One-on-One: Discussing the state of Canada's Correctional Services with investigator Howard Sapers

Howard Sapers has spent more than 10 years as Correctional Investigator, the federal prison system’s ombudsman who investigates individual complaints and issues annual reports and focused investigative reports to the Public Safety Minister on conditions within the correctional system.

Long before news reports shed light on it, Sapers’ office raised concerns about increased use of segregation (solitary confinement), a related high suicide rate and a lack of resources to help mentally disturbed inmates. He’s also documented the strains caused by the Conservative government’s twin goals of expanding the use of imprisonment while also reining in costs. Under their watch, the budget of the Correctional Service of Canada has shrunk to $2.35 billion for fiscal 2014-15 from $2.65 billion in 2011-12 despite a program to construct almost 3,000 new prison cells.

Sapers discussed his take on these issues with Yahoo Canada News this week:

Yahoo: Are the problems you see in the system in terms of the overcrowding, the lack of programs, issues around solitary confinement and so on, a reflection of the government’s get tough philosophy towards criminals?

Sapers: The Correctional Service of Canada has had to respond to a number of changes in how corrections is administered in Canada. There’s been a number of legislative initiatives put forward in the last half-dozen years that have resulted in more people being sent to penitentiary and typically staying longer before their first release.

So the increase in the population in federal penitentiaries is largely policy-driven and this was the intent. The government was very clear that it felt that there were some offenders who needed to spend more time in prison and the Correctional Service of Canada’s had to cope with that. So they are struggling to ensure that they have the physical capacity and the program capacity as well.

If that’s the case, is the government’s parallel goal of reducing expenditures overall in government affecting the way that the CSC can deliver the services or staff the institutions, for that matter?

Corrections is very expensive, it’s very labour-intensive. The average cost of keeping a male in a federal penitentiary is well in excess of $100,000 a year and around twice that for a typical woman held in federal custody. The biggest difference between the two of course is a matter of economy of scale.

There’s about 14,000 men in custody on any given day and about 600 or so women on any given day. In fact last year the average daily count was a little bit more than that, about 15,200 in custody. So if you do the math that’s a lot of money to provide for the custody of these individuals. Most of that money is spent on staff salaries and less than five per cent on correctional programs or interventions.

Do you think we’re looking at a situation where, if the government wants more people behind bars, that we’re reaching a critical mass where if no more money is put into the system, will we see a major problem? I’m not talking about a riot or something like that, but really serious situations developing.

The Correctional Service of Canada essentially has a dual mandate. One is safe and secure custody and the other is timely and safe release. That can only be done with the right array of resources, both human and financial. The government is clearly aware of that.

The Correctional Service of Canada has budget of around $2.3 billion or more. It’s been cut back a little bit, as all government departments have been cut back during the government’s deficit-reduction action plan. But that said, it’s clear there will be pressure on the Correctional Service of Canada to discharge that dual mandate with the money that it has available. It’s always about juggling priorities but eventually if the carceral (inmate) population keeps on growing, more money’s going to have to be put on the table.

Let me ask you a little bit about the downstream situation. You’ve spoken about what impact the government’s policies have had within the system. What impact do you think the stresses inside the system have had on recidivism rates? Is that something you’re able to track?

We’re not able to track in an academic or very empirical way, quite frankly. It’s just beyond our resources. But we do know this: We do know that the offenders who gain the benefit of early access to correctional programming, who complete that correctional programming and then are released so that they have a maximum amount of supervision in the community before their warrant-expiry date, are the offenders who have the lowest recidivism rate. So in other words, if our corrections system is allowed to work like it was designed, it works well.

We know that those who have the worst recidivism or the highest return to crime are those who spend more time behind bars before their first release, who have less rather than more access to correctional programming or very limited or no supervision upon their warrant expiry. Those are the individuals that really undermine our public safety.

So the object of the exercise is to ensure that the Correctional Service of Canada is operating so that it can maximize the return on investment. Canadian taxpayers will spend a lot of money on federal corrections and they should get the best bang for their buck, and that means access to programs and access to supervised release in the community to help ease that transition from an institution back into public life.

Would you like to see some data on whether there’s a correlation between the current situation and recidivism rates?

