Correctional Service of Canada


The Correctional Service of Canada, also known as Correctional Service Canada or Corrections Canada, is the Canadian federal government agency responsible for the incarceration and rehabilitation of convicted criminal offenders sentenced to two years or more. The agency has its headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario.
The CSC officially came into being on April 10, 1979, when Queen Elizabeth II signed authorization for the newly commissioned agency and presented it with its armorial bearings.
The Commissioner of the CSC is recommended for appointment by the Prime Minister and approved by an Order in Council. This appointed position reports directly to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and is accountable to the public via Parliament. The current Commissioner of the CSC is Anne Kelly, who served as the senior deputy commissioner prior to the retirement of Don Head in February 2018.

Insignia

In addition to using generic identifiers imposed by the Federal Identity Program, CSC is one of several federal agencies that have been granted heraldic symbols. The badge was officially granted by the Canadian Heraldic Authority on October 15, 2009. The torch symbolizes learning, knowledge and hope, while the key represents the eventual unlocking of the door upon completion of a prison sentence. The motto means "to grasp the future". The CSC was granted a flag in 2009; it consists of the heraldic badge on a white field, with the Canadian flag in the canton. Senior officials have also been granted distinctive badges by the Canadian Heraldic Authority.

History and development

Early years

Following the development of the penitentiary by the Philadelphia Quakers in the 1780s, the concept of penitence—isolation, work and religious contemplation—influenced the design and operation of prisons, not only in North America, but also in Europe, South America and Asia. The "Auburn system" developed at the Auburn Penitentiary in New York adopted the penitentiary sentence of the Philadelphia model, but added prisoners' labour, in the belief that work and training would assist in reforming criminals. The Kingston Penitentiary, based on the Auburn System, was built in 1835. Initially operated as a provincial jail, the penitentiary came under federal jurisdiction following the passage of the British North America Act in 1867.
In 1868, the first Penitentiary Act brought prisons in Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax, along with Kingston, under federal jurisdiction. Over the next twelve years, the federal government built Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Penitentiary in Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Quebec, Manitoba Penitentiary, in Stoney Mountain, Manitoba, British Columbia Penitentiary, in New Westminster, British Columbia and Dorchester Penitentiary, in Dorchester, New Brunswick. In 1906 the Alberta Penitentiary was opened in Edmonton, and the Saskatchewan Penitentiary was opened in Prince Albert in 1911. Buildings for these latter two facilities were constructed by forced labour performed by prisoners.
The regime of these prisons included productive labour during the day, solitary confinement during leisure hours and the rule of silence at all times. While there was no parole, prisoners with good conduct could have three days per month remitted from their sentence.

Reformation and rehabilitation

The Royal Commission to Investigate the Penal System of Canada was formed in response to a series of riots and strikes in the 1930s. The Archambault report, published in 1938, proposed sweeping changes for Canadian penitentiaries, with emphasis on crime prevention and the rehabilitation of prisoners. The Commission recommended a complete revision of penitentiary regulations to provide "strict but humane discipline and the reformation and rehabilitation of prisoners." While the commission's recommendations were not immediately implemented due to the advent of World War II, much of the report's philosophy remains influential.
After the Second World War, prison populations dropped, causing undercrowding and prison disturbances. This led to the creation of the Fauteaux Committee in 1953. The Committee saw prisons not merely as fulfilling a custodial role, but also to provide programs that would promote "worthwhile and creative activity" and address the basic behaviour, attitudes and patterns of inmates. This meant prisons had to change to support such programs and provide opportunities for vocational training, pre-release and after-care programs. The Fauteux Report recommended hiring more, and better-trained, personnel, including those with professional qualifications in social work, psychology, psychiatry, criminology and law. An important legacy of the Committee was the creation of the National Parole Board in 1959 and the development of a system of parole to replace the former ticket of leave system. While stating that parole was not to be a reduction, or undermining, of the sentence, the committee emphasized its strong support for parole:
Parole is a well-recognized procedure which is designed to be a logical step in the reformation and rehabilitation of a person who has been convicted of an offence and, as a result, is undergoing imprisonment... It is a transitional step between close confinement in an institution and absolute freedom in society.'"

The Penitentiary Act was amended in 1961 and a plan enacted to build ten new penitentiaries across Canada to implement the Fauteaux Committee's recommendations.

