2024–2025 Program inventory

Core Responsibility 1: Care and Custody

Description

CSC provides for the safety, security and humane care of inmates, including day-to-day needs of inmates such as food, clothing, accommodation, mental health services, and physical health care. It also includes security measures within institutions such as drug interdiction, and appropriate control practices to prevent incidents.

P1: Institutional Management and Support

Description

The Institutional Management and Support Program contributes to Care and Custody through the day-to-day management of operational activities and institutional services for offenders in custody.

Key activities include administering, operating and maintaining institutions; establishing operational processes and procedures; managing allocated financial and human resources; directing and overseeing the delivery of integrated correctional operations; monitoring the effectiveness of institutional security activities; considering threats, risks, vulnerabilities and physical security requirements and controls; managing the intelligence function for institutions; ensuring coordination across the criminal justice system; providing a safe environment for staff and inmates; and making decisions and recommendations related to offenders within delegated authorities.

P2: Supervision

Description

The Supervision Program contributes to the Care and Custody of inmates through the provision of security activities to ensure that institutions are safe and secure, and that they facilitate an environment that supports rehabilitation and reintegration. The program directly assists with case management by identifying and managing illegal activities and security threats to contribute to the safety and security of institutions.

Key activities include gathering and sharing information and intelligence to prevent safety and security incidents through dynamic security and searches, performing security patrols and inmate counts, and addressing inmate behaviour that may jeopardize the safety and security of institutions in accordance with the inmate discipline system. As well, the monitoring of inmate movements, while considering institutional security requirements, supports an inmate's participation in their correctional plan.

P23: Preventive Security and Intelligence

Description

The Preventive Security and Intelligence Program contributes to the Care and Custody of inmates through the provision of intelligence information to inform and guide operational decisions in a tactical and/or strategic manner throughout all levels of the organization. Through the collection, analysis and sharing of intelligence information, the Preventive Security and Intelligence program directly contributes to security operations and interventions. This is achieved by supporting the case management process, and identifying and managing illegal activities and security threats in institutions and in the community, in conjunction and cooperation with external partner agencies.

Key activities include gathering and sharing information and intelligence to prevent security incidents, disrupt illegal activity and support the case management process; continually assessing threats and risks to identify and mitigate internal and external threats to the safety of individuals (offenders, staff, and public), institutions, and community operational sites; collaborating, liaising and sharing information with justice partners both domestically and internationally; identifying and managing security threat groups; and preventing, intercepting, and eliminating illegal or threatening activities.

P3: Drug Enforcement

Description

The Drug Enforcement Program contributes to Care and Custody through the development, implementation, and coordination of policies and activities designed to prevent the introduction of illicit drugs and/or reduce their presence within CSC facilities. This is done to ensure a safe drug-free institutional environment for inmates and to reduce the threats to institutional security posed by trafficking activities and violence associated with drug trafficking. Drug Enforcement is one element of CSC’s overall strategy which includes prevention, education, treatment and harm reduction.

Key activities include the collection and analysis of intelligence related to drug use and trafficking and the subsequent targeting and dismantling of drug trafficking efforts. Detecting, searching and deterring drug use and/or trafficking is accomplished through security and intelligence measures such as urinalysis, drug detector teams, drug detection and identification tools, dynamic security and the imposition of administrative measures.

P4: Clinical Services and Public Health

Description

The Clinical Services and Public Health Program contributes to the humane custody of inmates by providing essential health care and reasonable access to non-essential health care in accordance with professionally accepted standards.

Key activities across the continuum of care include disease prevention and control, health promotion, screening, assessment and treatment, hospital care, referral to medical specialists, pharmacy services and release planning.

P5: Mental Health Services

Description

The Mental Health Services Program contributes to the humane custody of inmates by providing essential mental health care and reasonable access to non-essential mental health care in accordance with professionally accepted standards. These services are delivered from intake to release, while considering the needs of vulnerable populations. The continuum of care is reflected through CSC's comprehensive Mental Health Strategy.

Key activities include mental health screening at intake, primary mental health care, intermediate mental health care, psychiatric in-patient care, as well as release preparation and transitional care for release to the community.

P6: Food Services

Description

The Food Services Program contributes to Care and Custody by providing nutritionally balanced meals to offenders in institutions. Meal preparation is based on appropriate nutrition standards for Canadians such as Canada's Food Guide. The program meets the needs of offenders requiring specific diets for their faith or for therapeutic reasons.

Key activities include setting the overall policy direction for the delivery of food services; monitoring food services activities to ensure adherence to standards; ensuring all activities related to the ordering, storage, preparation and service of food and disposal of waste meet food safety standards; and planning for food service within the established budget.

