomes. We are as nimble as a large organization can be in trying to make those changes.

Are the centres or the branch or the division well managed? In my estimation, it is. If it wasn’t, I’d change it. Then it falls on my shoulders. If my management or my leadership isn’t the right leadership, then my boss will change that.

We have had that, a history of…. We’ve had ten ADMs at the corrections branch. Some of them have been politely asked to leave, and others have left on their own accord. That happens when you’re in positions like this.

I think the leadership is in good hands, with the branch, and we are changing. It would be interesting if people did look at provincial jurisdictions across Canada and how they deal with their inmates, all of the things that those other jurisdictions do, and put it up against what British Columbia does. I have no doubt we’ll come out on top.

V. Huntington: I think, from a reputation perspective…. I guess if I were to say anything about what I sense is part of the report, it’s that it’s on the ground, at the correctional field level, where the management techniques of all of the issues seem to falter to some extent.

That’s why I asked: is it a lack of time in the field? Is it a lack of expertise in terms of case management evaluation techniques? I just wonder if it isn’t something that should be looked at by the branch. I think your action plan, how you’ve responded to the recommendations, will be very valuable.

B. Merchant: When you talk about evaluation, our director of our research section, Dr. Carmen Gress, is an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University and at the University of Victoria. She’s well published, with academic standings. She’s extremely well qualified. She’s the co-chair of the corrections information and statistics committee. That’s a federal-provincial-territorial committee. She contributes to that on a regular basis. She’s been asked to present findings throughout North America at a number of well-known and high-profile conferences, and she’s the head of our research department.

Both Elenore and Stephanie have a significant number of years in this field. Elenore used to be the director. She was a probation officer. She was the local manager. She was the regional director of the north for probation.

Stephanie has worked in the corrections field. She has worked in correctional centres. She has worked with the Public Service Agency. She actually worked in the Legislature.

The other staff that I have at the headquarters all have that same experience. They lead this branch in an exemplary fashion.

Part of the report…. I’ve had that discussion with Peter and Malcolm before. There are things that we go back and forth on, but I think you have that with every report. I mean, when people come into your house, look at it and say that it’s not right, it just doesn’t feel right.

What is the outcome? I think what Carol said…. I can say the same thing. We want to have better programs, and we will work towards that. What MLA Throness has brought forward — we’ll work on that. It’s good to have that sober second look at what you do. It results in change.

It’s not something that we’re resistant to. The one thing…. Even though people don’t know much about the corrections branch, because we don’t let media in jails and all this other kind of stuff…. We’re not the good-news ministry or the good-news branch. But we really
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aren’t satisfied with the status quo. We do move forward. I think we have had a history of good leadership at the local levels and at the higher levels.

V. Huntington: Again, I want to emphasize that I think your response to the recommendations is very good and very strong. I can tell that there is an effort and a willingness and a desire to increase your productivity, efficiency and outcome. It’s quite obvious.

Could I ask just one very specific question? You mentioned that you were one of the very few jurisdictions that did screening for mental health upon entry into the system. What happens when that determination is made, and how do you follow an inmate through? What’s available to somebody with mental health issues?

B. Merchant: What we have is…. Currently our health care is provided on a contract basis to all of our correctional centres.

An inmate comes in, and they’re screened by a mental health screener on what’s called a JSAT — jail screening assessment tool — which was developed in British Columbia by our director of mental health and is the only one in Canada. That will result in everything from…. It’s a quick screening to determine if the person is having suicidal ideation and things like that. If there is a concern expressed through this assessment device, then they’re referred to the psychologist. An appropriate referral is made, and they follow through with that.

The contractor has staff that deal with mental health — people that are trained in mental health issues. We send our correctional officers off for training on how to deal with people with mental health issues. Depending on the centre, those people may be housed all together, or they may be dispersed, depending on their level of, I guess, impairment, you could say. Staff are familiar with them, so they’re monitored all along.

Many times what we’re doing with those people with mental health issues is…. They’re in the community. When they’re on certain drugs for their situation, they’ll quit taking them. They’ll wean themselves off, and they’ll decompensate. When they decompensate, they engage in behaviours not acceptable to society and end up, perhaps, with some criminal behaviour.

They’ll come into our care. We will re-establish them on their medications in consultation with community health. Then we stabilize them, and then they’ll go out. With a lot of them, what we’re trying to do is maybe not cure them for all time, even though that’s what we’d like. If nothing else, as Elenore mentioned, it’s to stretch out that time before they start decompensating. It’s a difficult population to deal with, but our officers do a very good job with them.

We also are the first jurisdiction in Canada to have an electronic inmate health care file. None of the other correctional jurisdictions in Canada…. They’re all on paper. Ours is electronic. When we have our on-call doctors at night, they can log on anywhere in the province, look at the file of the particular inmate and make determinations to the staff. Nobody else in Canada has that. We’re the only one, and we’ve had that for seven years. Ontario is now looking at it. We said we’d give it to them if they wish to use it.