I’m hoping the Ministry of Public Safety, which is the portfolio above Corrections Canada, the National Parole Board, et cetera, I’m hoping that government department will in fact be collecting that data and analyzing it. I think it’s a very important question.

Let me ask you about the issue of suicide. We’ve seen a lot of discussion around suicide and solitary confinement in the last week or so. What’s the response of the CSC been to your report on suicide in prison?

In September of this year we released an investigation report that looked at the last 30 suicides in federal penitentiary. That’s all the suicides over the last three fiscal years. What we found is that nearly half of those suicides – 14 of the 30 – took place inside a segregation cell. This is a cell where an inmate is confined for 23 out of 24 hours. These are also cells that are subject to more rather than less observation and surveillance. In spite of that, we found that nearly half the suicides took place in those cells.

That tells us that segregation is an important risk factor when you’re considering how to prevent suicide in custody. We made several recommendations out of that report. Some of them reflect earlier recommendations that have come out of other investigations and the Correctional Service of Canada has promised a full response, and part of that will come when the government responds to the coroner’s jury recommendations that looks at the death of Ashley Smith.

Those 104 recommendations were issued almost a year ago – I believe it was December 19th of last year when that jury reported – and the government has committed to responding to those recommendations and incorporating its response to the recommendations from my office as well. So we’ll be looking for substantial action and substantial change in practice and policy.

So you’re optimistic you’ll see some movement towards the recommendations that you’ve put forward?

I didn’t say I was optimistic; I said I was hopeful and the difference to me is significant. We would hope for a significant response but we’re going to have to wait and see.

(Writer’s note: The CSC released its response to the Ashley Smith inquest recommendations after this interview. It outlined a number of measures it had taken to address the jury’s recommendations but was “unable to fully support” those on segregation “without causing undue risk to the safe management of the federal correctional system.” We spoke again to Sapers, who found the document a puzzling read.)

Sapers: A lot of the report really retells what the Correctional Service of Canada is currently doing. Much of that was provided in testimony to the coroner’s inquest jury. And of course it was after that testimony that the jury issued its 104 recommendations, so clearly the status quo was not seen as good enough. That said, there are some new initiatives that are embedded in the response. Some of those initiatives are substantial but they don’t address some of the core issues, particularly the overuse of segregation for mentally disordered offenders, and some of the governance issues and accountability issues which contributed to the death of Ashley Smith.

On segregation: What the Correctional Service of Canada could have done is prohibit the use of segregation for offenders who are mentally disordered or for those offenders who have a history of chronic self-harm or a history of suicide attempt. They chose not to do that. They’ve chosen instead to develop some new regulations around segregation and to do a review of long-term segregation. I’m sure those enhancements will be positive but the question is do they go far enough? And the answer in my mind is no.

This is perhaps a bit of an abstract question, but what’s the mood in the correctional system?

Canadian penitentiaries now are a little chaotic. They’re noisy and crowded. We’ve had a flurry of construction activity. We have 2,700 new cells being added to 33 sites across the country.

This is very disruptive to normal correctional practice when you have that level of activity. So the mood is cautious. In some institutions the mood is very negative.

I have to say in spite of all that, we witness some extremely positive and helpful interactions between Correctional Service of Canada staff and inmates every day. So there are lots of challenges, there are lots of critical issues. There are many, many things that we raise through our investigations that we are deeply concerned about.

But if there is any good news to any of that, it’s that the individual men and women who work with the Correctional Service of Canada often find a way to overcome those problems, at least in regard to daily interactions with inmates. But still, the systemic issues remain and those are the things we are trying to resolve.

Would it be too extreme to call the system in crisis?

I think the system is in a perpetual state of high anxiety. I’m not sure I would call it a crisis at this point. We’re always concerned when we see increases in use of force, increases in use of segregation placements, increases in reported assaults and injuries, increases in inmates’ self-harm behaviour. We’re always concerned when we see those indicators trending upwards and all those indicators are in fact up. But I wouldn’t fan those flames by labeling it a crisis.

But are they not symptomatic of a direction that could lead to a crisis?

As I say, there’s a lot of anxiety around those issues and the Correctional Service of Canada is well aware of the importance of addressing those issues. They certainly don’t need us to tell them. It’s really a matter of acknowledging there are problems and then addressing them before they explode into crisis.