Parliamentary Committee Notes: Reintegration Statistics
Issue:
Following the high profile transfer of an inmate from a maximum-security to a medium-security institution, the effectiveness of the Criminal Justice System has been the subject of criticism and calls for reform.
Proposed Response:
- Overall, the Canadian Criminal Justice System has demonstrated effective decision-making with respect to risk assessment and classification, which informs both transfers and releases.
- For example, parole is granted on a discretionary basis only to those who pose a low risk to reoffend. Accordingly, the recidivism rate of federal offenders released on parole is very low. Only 0.2% of all federal offenders on day or full parole returned to custody by committing a new violent offence during the community supervision period.
- In general, violent recidivism rates – offence types of greatest threat to public safety – are particularly low, with approximately 80% of federally or provincially sentenced individuals not recommitting a violent offence in the first 3 years following their release.
Background:
- The fundamental purposes of Canadian corrections, as per the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, are to 1) re-integrate individuals who committed crimes into society (i.e., rehabilitation), and 2) promote public safety.
- Importantly, the principles applied in Canadian Corrections are grounded in the evidence-based Risk-Need-Responsivity model (RNR); specifically, to optimize effectiveness, the most intense services are directed towards the highest risk individuals (risk principle), while targeting those factors that are most highly related to criminal conduct (need principle), and delivering the interventions via a cognitive-behavioural, social learning framework (general responsivity) in a manner suited to the client’s individual characteristics (e.g., culture, gender, learning style; specific responsivity).
- Rehabilitation programs that adhere to the core principles of the RNR result in substantial reductions in recidivism. When rehabilitative interventions adheres to all three of the RNR principles, recidivism rates decrease by up to 35%. In contrast, intervention programs that fail to adhere to any of the RNR principles show a small increase in recidivism.
- Risk assessment is a foundational practice in Canadian corrections that is necessary to direct effective rehabilitation efforts and to protect public safety (e.g., parole is granted to those individuals who pose the lowest risk to reoffend). Risk assessment is also a practice that aims to protect the safety of incarcerated populations. Specifically, the decision to classify inmates at a particular level occurs following a thorough assessment of the offender’s case-specific factors, and is the product of a number of criteria and considerations pursuant to both the CCRA and the Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations.
- In 2021-22, approximately 91% of all federal offenders on day or full parole successfully complete their sentences. Of the 9% who return to custody during the community supervision period, 88% do so because of a breach of conditions rather than for the commission of a new offence. The total number of those under day and full parole supervision in 2021-22 was 4,700 (3,282 and 1,418, respectively). Among those, only 9 individuals returned to custody by committing a new violent offence during the community supervision period (0 and 9, respectively).
- In regards to violent and sexual recidivism rates, approximately 80% of federally or provincially sentenced individuals will desist from violent offending over a 3-year period post-release according to a 2019 CSC report and a recently published 2024 Statistics Canada Juristat. Sexual recidivism rates of adult men have been shown to range from 5-15% after 5 years, and 10-20% after 10 years.
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