B. Ralston (Chair): I had myself next. A couple of quicker questions, I suppose.

The definition of “recidivism.” Is that a subsequent conviction or a subsequent charge? Given the charge approval standard, a subsequent charge would be some strong likelihood of criminal behaviour.

Over what period of time do you evaluate recidivism? Is it a conviction within one year, conviction within two years, or so on?

E. Clark: The definition of recidivism is reconviction. What we look at is individuals returning to our supervision, either in custody or under community supervision. We use that as the marker. The length of time that we look at is generally two years. That’s the generally accepted length of time to measure recidivism by, so that’s what we use.

B. Ralston (Chair): In your response to recommendation 7…. The Auditor General pointed out the Correction Act regulation that says that sentenced and non-sentenced prisoners are not supposed to be held together. Your response, I didn’t quite understand. I thought it was a bit ambiguous.

You say: “We have followed the Correction Act regulation.” Yet on the other hand, you say: “We will continue to review and monitor the impact of housing sentenced and non-sentenced inmates together.” So it suggests, on the one hand, that you’re following the regulation and separating them, but on the other hand, you’re continuing to monitor the effects of having them together. Which is it?

B. Merchant: The Correction Act regulations speak to sentenced and remanded individuals. The Correction Act regulation states: “is, where circumstances allow, housed separately from inmates who are sentenced to imprisonment as a result of a conviction for an offence under the Criminal Code or another federal enactment or an offence under a provincial enactment.” So they talk about how, where circumstances allow, you separate sentenced and remand. What I was trying to point out is that we’re not in violation of the Correction Act or the Correction Act regulation.

How we determine where people are housed in terms of sentenced and remand goes back to…. Elenore was talking about risk. I can’t mention names, obviously, but with somebody who is on remand — and I know they haven’t been found guilty or innocent — who is a high-
[ Page 677 ]
profile organized crime figure that may be held in custody for one or more murders, you wouldn’t necessarily hold that person with somebody who was on remand for a series of breach of probation. That’s an extreme, I realize.

We look more at the risk and who should be housed together. When you operate a correctional centre, it’s a really complicated dance, like having to choreograph where people are. You have orders from the court that say that people can’t associate with other people, and they could be sentenced or remand. You have a court order that says that five people over here can’t be anywhere close to five people over there.

Every time you divide people up like that, it creates problems. People will come in, and they’ll be assigned to what’s called general population, or they’ll be assigned to what’s called protective, our protective population. Protective custody is typically…. In the past it used to be people that had sexual offences, offences against kids. They would be placed against all the other inmates. We have a different grouping now than we’ve ever had in the past, but those two groups are separated.

Every time you separate people within those groups, you have predator, and you have prey. You have to separate the predators from the prey. Then you have to separate the people that provided…. It could be organized crime. It could be a debt that’s owing in the community. It could be rival gang members that don’t get along if they’re placed in the same areas. You have to divide these people up all the time, and it’s all based on risk.

I go back to the safety and security of our staff. That’s why we divide them up the way that we do. So sometimes you will have remanded and sentenced offenders in the same living unit.

B. Ralston (Chair): Final question. This is upon the release from corrections. You spoke about the transition back to the community. I think you said: “We want to make sure the social safety net is there for them.”

Now, I understand, from constituency work…. This may be inaccurate or dated information, but periodically in the past people have shown up at the office and said that they’d been released from a correctional facility, and they were not permitted to apply for social assistance at the correctional facility as part of their release process. Formerly they were. Apparently that work has been ended. They then are in the community. There’s a waiting period of several weeks to apply for and receive social assistance. During that time, often they’re on the street or at risk — I would say a heightened risk — of going back to a former lifestyle.

B. Merchant: We do assist the inmates in completing the forms prior to release. Is it at 100 percent? No, it’s not. But we continue to work with that other ministry in trying to streamline it and to make sure that when a person is leaving the custody centre, they have funds available to make sure that that transition becomes a little bit easier.

B. Ralston (Chair): When you say it’s not at 100 percent, then, are you saying that at some correctional facilities there is someone there who will take an electronic application and at some there is not? I’m not clear, from your answer, what the policy is.

B. Merchant: Well, I think it probably varies more by people. We have people that are sentenced and remand, and we don’t know when remanded offenders are going to get out. We have no idea when they’re going to be released. They can just be released.

B. Ralston (Chair): I’m speaking of a sentenced prisoner, where there would be a sentence calculation and a release date. So that would be a known commodity.

B. Merchant: Yes. You can have people that are in custody for three days, and you can have people in custody for close to 18 months. There’s a whole range of when they get out and how much time you have to do it. It isn’t by centre. I think you bring up an issue that we have, but it isn’t by centre. It’s more to do by individual.

B. Ralston (Chair): You’re saying that unless it’s a very short-term stay, people will have access to the process of applying and, therefore, not end up on the street without any resources and be forced to wait? I mean, I can see that from the point of view of the other ministry, they might want to drive their numbers down in terms of making it more difficult to apply. But that doesn’t seem to me to be a pro-social community policy.