P7: Accommodation Services

Description

The Accommodation Services Program contributes to Care and Custody through facilities planning, construction, maintenance and repair of institutional buildings/structures and lands; acquisition, maintenance and repair of vehicles; as well as related basic services for offenders. This is done so that institutions can meet their operational requirements including the provision of safe and clean living and working conditions for staff and for offenders in custody.

Key activities include the provision of basic necessities to offenders, technical support, housekeeping, clothing and cell furnishings, laundry services, facilities planning services, construction project management, engineering services, environmental services, waste management, electrical, water and sewage, heating/co-generation of power, plumbing, fire protection, motor vehicle maintenance and operations, carpentry, masonry, painting, welding and millwright, general labour, general maintenance, and landscaping.

Core Responsibility 2: Correctional Interventions

Description

CSC conducts assessment activities and program interventions to support federal offenders’ rehabilitation and facilitate their reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens. CSC also engages Canadian citizens as partners in its correctional mandate, and provides services to victims of crime.

P8: Offender Case Management

Description

The Offender Case Management program contributes to Correctional Interventions through a dynamic process that includes interventions to assess, guide, and support offenders throughout their sentences.

Key activities and outputs include constructing a changeable sentence continuum, effecting court orders, intake assessment, development of correctional plans, penitentiary placement, progress monitoring of correctional plans, transfers, institutional supervision, pre-release planning and case preparation for release, as well as community supervision to ensure the safe and successful management of offender risk and needs.

P9: Community Engagement

Description

The Community Engagement Program contributes to Correctional Interventions through citizen engagement by developing and maintaining relationships with volunteers, partners, stakeholders, Canadian citizens and communities. CSC provides voluntary client-centered services focused on restorative justice and victim services that further contribute to the federal correctional process in areas including meeting victims' needs and integrating their concerns, meaningful offender accountability and their reintegration.

Key activities include raising public awareness to improve confidence in federal corrections; developing and maintaining partnership agreements; creating collaborative working relationships with diverse segments of the community, non-governmental agencies and other government departments; providing leadership to the volunteer program, engaging in restorative justice initiatives; providing / receiving information to / from victims; providing opportunities for and delivering victim-offender mediation services to address serious crime nationally, and supporting ongoing activities that promote the successful reintegration of offenders into the community.

P10: Chaplaincy Services

Description

CSC engages chaplaincy services as a key component in supporting an offender's right, afforded under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to express and participate in religious or spiritual activities during incarceration. Chaplaincy services contribute to Correctional Interventions by offering a continuum of care that begins at intake, through incarceration to post-release.

Institutional chaplains provide and coordinate religious services, rites and rituals according to the diverse religious and spiritual needs of offenders at an institution. Through institutional chaplaincy services, offenders are provided with spiritually based encounters to address various aspects of human experience, crisis intervention in response to personal loss, institutional disruptions, and challenging life events. Institutional chaplains contribute to offender case management and provide opportunities for offenders to examine their behaviours and discover new ways of living during incarceration.

Key activities in the chaplaincy continuum of care include the provision of Religious and Spiritual Services and Support, Case Management Support, and Community Involvement. These services consist of the development, implementation, delivery, and management of religious and spiritual activities, which include volunteer and other faith community resources.

P11: Elder Services

Description

The Elder Services Program contributes to Correctional Interventions through the counselling, teachings and ceremonial services provided to First Nations, Métis and Inuit offenders who are following a traditional healing path. Elder services also include the provision of cultural and spiritual support and advice to the Institutional Head regarding ceremonies and offenders' access to ceremonial objects or traditional medicines within the institution.

Key activities include counselling, providing spiritual and cultural teachings to First Nations, Métis and Inuit offenders; delivering ceremonial services and establishing and maintaining partnerships to help offenders reintegrate and live in the community as law-abiding citizens.

P22: Correctional Programs

Description

Correctional Programs contribute to Correctional Interventions by targeting empirically validated factors directly linked to an offender's criminal behaviour, in order to reduce re-offending.

The key activity is the delivery of correctional programs. The correctional program models are comprised of three distinct components:

1. Readiness programs that prepare offenders to address risk factors;
2. Main programs that address risk factors related to offending at intensity levels that correspond to their identified risk and needs; and,
3. Maintenance programs that support offenders in maintaining skills learned through their participation in the main correctional program.

The delivery of correctional programs teach skills that help reduce problematic behaviour by assisting offenders to change pro-criminal attitudes and beliefs, and develop healthy interpersonal relationships, coping strategies, problem solving skills, setting goals. As well, correctional programs support offenders to maintain and apply the skills that they learned.

P15: Offender Education

Description

The Offender Education Program contributes to Correctional Interventions by providing offenders with knowledge and skills that contribute to the successful reintegration of offenders thereby enhancing public safety.

