OTTAWA – Canadian prisons should not be "serving as hospitals by default," says a House of Commons committee report that recommends the Harper government make a significant investment to help mentally ill and drug-addicted inmates.
Opposition members of the public safety committee, in a study released Tuesday, make 71 recommendations on how the prison system can improve the lives of mentally ill inmates, ranging from cash infusions to curtailing double bunking and segregation, and simply building more cells with windows to let the light in.
The Conservative members of the committee issued a dissenting report, asserting that the government has already taken significant steps to help drug-addicted and mentally ill inmates.
The 97-page report, the outcome of months of public hearings in which the committee heard from dozens of witnesses, notes that about 80 per cent of offenders serving sentences of two years or more in Canada’s 57 federal penitentiaries have problems with drugs or alcohol.
Also, one in 10 male inmates and one in five female inmates suffer from serious mental disorders upon admission to prison.
"Correctional institutions should not be serving as hospitals by default," says the report. "This is a public safety issue because offenders who fail to receive appropriate treatment while in custody are more likely to reoffend after release, thus threatening the security of all Canadians."
The report recommends, "immediate allocation of additional financial resources," better training of police officers to recognize mental health problems, expansion of sweat lodges and other aboriginal healing methods, adding substance abuse counsellors and psychiatric nurses at every institution, restoring the recently axed prison farm program, and allowing more family and friend visits.
The Harper government, which is in the midst of building thousands of new prison cells to cope with an anticipated influx of prisoners in the coming years as a result of tougher laws, should "provide toilets and windows in every cell with access to sunlight and fresh air where possible," the report said.
The Conservative committee members said that the government’s 2007 budget committed $55 million over five years for a Mental Health Commission and that the Correctional Service of Canada received $21.5 million over two years to improve its response to mental health issues in prisons.
The committee began the study following the death of Ashley Smith, a mentally ill New Brunswick teenager who killed herself while in custody in 2007.
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