Then again, it was a sweeping document delivered to Hon. Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, which Minister (Day) bears responsibility for a host of important departments and agencies in the Government of Canada within Public Safety Canada.
Readers will remember the response of the Canadian government to the 9/11 Twin Towers terrorist attack was to form a 'super ministry' that brought together various security services. Public Safety Canada includes responsibility for Emergency management, National security, Crime prevention, Law enforcement policy, and Corrections policy (www.publicsafety.gc.ca).
The Corrections Services Canada Review Panel delivered a 255 page report, to address, "the Correctional Service of Canada's (CSC) operational priorities, strategies and business plans," said Rob Sampson, chair of the CSC Review Panel.
Meanwhile, at the end of March 2008, a prisoner, Trevor O'Brien, 24, convicted robber (2006), was one of two inmates who died following a riot at the Mountain Institution, Agassiz, B.C.. O'Brien was reported to have died of a drug overdose.
The other fatality was more likely murder, Michael Andrew Gibbon, 39, a convict with sex crimes, beaten to death. Reports said Gibbons was serving an indeterminate sentence for sexual offences, and was, strangely, being held in general population.
It was reported after the riot that visitors had, incredibly enough, attended a prison 'social' earlier in the day. Is there any question that visitors smuggled in the drugs that led to a spike in aberrant behaviour? An CSC investigation is looking into it.
In the review panel report, they said, "The panel is particularly concerned about the safety of front-line staff and we are of the opinion that they require more tools and training."
Also, and rightly so (in the light of the Mountain Institution incident of Mar 31 08), the report, 'targeted a need' to keep illicit drugs out of prisons.
They suggest that the Canadian prison system needs more structured work days for prisoners. The crux of the debate around policy contains the suggestion (and the report's most important policy oriented suggestion) for the construction of, "mega-prisons, to better control security."
The CSC calls for redesigned prisons, to, "make the most of mental health and other services," and put, "an emphasis on offender responsibility and accountability for their rehabilitation efforts; and, in keeping with that, replacing statutory release with earned early release."
The panellists argued that the CSC ought to make important capital investments in aging infrastructure. "The Panel believes that this situation has to be addressed," even at the cost of re-arranging the budget.
A report of this length obviously took time and was written in the context of the present time. "This Report charts a roadmap driven in large part due to the changing offender profile."
Prisoners of today are different, and it is an alarming difference, they say. "Nearly 60% are now serving sentences of less than 3 years and have histories of violence, and today sees a 100% increase in maximum security admissions."
Furthermore, gangstas go to prison, they say, one of six prisoners are known to have known gang and/or organized crime affiliations.
Also, addicts go to prison, in fact, "About 4 out of 5 offenders arrive with a serious substance abuse problem, with 1 out of 2 having committed their crime while under the influence(!)"
A lot of prisoners, 12% of men and 26% of women, "are identified as having a very serious mental health problem." It all adds up to CSC facing more violent offenders in populations that require more interventions.
Furthermore, the panel expressed a lot of concern about CSC personnel because, "Safety was at risk because of 'antiquated penitentiaries' built for a population of inmates intermingling."
Studies over the years have shown what they call 'sub-populations' need to be separated, but the report states today's infrastructure for prison populations is antiquated penitentiaries.
"Many of the federal penitentiaries in existence today were built in the 1800s and early 1900s." The panel has found, "Some (prison) layouts make it difficult for CSC to provide an overall safe environment for staff."
The panel traveled to penitentiaries across Canada and found what it called 'vulnerabilities' in security, including some unmanned control towers.
As a consequence of these empty observation towers, drugs reach inmates, sometimes by bizarre, almost comical methods, like filling, "tennis balls and bouncing them over the fence."
Under staffing was part of the problem leading to the recent Mountain Institution riot; news reports say two unarmed correctional officers were left in charge of 40 prisoners when the trouble began.
Apparently some inmates were carrying aluminum bats from a sports equipment room. The riot started around the gym. And further hearkening to concerns discussed at review, Mountain Institution was built in 1962, and is, "one of 28 federal prisons now more than four decades old."
Mountain Institution is located 120 km east of Vancouver and houses 442 male inmates serving a federal sentence of two years or longer.
What the CSC review recommends is a change from prisons with a few hundred inmates to prisons that house 2,000 inmates, including institutions that would house inmates at various levels from minimum to maximum security in separate spaces.
Do not be surprised if problems of housing prisoners increase during the present federal government crackdown on crime. Once it takes full effect (reported in CWC over the past few months of Conservative minority government) criminals who face more mandatory minimum sentences for a growing number of criminal offences will enter an overtaxed prison system.
It will force the call for prison reform that would end automatic parole to build those new prisons. The reforms would lead to longer work days for inmates where so many are sitting idle.
It would shift away from prisoners rights, concentrate drug prevention efforts, and even focus on checking visitors. The suggestion has been made that airport security is tighter than going through prison security.
The panel review was hardly remiss in dealing with one surely vexing demographic point in Canadian corrections services, which is that Aboriginal offenders are too many, especially for one of the panel members who was Chief Clarence Louie.
The report noted, First Nation and Aboriginal people "continue to be disproportionately represented at all levels of the criminal justice system, including in the federal correctional system."
At the end of March 2006, Aboriginal people represented 16.7% of federally-sentenced offenders compared to 2.7% of the Canadian adult population. These numbers of Aboriginal peoples found in jail especially in Western and northern Canada will continue to weigh disproportionately among newly sentenced offenders.
In the USA, a close neighbour, where about 17,000 Canadians are in imprisoned, some States discuss numbers like one in every 100 adults in jail or prison.
Justice Department admits 7 million people (one in every 32 adults) are either incarcerated, "on parole or probation or under some other form of state or local supervision." (Pew Center report)
In the US, one in nine young black men is behind bars, and African Americans now comprise more than half of all prisoners, up from a third three decades ago. While the Canadian system is beefing up certain sentencing practices, including adding elements of the 'reverse onus' principle in parole hearings, the USA is re-examining the elimination of the federal mandatory five-year sentence for minor crack cocaine violations.
Proponents note that, "It is a national disgrace that the U.S. incarceration rate is five to 12 times that of other industrialized countries as well as being the highest in the world."