B. Merchant: No. Actually, it’s not the other ministry. I think it helps them, because when a person shows up and they know they have a delay in getting their money, it heightens tensions in that office. If you can do that in advance, it actually helps them out.

B. Ralston (Chair): Okay, thank you. I’m going to suggest we take a brief recess. We have a number of other questioners. But if we take five minutes, then we can resume.

B. Ralston (Chair): I believe Mr. Merchant wanted to add a little bit to the answer that he gave to me just prior to the break.
[ Page 678 ]

B. Merchant: Thank you. I don’t think I was as fulsome as I could have been with your last question, so Stephanie Macpherson is going to address it.

S. Macpherson: When an inmate is in our custody, there are actually three ways that inmate can connect with Social Development to arrange for social assistance. The first way is, if the inmate wants, they can call. The number is posted in the living unit. They can call the Social Development office and speak to a worker there and arrange to have a cheque available for them on their release date.

The other option is that the Social Development worker, depending on the inmate, may decide to attend the centre and work with the inmate at the centre to arrange for a cheque on release.

Then in the third instance the inmate, depending on their needs, their cognitive level, may need our assistance in helping them complete the forms and making contact with the office. Our staff would help them do that.

There are occasions where an inmate…. If he or she is in custody for less than 30 days, their social assistance is not ceased; it continues. If they are in custody for greater than 30 days, their social assistance is stopped, and they are to notify social assistance, when they know their release date, to restart that.

There are some occasions where an inmate, it’s alleged, has been fraudulently collecting social assistance. In that case they may have a hard time in getting social assistance on release.

The next questioner, then. I have four questioners. Then I’m hoping we’ll move to the next item on our agenda.

K. Corrigan: I have a very hypothetical question, which you may or may not decide to answer, Mr. Merchant.

Given what you have said about the challenges of the correctional system…. Given your comments, for example, that it’s an unreal place and talking about the gang affiliations and all of the challenges that you face, if you took away the public safety issue and if you weren’t counting people on remand but were talking about sentenced inmates, do you think those inmates would do better overall if they weren’t incarcerated, if everybody was in community corrections as opposed to going into our jails? Apart from the safety issue.

B. Merchant: When you take safety out of it, anything’s possible, because then you don’t care about what happens when they’re in the community. I can’t extract myself from safety.

K. Corrigan: What I’m basically talking about is: would they do better? Would they do better overall if they were not in jail?

B. Merchant: There are some people who are sentenced who are in jail that would not do better. They need to be held in custody, have to be. That, I think, would account for…. Probably 75 percent of those people really do. Then the other 25 percent — perhaps there’s some question about that.

There are so many factors that go into risk, because everybody’s got a different definition of risk. That’s a problem I have with trying to answer that question. For a police officer in the community, how do they look at risk? How does a correctional officer look at risk? How does a judge look at risk? How does a citizen look at risk? It’s just so difficult to speculate on that question. I’m sorry.

K. Corrigan: That’s all right. I just thought I’d throw it at you. Given that most people are in community corrections anyway, I would assume that most of the people that actually end up in the correctional facilities are the more difficult cases, that there’s a reason.

For my less speculative question, I wanted to talk about the programming. The Auditor General did say that we do need to consider safety but that we also need to have programming that’s aimed at decreasing criminality of the inmates. I find the numbers pretty disturbing. What the sample showed was that…. We’re talking about offenders with sentences of 90-plus days, so we’re not talking about the average 68 that you’re talking about. We’re talking more long-term offenders.

Of the sample of 66 — this is on page 29 and using some of the numbers earlier in the report — less than half, 45 percent, or 30 out of 66, had case management plans that were completed. Only 27 percent, or 18 of them, were recommended to the appropriate court programs. Then of that 66, only ten fully or even partially completed the recommended core programs, or 15 percent. These are longer-sentenced individuals with 90-day-plus sentences.

I know there’s been some discussion about how to address that, but I really think that perhaps at the core of my concerns is the fact that for some reason offenders are not…. Now, I guess it’s voluntary — is that correct? — and that’s probably part of the problem.

For some reason, the programs are simply not working. They’re not being taken up, they’re not being completed, they’re not being appropriately aligned, and the plans aren’t even done. I’d like to get sort of a general response to that — particularly, I guess, the starting-off point, which is that less than half of those people with sentences of 90 days or more, in this sample, anyway, even have complete case management plans. That, to me, is just not acceptable.
[ Page 679 ]

B. Merchant: Well, you’re correct. In terms of the completion…. I’ll also ask Elenore and Stephanie to comment on this. I’m not trying to be glib here, but you know that old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” What we try to do is to make them thirsty. Sometimes that’s a real challenge, but that’s one of the issues that we face all the time.

It’s one thing to have programs, and it’s one for people to engage in programs. I said that 56 percent of our population either has a substance abuse problem or a mental health issue. When we talk about substance abuse problems…. I used to smoke, and I was great at quitting. My problem was that I kept starting. It’s the same thing with them.