Commissioning of the CSC

In the 1970s, there was a movement to combine the then Penitentiary Service and the National Parole Service. This resulted in a Report to Parliament by the Sub-Committee on the Penitentiary System in Canada, chaired by Mark MacGuigan. The move toward consolidation was recognized by Commissioner Donald Yeomans, who referred to "...our efforts to come up with a title for our Service which will give us a proper identity and project the image of the merger of the Penitentiary Service and the National Parole Service." and announced that the name would be "The Correctional Service of Canada.". The Correctional Service of Canada was established in 1979, following the merger of the Canadian Penitentiary Service and the National Parole Service, in 1976.
Carl Lochnan, an expert in the field of Heraldry, who developed the Order of Canada, was contracted to develop the new Coat of Arms for the Commissioning of the Correctional Service of Canada. Lochnan filed a research document that stated in part the background philosophy on the given development:
On December 21, 1978, Commissioner Donald R. Yeomans approved the chosen design. In early 1979, the Coat-of-Arms was forwarded by Solicitor General Jean-Jacques Blais to the Governor General requesting the Queen's approval. On April 10, Queen Elizabeth II gave Royal Assent and authorization of the new Coat-of-Arms.

List of commissioners

  • Don Yeomans
  • Rhéal J. Leblanc
  • Ole Ingstrup
  • John Edwards
  • Ole Ingstrup
  • Lucie McClung
  • Keith Coulter
  • Don Head
  • Anne Kelly

    Legislative jurisdiction

The operation of the CSC is governed by federal statute under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations. In addition, the statute provides for discretion under the directive of the Commissioner. However, all Commissioner's Directives must remain within the parameters of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.
Correctional Service Canada only has jurisdiction over offenders in Canada for court-imposed sentences 24 months or greater.

Court-imposed sentencing

There are two types of court-imposed sentences:
  1. a determinate sentence;
  2. an indeterminate sentence.
A determinate sentence is a sentence with a completion date, called a "Warrant Expiry". This date is court imposed, at which time Correctional Service Canada no longer has jurisdiction over the offender.
An indeterminate sentence is a sentence that is commonly referred to as a "life sentence". Correctional Service Canada has jurisdiction over the offender until the offender passes away. Although the court does impose a minimum number of years before the offender can apply to the Parole Board of Canada for conditional release. Thus, a court-imposed sentence of life with no parole for twenty-five years would indicate that the offender would be incarcerated for a minimum of twenty five years prior to consideration for a potential conditional release to the community, under the supervision of a community parole officer.
As of 2006 the incarceration rate in Canada was 107 per 100,000 people; one seventh that of the United States'.

Security classification of offenders

There are three levels of security within Correctional Service Canada. They include maximum, medium, and minimum. Case management is completed by institutional parole officers within institutions, and by community parole officers in the community. The Parole Board of Canada has the complete responsibility in making liberty decisions at the point in the court-imposed sentence where an offender is allowed to live in the community on conditional release.
Once an offender is sentenced by a court to a sentence of two years or more the offender comes under the jurisdiction of Correctional Service Canada. An institutional parole officer completes a comprehensive assessment of the offender's criminality and formulates an "offender security classification report" and a "correctional plan". It is this correctional plan that the offender will be assessed against for the entire court-imposed sentence.
Preparing offenders for their return to the community is an important focus for the Correctional Services of Canada. This preparation has become more difficult in recent years due to over crowding prisons and cutbacks in rehabilitative services of offenders. Parole officers who monitor these offenders are now stretched thin making these officers do more with less to work with. With this being such a big issue, the Correctional services of Canada developed the Integrated Police-Parole Initiative. Also known as the Community Correctional Liaison Officer program. The IPPI received funding to begin operations in 16 locations across Canada in 2006-2007. This program places police officers in Correctional Services of Canada offices, where they support the activities of the parole staff. The officers specifically work with high-risk offenders in their transition to the community to try an increase public safety. High-risk, ex-prisoners face numerous challenges in re-entering their community, both personal and bureaucratic or legal. Many return to the neighborhood where they committed the crime, and deal with temptations of gang-life, criminal associates and substance abuse. With this, there should be no surprise that studies have shown that over two-thirds of offenders are rearrested within three years of release. These stats are what pushed the IPPI program to pay special attention to parolees with the highest level of risk; in the first months following release; and returning to locations with the highest levels of criminality. IPPI realized that there needed to be a different approach and make the parole officers more involved on a face-to-face basis which resulted in a more successful transition to the real world for ex-prisoners.