The key activities include conducting educational and learning disability assessments, and the delivery of education programs and services to offenders, such as those who:

1. Were assessed below grade 12 or its equivalent;
2. Unable to communicate proficiently in either official language;
3. Require additional secondary credits as a prerequisite to participate in other programs or employment opportunities; or,
4. Request a referral to post-secondary education and meet the academic prerequisites.

Education programs are interventions that provide offenders with literacy, academic and personal development skills. Through educational achievements, offenders may receive formal recognition, certification, or accreditation from an educational authority recognized by the province through which the program is accredited.

P16: CORCAN Employment and Employability

Description

As part of correctional interventions utilized to contribute to offender rehabilitation, the CORCAN Employment and Employability Program provides offenders with skills training that develops technical and essential skills that are transferable to community employment. This is achieved through on-the-job training, apprenticeship hours and vocational certifications that improve their ability to find and maintain employment as part of a safe and successful release into the community.

Key activities include teaching a combination of industry standard technical skills (mastery of tools and processes associated with a specific occupational role), transferable skills (with opportunities for offenders to apply these skills in various industry jobs), and essential skills (improve employability and job readiness). These skills are foundational to secure employment opportunities. Other activities include assisting offenders through employment readiness, employment search support services throughout their sentence, as well as transitional employment and training at CORCAN Community Industries, provide interventions and services directly through CORCAN or as complimentary to other CSC employment and employability initiatives.

The program is designed to allow offenders to acquire skills and develop the pro-social attitudes and behaviours that are valued by employers, and is a key part of CSC's commitment to actively support offenders to become law-abiding citizens.

P17: Social Program

Description

The Social Program portfolio contributes to Correctional Interventions by providing structured and unstructured programs and activities designed to prepare offenders for reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens.

To assist in supporting safe and effective reintegration, the programs and activities included within the social program portfolio encourage offenders to adopt pro-social lifestyles as well as acquire basic life skills. Research suggests that men who are most likely to be revoked within their first year of release demonstrate needs related to employment and community functioning. For women, the offenders' odds of remaining in the community are significantly improved when a combination of services and programs are used in their rehabilitation. The social program portfolio therefore works in tandem with other interventions to provide offenders with occasions to practice social skills, establish and strengthen positive relationships with their peers, and become aware of their strengths and weaknesses, which assists them in overcoming challenges associated with successful reintegration. Further, skills reinforced in social programs encourage and reinforce the behaviours and thinking taught throughout correctional programming, thereby supporting offenders in addressing their criminogenic needs.

The Social Program portfolio also provides opportunities for offenders in Structured Intervention Units to engage in meaningful human contact, while reinforcing the skills needed to reintegrate and remain in the mainstream offender population.

Key activities include the Community Integration Program, the Social Integration Program for Women, and the Structured Intervention Unit Social Program.

Core Responsibility 3: Community Supervision

Description

CSC supervises offenders in the community and provides structure and services to support their safe and successful reintegration into the community. Services include accommodation options, community health services, and the establishment of community partnerships. CSC manages offenders on parole, statutory release, and long-term supervision orders.

P18: Community Management and Security

Description

The Community Management and Security Program contributes to Community Supervision by monitoring and managing offenders in the community, and by gathering, analyzing, and sharing intelligence.

Key activities and outputs include community staff safety strategies as well as a number of initiatives and activities that serve to support the supervision of offenders, including urinalysis, electronic monitoring and partnerships.

P19: Community-Based Residential Facilities

Description

The Community-Based Residential Facilities (CBRF) Program contributes to Community Supervision by providing accommodation to offenders in CBRFs operated by non-governmental agencies under contract with CSC. CBRFs promote the successful reintegration of offenders in the community by providing accommodations in various types of CBRF options, such as Community Residential Facilities (structured facilities commonly known as "halfway houses"), Treatment Centres, Hostels, Private Home Placements, and Supervised/Satellite Apartments.

Key activities include providing accommodation, interventions, support, and monitoring for those offenders under community supervision who are required to reside in community-based residential facilities on release.

P20: Community Correctional Centres

Description

The Community Correctional Centres (CCC) Program contributes to Community Supervision by providing a 24-hour structured living environment, monitoring and interventions for the purpose of the safe reintegration of offenders into the community. CCCs operate under Correctional Service Canada policies and procedures. The CCCs accommodate offenders under federal jurisdiction who have been released to the community on unescorted temporary absences, day parole, full parole with residency, work releases, statutory release with residency, as well as those subject to Long-Term Supervision Orders with residency.

P21: Community Health Services

Description

The Community Health Services Program contributes to Community Supervision by providing essential health services for offenders in the community where there are gaps in provincial health service delivery. In addition, CSC facilitates access to community services to support rehabilitation and successful reintegration.

Key activities include providing discharge planning services to ensure continuity of support, mental health services to address mental health needs (e.g., crisis intervention and counselling), and links to community agencies.