NCJ Number
200712
Date Published
2002
Length
58 pages
Annotation
This is the 2001-2002 Annual Report of Canada's Correctional Investigator, who, acting as an ombudsman for Federal offenders, investigates and brings resolution to complaints of individual offenders; the Correctional Investigator is also responsible for reviewing and making recommendations on the Correctional Service's policies and procedures associated with individual complaints to ensure that systemic areas of concern are identified and addressed.
Abstract
Over the course of the reporting year, the Office of the Correctional Investigator received 7,993 complaints. The investigative staff spent 344 days in Federal penitentiaries and conducted in excess of 2,800 interviews with inmates and half again that number of interviews with institutional and regional staff. In addition to responding to individual complaints, the Office has met regularly with inmate committees and other offender organizations. It also makes announced visits biannually to each institution, during which the investigator will meet with any inmate or group of inmates upon request. The areas of complaint continue to focus on those long-standing issues that have been detailed in past Annual Reports. These areas include Aboriginal offenders, women offenders, sexual harassment policy, case preparation and access to programming, preventive security standards and guidelines, institutional violence, inmate injuries, suicides, investigations, special handling unit, double bunking, use of force, allegations of staff misconduct, involuntary transfer and consent to mental health interventions, critical incident stress intervention for inmates, sharing of information with police on the release of an offender, strip search policy, inmate pay, transfers, inmate grievance procedures, elderly and young offenders, and the classification of offenders serving life sentences. This Annual Report also offers recommendations for addressing systemic problems that have given rise to complaints in these areas. This report notes that the observations and recommendations detailed in last year's Annual Report have in large part been ignored. 5 statistical tables