At times…. Elenore was talking about risk-need responsivity. You have to have the right programs delivered in the right manner in the right way, and part of it is at the right time. When are people…? It just isn’t a matter of you putting a person in a program and they change or they complete the program. We try to do that constantly.

E. Clark: I think I would just add one piece. We mentioned the assessment process and matching the right program with the right offender, and that’s really important. The programs that this graph refers to are core programs. They are very specific programs aimed at very specific needs, so you do need to match those things up.

We have a number of other programs, which I mentioned earlier, that we also deliver that tend to focus on readying the individual — you know, offering them life skills, offering them things like relationship skills, which will just get them to that point of perhaps being ready to make those changes and to engage in the programming.

Well, I appreciate that. You can’t force people to take programs, but if you’re starting off with, maybe the very specific thing, why is it, then, that less than half of the offenders have completed case management plans? I would assume that you can’t match somebody up with the appropriate programming, whether or not they decide to take it, if you don’t have a plan for them at all in the first place.

S. Macpherson: That is an area that we have not done well at. That is an area, when the auditors came through, where we did not have documentation to support what we did. We are working toward a one-case-management approach to the inmates so that when they do come in, it is much easier for us to develop that case plan; and that it be carried through with different indicators in that plan, where it will flag the inmate for different things for the staff.

So we haven’t done well, and I don’t want to make up an excuse for that. It is a priority for us to do much better in that area.

L. Popham: My question is specific to the Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre. On page 13 the information that’s here shows that last June it had the highest male occupancy rate.

I guess my question is around the support for the employees working there and whether or not there’s adequate support for employees having to deal with higher occupancy rates as it relates to possibly more incidents and their need for support as far as occupational mental health challenges, specifically PTSD.

S. Macpherson: Our staff do have access to local teams called the critical incident response teams. Those are staff that are trained in helping staff manage their reactions to an incident. Any time there’s an incident that happens, that staff member is encouraged to contact one of the team members to work through some of those issues.

The staff also have access to the employee family and assistance program. They also have access to WorkSafe programs that support them to seek out treatment, if they do, in response to an incident.

We find that every employee is different, and it doesn’t seem to make a difference whether they are new or they are experienced. Their needs are different. Some employees can manage quite well by debriefing with experienced staff in terms of what they’ve done in these circumstances. Experienced staff could have a fairly traumatic experience and, depending on where they are in their personal life, it may cause them to have to be absent for work and have more extensive counselling.

I’ve found working in the correctional centres…. There is a very strong team environment, like a family. People work closely together, and they see each other outside of work frequently. Those close family ties are very critical to helping staff get through those incidents.

When there are significant incidents, we have reports that are done by staff. Every staff involved in an incident…. If there’s one offender, and five staff respond, five staff complete incident reports that are reviewed by their supervisor and by the manager and then subsequently at headquarters. We have an analyst who takes a look at the incident, reviews the video and sees whether or not the response to that incident is appropriate. If a staff is injured in it, there are occasions where I’ll phone the warden and make sure that that staff is appropriately supported.

There isn’t one incident. Whether it is a staff having to wrestle an inmate to the floor or having to deploy OC spray or suit up a team to go in and extract an inmate, all of those incidents are reported. I review every report, and we monitor staff’s wellness that way.

L. Popham: Just to follow up, is there a correlation between the usage of these programs for employees and staff and the high occupancy rates?
[ Page 680 ]

B. Merchant: We have more than…. When Stephanie talked about the critical incident response team, that’s when a particular incident happens, and we have a group of people go in and debrief the staff and help them out.

Government, overall, has EFAP — employee assistance programs — where they can confidentially phone and get counselling. We don’t have those statistics as to who’s phoning and for what reason or any of that kind of stuff. I wouldn’t be able to comment on that.

We also provide a whole host of issues. If a staff member is having significant problems, we’ll engage in things. The union contract allows for use of a certain dollar amount to see psychologists and so forth. There are a number of things that we do.

Each of the centres have their own wellness society, where staff organize everything from kids softball games — like staff kids — barbecues, potlucks at work and things like that to help one another. We have a host of that.

In terms of do we have a correlation between higher rates of the use of those helping resources to the level of how many inmates are currently housed — no, I haven’t seen anything like that. I wouldn’t be able to answer that question.

When you’re looking at ratios, then, why is that not something that would be one of the indicators that it might not be working as well?

The idea that there are more prisoners — possibly, more prisoners or inmates per staff — their usage of staff programs to support their mental health seems to me like a measurement that you would use to see if the ratios are accurate or effective or not effective.

B. Merchant: Well, just going back to the ratios again, we were criticized. You’ll see in the paper when we were being criticized about it. People will say that at one time when there were 20 inmates, as soon as the 21st inmate came in, another staff was assigned to the unit. So you’d have two staff for 21 inmates.

We don’t operate in that manner. We base it on risk, but this issue of…. When we’ve had incidents of violence, the majority of the times when those violence incidents have taken place with the staff member, it’s been where there’s been two staff.

