The year saw the initiation of a new Vision for the Prison Service that focused on the key themes of "Protecting the Public" and "Reducing Reoffending." Accompanying this vision is the SPS's commitment to high standards of prison service delivery, improvement in the professionalism and skills of prison staff, and cost-effectiveness in prison service delivery. Another significant initiative of the past year was the revision of the SPS's race relations policy. This included the appointment of a Race Relations Manager for each correctional facility and improved race-relations training and racial-awareness training for all staff. A racial incident reporting system has been instituted to help ensure that any incidents of racial discrimination are identified and addressed. The number of inmates in custody declined slightly for the second straight year following the peak inmate population of 1997-98, but the trend at the end of the last year was again upward. This report assesses the degree to which the SPS met key performance targets set for it by the Justice Minister. These performance measures pertain to the number of escapes, the number of serious assaults on staff and inmates, the number of inmates to complete programs that address offending behavior, the number of inmate hours spent in education courses, the percentage of available inmate places with access to night sanitation, the average annual cost per inmate place, and the number of inmate injuries. Appendices provide data on the location and description of correctional facilities, inmate statistics by facility, the average daily inmate population, the number of receptions to establishments, escapes from custody, prison discipline, prison industries, inmate complaints, staff numbers and recruitment, staff training, parliamentary accountability, and finances.