We recommend that the Adult Custody Division of the Ministry of Justice:

1 develop and implement a complete performance management framework of goals, objectives, strategies, performance measures and targets to achieve safe and secure custody, and reduce criminal behaviour. This would include defining appropriate occupancy levels for correctional centres.

2 periodically assess trends in safety and security within and across correctional centres to understand how differences in operation, design or occupancy contribute to incidents and use the results to reduce the risk of reoccurrences.

3 develop and implement an approach to forecasting facility space and program needs that accounts for the complexity of the inmate population, such as changes in population groups or shifts in population trends.

4 ensure that decisions regarding facility space and programs fully reflect key characteristics of the inmate population (such as security designation, population classification, legal status, etc.).

5 periodically assess the effectiveness of all programs intended to reduce re-offending and use the results to identify and implement improvements in programming.

6 implement a quality assurance system across correctional centres to monitor and continuously improve the classification and case management of inmates.

7 examine the impact of housing sentenced and non-sentenced inmates together and implement an appropriate approach for meeting the requirements of the Corrections Act Regulation.

8 review the case management process to identify and address the barriers to offenders getting timely access to the programs they need to reduce criminal behaviour. This would include evaluating and improving the reliability of the risk/needs assessment used to identify programs for offenders.