It’s been in our segregation areas. Segregation is an area where you hold inmates for a variety of reasons, but violence is one of the reasons that they’re in there. That’s where a lot of our assaults occur — where it’s double-staffed.

In our living units, when you look at the number of staff we have and how they float in and out — at North Fraser Pretrial Centre, for example — for the majority of the day on the afternoon shift, if you look at it, there are two staff in each unit. That’s how it works out.

But how we put those staff in those units is different than saying that there’s two staff in each unit. They rotate, and there are people assigned to the units and there are people that rotate through the units.

S. Macpherson: Brent mentioned earlier that you use a risk-based approach to staffing. When we’ve got inmates with mental health needs and we’ve put the higher-needs inmates in a special unit — and staff are specially trained to deal with that type of inmate — often you will find, between the counsellors and the other people who work with those inmates, there are four staff or four non-inmates per inmate.

It all depends on the inmate and their behaviour and how they’re assessed on admission and throughout their stay. There was an incident just the other day where a staff was injured on the unit. But that staff member knew that going into that cell was going to be challenging. So that staff member called another staff member on to the unit before they participated in that action.

Our staff are highly trained to determine when a situation would be problematic and when to call upon other staff. They will always be responded to, and much of their response is pre-planned. A lot of our staff know these inmates because they do come through quite frequently. We do have the electronic database, and we keep a log of all of the activities and interactions staff have with the inmates. We’re fairly skilled in predicting risk.

M. Hunt: Three hopefully simple questions — the first one is simply terminology. My apologies — I missed the earlier part of the presentation. When you’re dealing under recommendation five, you have violence prevention program. Could I call that anger management?

M. Hunt: Yes? Okay. We sometimes use different terms for things, and I just get lost in the terms. I wanted to make sure I understood it.

E. Clark: The violence prevention program is a program that is aimed at people who have needs in the area of violent behaviour that is not domestic violence — you know, an assault in a bar or just a simple assault — that sort of thing. So that’s what that is.

M. Hunt: Two questions out of the same issue. The issue dealing with community agencies working with the transition of these inmates back into community. My question is: are these community agencies approved locally, by the local institution, or are they approved by the ministry and therefore there’s a more fulsome approval of the process?

Secondly, do those agencies have access to all the information they need concerning that to make sure that
[ Page 681 ]
we have a good fit for those inmates coming out, back into community, so that we get the best possible transition back into community?

B. Merchant: Given the host of agencies that we work with, it’s hard to say definitively, about each one of your questions.

I’ll start off with the information, the first one. Obviously, we’re guided by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We do have agreements with other government agencies — those personnel — police and community agencies about what information they can receive. So depending on who you are and what the purpose is will determine the amount of information they may receive about a particular client that they’re working with.

Ultimately, even with the FOI requirements, safety is high up on the agenda, so we make sure they have all the information that guarantees their safety.

We work with just a whole host of groups: the Activator club in Prince George, Zajac Ranch in Maple Ridge, the Alouette River Management Society in Maple Ridge. We work in the communities in Nanaimo. Since it’s opened, Nanaimo has volunteered, through its inmates, over a million man-hours of volunteer work to the community there. We do a whole host of interactions with community agencies.

M. Hunt: But are those approved at the local institution level, or are they approved by the ministry for the institutions?

B. Merchant: Well, depending on what they’re there for. Some of them — recovery homes and things like that — we use from the Ministry of Health’s list, and that’s approved by the Ministry of Health.

Some of the local things would be just done by the particular centre. They may have particular contracts. Nanaimo has a number of contracts with the John Howard Society. The Alouette Correctional Centre for Women has local agreements with the Elizabeth Fry Society and different community agencies.

It’s both provincial and local. We have aboriginal liaison workers in each one of our correctional centres. They’re contracted locally, but they’re overseen provincially by our director of aboriginal programs and relationships. So it’s kind of a mixture of that.

E. Clark: If I could also add just another piece. Many of our inmates who are transitioning out of custody back into community have probation orders to follow and so, then, are supervised by our community corrections staff. Then the probation officers will supervise. So there’s that transition piece as well.

Also, with the programs that we mentioned in our presentation — the integrated offender management and the integrated offender management homelessness intervention programs — we work with other ministries to ensure that we refer to programs that are appropriately approved by those ministries if it’s in their wheelhouse to do so. For instance, if there is someone who is demonstrating substance misuse, we may look to the health authority, because they have the mandate to deliver substance misuse counselling. So it would be the health authorities approving those programs.

Then, of course, we also do work with non-profits, as Brent mentioned, so there’s that local piece as well.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): I just wanted to ask a couple of questions. There was a slide that referred to a 40 percent increase in prison population since 1991, I believe. I just googled the population of British Columbia, which has increased by 40 percent. So that sounds like there has been no real change per person in that. Although I do also note that crime rates have gone down substantially, so it’s interesting that the prison population hasn’t gone down per person, per capita.

