Women Offender Programs and Issues

Cross Gender Monitoring Project

1. INTRODUCTION

The Cross Gender Monitoring Project has now completed its second year and Thérèse Lajeunesse & Associates Ltd is pleased to present this Second Annual Report. Briefly, the objectives of the Cross Gender Monitoring Project are:

• To assess the systematic impact of cross gender staffing, especially on inmates and staff, in Federally Sentenced Women's facilities across the country;

• To identify operational and policy issues; and

• To forward appropriate recommendations to the Deputy Commissioner for Women, Correctional Service Canada (CSC).

The Cross Gender Monitoring Project was established to implement a key recommendation from the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston (1996), known as the Arbour Report.

The Cross Gender Monitoring Project will be completed by March 31, 2000. This report outlines the methodology that was used to elicit information from a wide cross section of respondents, including inmates and CSC staff. Based on this information, the Monitoring Team advances recommendations on a wide range of matters pertaining to cross gender issues. We hope that this Second Annual Report will provide the basis for a discussion to continue throughout the third and final year, culminating in a final set of recommendations. We also hope that individuals will feel free to share their perspectives with us, including how some of our proposed recommendations can be operationalized and made permanent. Information about how to reach us is included in Appendix A.

Again, as in our First Annual Report, we thank all respondents who spoke freely with us about issues that are, at times, controversial and deeply personal.

Section 2 of this report provides background information about the Monitoring Project and the following Section summarizes our key findings from interviews, policy documents and other sources.
Section 5 presents an analysis of issues based on findings and relevant recommendations and
Section 6 outlines the proposed process and issues to be addressed in the final year. The last Section summarizes our interim recommendations for the second year.