A new report released by the Public Services Foundation of Canada (PSFC) paints a grim picture of the current state of correctional services in Canada.
In Crisis in Correctional Services: Overcrowding and Inmates with Mental Health Problems in Provincial Correctional Facilities, the Foundation focuses on two particularly disturbing trends that are continuing to worsen: overcrowding in provincial correctional centres and an increasing number of inmates that require mental health and addictions treatments that are not currently available.
Both of these situations result in a dangerous and volatile working conditions, posing greater risk for both inmates and correctional officers.
Despite decades of declining crime rates, Canadian correctional centres are housing more people than ever before, and economic and social costs are soaring out of control. Tough-on-crime laws that are still in fashion seem to be grounded in simplistic populist appeals at a time when “we need instead to develop and enact evidence-based criminal justice policy.”
In addition to overcrowding and mental health challenges, the report examines two other problems faced by the Canadian correctional system: the movement away from a focus on rehabilitation of incarcerated persons, and the continual rise in costs of incarceration and the administration of justice in general.