Community Safety and Community-based Corrections

Public Safety Canada works with community-based organizations to support the safe rehabilitation and successful reintegration of federal offenders while helping to ensure victims’ rights are protected and respected, enhancing community safety and well-being. This work also focusses on addressing the overrepresentation of individuals from racialized, marginalized and at-risk communities in the corrections and criminal justice system, including Indigenous Peoples.

Supporting Indigenous community safety:

Through the Aboriginal Community Safety Planning Initiative, Public Safety Canada works to prevent incidents of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, provides a means to enhance accessibility to Restorative Justice programming and responds to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action.

Through the Indigenous Community Corrections Initiative, the Department works with communities and organizations to rehabilitate Indigenous offenders through project development, training and capacity building, communications, and policy development.

Protecting and respecting victims’ rights:

Public Safety Canada’s National Office for Victims (NOV) is a central resource that offers information services and referrals to victims of federal offenders. Whether you are working for a victim services' organization in Canada, have been the victim of a federal offender, or have had a family member become a victim of a federal offender, the NOV can help.

Grants and contributions programs to enhance community safety:

Through the Grants Program to National Voluntary Organizations the Department supports national not-for-profit organizations that provide a range of services in the area of corrections and conditional release.

Through the National Flagging System (NFS) Class Grant Program, Public Safety Canada provides funding to enhance the capacity of participating provinces and territories to identify and track high-risk and dangerous offenders and to facilitate appropriate sentences for these individuals should they re-offend.

Restorative Justice:

Public Safety Canada works collaboratively with the Department of Justice to advance restorative justice through programs, resources, legislation and policy. Public Safety Canada has published several research summaries in the area of restorative justice research.

Learn more about…

• The interventions, programs and services for offenders being released back to the community.
• Community safety, policing and engagement, and how you can help keep yourself, your family and neighborhood safe.
• The National Joint Committee of Senior Criminal Justice Officials (NJC) which promotes mutual understanding, information sharing and cooperation among major criminal justice organizations.
• Restorative justice programs across Canada, an approach to justice that seeks to repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to communicate about and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime.
• The Victim Services Directory, created by the Policy Centre for Victim Issues of the Department of Justice Canada to help service providers, victims and individuals locate services for victims of crime across Canada.
• Correctional Service of Canada’s Restorative Opportunities Program, which offers post-sentence victim-offender mediation services across Canada.
• Public Safety Canada’s involvement in developing legislation and policies governing corrections and criminal justice.
• Public Safety Canada’s research on corrections, which helps the Department complete its work while making evidence-based decisions.

Date modified:

2019-08-16