I wanted to get a better sense of the 126 percent. You said that if we were to…. Right today we have prison usage of 126 percent, which I assume means 126 inmates for 100 beds. Would that be the case? That would mean that it’s….

B. Merchant: It would be 100 cells for 126 inmates, not beds. We always have a bed.

So 100 cells, and then you have 126. So that would mean…. Then you said that if you had the Okanagan centre, that would be at 105.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): So it would essentially mean that almost everyone would be in their own cell.

The part about jails is when you count cells, those are the cells designed to house, on a normal basis, inmates. You have other cells that are designed for other things. You have what’s called segregation. You have medical observation. Typically, on any given day, you’d probably have about 140 people in medical observation and segregation. That would actually reduce that percentage, if you factored that in. But that fluctuates every day.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): Okay, people in medical observation and in whatever you called that other custody — that is not considered in that 126 percent?
[ Page 682 ]

B. Merchant: It’s considered in the cell count, but not in the people count. The people count is everybody in a jail, and the cell count is just living unit cells.

D. Eby: Just a quick comment before my questions. I feel like, as someone who has worked with community services for a long time, there is a real disconnect between what’s actually in the community and what the corrections branch understands is in the community. Mr. Chair, your questions certainly went to that on the housing front.

Mental health treatment, addiction treatment — all of these services that the corrections branch says they refer people to don’t exist. If they do, they have massive wait-lists. I encourage the corrections branch to look into what happens when they refer people to these services that, frankly, for all intents and purposes, don’t exist in the community.

A couple of statistical questions I have. The stats from the Auditor General’s report were very helpful for me to understand, in particular exhibits 9 and 10 in the report. These were stats that came from Corrections. I wonder if Corrections might be able to provide us with updated stats, because they are quite dated. I had the chance to speak with Mr. Merchant just before we sat down, and he said that he’s experiencing decreases in violent incidents, for example, so it would be good to see, over the long term, that kind of trend line. Certainly, congratulations, if that’s the case.

Second, statistics around suicide and homicide rates, I note, were not included in the Auditor General’s report, but these are the most concerning. About three years ago the provincial government stopped doing automatic coroner’s inquests for these types of deaths in prisons, so we don’t have any ability to track those at all. I wonder if the corrections branch would consider providing us with that information as well.

My question relates to two issues. One is that Mr. Merchant mentioned that violence may be one reason why a prisoner is put in segregation. I wonder if he can explain what other reasons might be for putting a prisoner in segregation.

B. Ralston (Chair): Just before you answer, I take it the request for the updates that Mr. Eby has proposed are agreeable to you, then?

B. Ralston (Chair): If you could provide them to the Clerk, then they’ll be distributed to the committee. Thank you.

B. Merchant: Segregation is a term that’s always used in the papers. We don’t actually use the word “segregation.” What we talk about is “separate confinement.” Basically, it’s the same thing, but we just have a different terminology. And we have a different terminology because it’s part of the Correction Act regulations. That’s what it calls it. There’s separate confinement that’s short term and long term.

Just so I’m accurate, I’m basically reading it. The person in charge of the centre can have an inmate confined to separate confinement if that person in charge believes the person:

“(i) is endangering himself or herself or is likely to endanger himself or herself, (ii) is endangering another person or is likely to endanger another person, (iii) is jeopardizing the management, operation or security of the correctional centre or is likely to jeopardize the management, operation or security of the correctional centre, (iv) would be at risk of serious harm or is likely to be at risk of serious harm if not confined separately, (v) must be confined separately for a medical reason, or (vi) suffers from a mental illness.”

The person in charge…. That’s for short term. For a longer term it’s similar reasons, but there are greater restrictions upon that and reviews that have to take place. A person can also ask to be placed into voluntary separate confinement. They can come to staff and say: “I want to be housed separately.” If the person in charge agrees with that, then they can be housed there.

It’s on our website — the Correction Act regulations — and it details separate confinement.

D. Eby: I appreciate that. My last question. With respect to discharge planning, especially for people who are in for a short period of time and would not be subject to a probation officer’s supervision, for example, how many staff in a facility are doing this kind of discharge planning, and how many inmates are typically released in any given day?

What I’m trying to get a handle on is…. I mean, I’ve heard stories of people released with 50 bucks and a ticket to where they committed the offence. These kinds of anecdotes aren’t particularly useful when we have access to expertise like this.

Whose job is it to sit down with the prisoner and say, “Okay, where are you going to go, what’s your source of money going to be, and where are you going to live?” before the release from prison?

B. Merchant: Well, it’s part of the admissions and discharge. Jails are divided up into sections, and one of those sections is the sentence management unit, which is typically to do with admissions and discharge. So that’s the first place you come in contact with correctional staff, go-
[ Page 683 ]
ing into a jail, and it’s the last place that you have contact with correctional people when you’re exiting a jail, unless you’re being released at court.

It happens through a number of people: the case managers, the directors who are responsible for admissions and discharge — to oversee that. How many people are actually involved with…? It’s parts of a lot of jobs. I don’t have a particular number.

B. Ralston (Chair): If you wanted to, similarly, provide a written answer later.

B. Merchant: I could. Because it’s parts of a whole lot of different people, I’m not sure. I’ll definitely give you an answer. It may be a bit confusing.

D. Eby: The short answer, I guess, is that there is nobody whose dedicated job it is to do this. It’s part of several different roles.

B. Merchant: We have a group of people that…. It’s dedicated that they look after discharge planning.

D. Eby: Okay. Well, maybe, Mr. Chair, some sort of…. Once Mr. Merchant has a chance to look at it.

B. Merchant: Sorry, just so I’m clear. Am I responding, or does that answer the question?

B. Ralston (Chair): I think, perhaps, just given the nature of the discussion, a more precise answer may be of benefit, from just a little bit more time to prepare an answer.

S. Gibson: I thought the report was helpful for me to understand how the system works.

The area that I focused on was the area, like a quarter return in the community model and 50 percent return in the detainment model — whatever you’d call it.

One of the things that I find fascinating is that in our community, Abbotsford, our city police department is moving much more strategically into a prevention model. They’ve got officers going out working with young people, spending a lot of money on prevention — still hiring police officers to protect the citizens. It’s a huge matter in a good community like Abbotsford.

I guess my question, which is maybe overly philosophical to some extent, is: how do you see your role in emulating that? We don’t want recidivism. We don’t want a quarter coming back. We don’t want half coming back. Our city police department…. In going after that kind of model of prevention, we’re now dropping our criminal violations quite dramatically. You may have heard that. We’re pretty proud of that in Abbotsford.

My question is: do you see yourself going into some kind of a prevention mode? After all, recidivism…. If you were a store or a business, you’d be thrilled with repeat customers, but you don’t want repeat customers, right? That’s my question.

B. Merchant: What we found out over the years…. It’s going back some years. People are familiar when I say the white paper and the Cowper report on the criminal justice system. Then when we were combined into one ministry…. We used to be Public Safety and Solicitor General. Now we’re the Ministry of Justice.

When I was sitting at the executive table, I realized my colleagues within the criminal justice system didn’t understand what the corrections branch does. I’m not blaming them. I’m blaming Brent for not informing those people of what we do.

In the criminal justice field, we have the longest time with these people than anybody else does. We spend longer with them than the police, the defense bar, the Crown, the judges. We have the greatest thing, but we’ve always flown under visual radar as to what we do. We decided that what we needed to do is to inform people about what we do, because if we inform people about what we do and where we have successes, that might change how people proceed in the criminal justice field.

We have met and given presentations to the chief justices of the appeal court and the Supreme Court of British Columbia and their associate chief justice. We have addressed the provincial court judge and his associate. We were invited to the provincial court judges conference, where we addressed 135 of the provincial court judges. Since then, we have also met with our senior managers. We called it making connections and having better outcomes.

What we’re doing right now is that our custody wardens and our regional directors and local managers and probation officers are getting together, and they’re going out into the communities and they’re giving these presentations to judges, to police, to defence, to Crown, to government and non-government organizations to explain what we do, how we do it and how we can be most successful in this system.

There’s a two-pronged approach to that. One is educating the public about the people that work with the clients that we supervise — but also to start forming, basically, a community of practice amongst those groups at the local level.

We found out…. We had what was called the prolific offender management pilot. We had six communities where we gathered all of the people dealing with prolific offenders, and we looked at what it was that was successful about that. We’re using the outcomes of that to try to emulate
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that, community by community, across the province.

I think that when you educate people and you show how we do what we do, it results in better outcomes for the province. We have just started undertaking that. I think it has real value, and we’ll link both community and custody together.

The Chair talked about transitioning back into community. You’ll have better outcomes with people transitioning back into community. You’ll be able to marry the programs in community and custody in other program areas in a much more effective manner. Will this happen by July? No, it won’t. But I expect we will see some positive changes over the next two years that will impact the work that we do.

You’re right. We’re a demand-driven organization. I have no say in who comes into our jails. It’s up to the courts. It’s up to the police. It’s not like I can put a no-vacancy sign up. I just can’t do it. We’re just demand-driven. What we want to do is wrap around and stop the demand.

Another aspect of what we do…. I can get on a real roll here, but I’ll stop. We have very good results with our domestic violence, the people that are in for domestic violence. We have a very high rate of reducing those occasions, where typically men assault their intimate female partners. It’s a big deal across the province.

Right now what we’re trying to do is we are working with the Ministry of Education to take the things that are in what’s called Respectful Relationships and try to get elements of that in the core curriculum of education so we can start addressing kids and saying: “What’s a proper way to be involved with another person and not engage in violence?”

In that prevention thing, I agree with you. We need to do that. That’s what we’re trying to do with this initiative — making connections and creating better outcomes. What we’ve learned from some of our programs is: how can we incorporate that into education? How can we turn it over to the kids and the school teachers to do that? Another one we’ll start working on in the not-too-distant future, I think, will be violence prevention, because we’ve had real success with violence prevention.

R. Sultan: We’ve been talking almost two and three-quarters of an hour about our corrections system, and it dawned on me. Just like many people Brent has referred to really don’t know what they do, I realized I don’t have a feel for what these facilities are like. I turned to our parliamentary secretary and said: “Are these neat and clean places, or are they hellholes?”

R. Sultan: Although, I guess, he’s not a sworn witness here, I thought his answer might be worth putting on the record.

L. Throness: Perhaps I’ll just give one final comment, and that’s that I did tour extensively every one of our facilities, and I did find every one of them to be very clean, very well run. The inmates are well dressed, and they’re well fed. I was really impressed with the morale of the staff there. I think our prisons are excellently run, although there are safety concerns. I detail those in my report. That would be my final comment, Chair.

B. Ralston (Chair): Anything in conclusion, then, Mr. Merchant, or from the Auditor General, before we move on to our next topic? Okay.

Well, thank you very much to both the Auditor General and Peter Nagati, the lead on the performance audit, and to Mr. Merchant, Ms. Macpherson and Ms. Clark for their presentation and for answering our questions.

We’ll ask members not to leave their seats. We have a couple of other items that I want to deal with before we adjourn at 12.

B. Ralston (Chair): I’m going to suggest, on item 2, given that we only have basically ten minutes until we rise, that we postpone this till our next meeting. I don’t think we can adequately deal with it in the time that we have available. I think there is general consensus on moving forward with the follow-up process, but there is a presentation, and then we would need some discussion. I don’t think ten minutes will do it justice.

B. Ralston (Chair): With your agreement, I’m going to move to the final item on the agenda, which is the consideration of the draft report of the committee. Typically the committee presents to the Legislature — prior to its rising at the end of May or, in the case of a fall session, at the end of November — a report on its activities.

I don’t propose that the committee here deal with the report in detail. What I’m going to suggest is that the committee give an approval to the report, and then, subject to approval by the management subcommittee, which is myself in the chair, George Heyman and Mike Morris…. We will meet and reach agreement on any changes or amendments that might be needed to the report.

If that motion is passed, that would give us the authority upon completion of that process to then present it to the Legislature prior to the Legislature rising at the end of May. As you know, our next meeting is not scheduled until early June.
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L. Reimer: My question is…. We have a follow-up process that’s going to be on our agenda for whenever our next meeting is.

L. Reimer: Are you planning on incorporating that or any information around that into this report?

B. Ralston (Chair): That’s a good question. I hadn’t thought of an answer to that.

Ron is the writer. Perhaps we can reflect that there has been discussion, but clearly, since we haven’t reached a resolution, I don’t think we would want to mislead the Legislature and say that we had when we hadn’t.

I think it’s important that the Legislature and those members of the public who may be following us at least get some sense that there is serious consideration by the committee of revising its follow-up process.

I think the Clerk has a draft resolution that incorporates more or less what I said, so perhaps you could read it.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Yes. I’d actually provided it to the Deputy Chair.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): I move the committee approve and adopt the report entitled Summary of Activities for 2014-15 as presented today and further that the committee authorize the subcommittee to work with committee staff to finalize any minor editorial changes to complete the supporting text.

The report is available. The draft report is here for distribution. I think it was also sent to members electronically. Of course, if any individual member has comments, you can pass it on to either myself or the Deputy Chair or both, and we will use that as a basis for our subsequent discussion.

V. Huntington: Just a quick question then. Will the follow-up process be at the top of the agenda at the next meeting?

B. Ralston (Chair): Well, it’s probably a good idea. We haven’t done the agenda yet, but I’ll take that as a good suggestion.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Just as a follow-up to Mr. Sullivan’s motion, it might be helpful to confirm that it’s the wish of this committee that the Chair would be able to present the finalized report to the Legislative Assembly upon completed review by the subcommittee. So a motion in anticipation of the subcommittee’s approval of your report and its presentation to the Legislature by the end of the spring sitting or at the earliest opportunity might be helpful.

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Chair:	Bruce Ralston (Surrey-Whalley NDP)
Deputy Chair:	Sam Sullivan (Vancouver–False Creek BC Liberal)
Members:	Kathy Corrigan (Burnaby–Deer Lake NDP)
	David Eby (Vancouver–Point Grey NDP)
	Simon Gibson (Abbotsford-Mission BC Liberal)
	George Heyman (Vancouver-Fairview NDP)
	Marvin Hunt (Surrey-Panorama BC Liberal)
	Vicki Huntington (Delta South Ind.)
	Greg Kyllo (Shuswap BC Liberal)
	Mike Morris (Prince George–Mackenzie BC Liberal)
	Lana Popham (Saanich South NDP)
	Linda Reimer (Port Moody–Coquitlam BC Liberal)
	Selina Robinson (Coquitlam-Maillardville NDP)
	Ralph Sultan (West Vancouver–Capilano BC Liberal)
	Laurie Throness (Chilliwack-Hope BC Liberal)
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS