PUBLICATION:
Vancouver Sun
DATE:
2004.11.06
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
News
PAGE:
A1 / Front
BYLINE:
Joel Baglole
SOURCE:
Vancouver Sun
ILLUSTRATION:
Color Photo: Photo
Illustration/ Ward Perrin /(Repeat-offender rate four times higher than
reported); Photo: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun Files / Corrections Canada says it
don't have the right to keep track of inmates once they leave places like
Matsqui Prison and finish probation.; Photo: Graham Trotman, Corrections and
Sherrif Services chairperson for BCGEU, in front of Kamloops Law Courts.; Photo:
Back Behind Bars
NOTE:
Ran with fact box "RETURN TO PRISON", "PRISON MATH"
and" BACK BEHIND BARS", which has been appended to the end of the
story.
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Repeat-offender
rate four times higher than reported: SUN EXCLUSIVE: More ex-convicts return to
jail than the government admits. Are criminals being released into society too
soon? Do our prison rehabilitation programs work?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
number of repeat offenders in Canada is nearly four times as high as the
official figure issued by the federal government, a Vancouver Sun investigation
reveals.
The
federal Correctional Service of Canada, which operates 54 prisons nationwide,
proudly claims that the rate for criminals incarcerated in its institutions is
only 10 per cent.
While
the figure seems impressive, it excludes some important criteria:
-
The 10 per cent refers only to the number of convicted criminals who return to a
federal prison within two years of being released into society.
-
It does not include people who return to a provincial jail within two years of
leaving federal custody.
-
It also does not include people who return to any prison after being back in
society for three years or longer.
If
the number of convicted criminals who return to a federal or a provincial jail
within two years of leaving federal custody is included, the rate of recidivism
-- repetition of criminal behaviour -- increases nearly four-fold to 37 per
cent, according to Corrections Canada.
In
some provincial prisons, 50 per cent of inmates are repeat offenders. Provincial
prison terms are given to people sentenced to less than two years in jail.
Federal prisons are for people serving sentences greater than two years.
Assessing
which criminals are likely to commit multiple crimes, and whether prisons
successfully rehabilitate people, is becoming increasingly important as courts
divert a growing number of people away from jails and give them conditional
sentences to be served in communities. It's also becoming a bigger issue as the
provinces and Ottawa struggle to decide how many taxpayer-funded prisons to
operate.
However,
defining repeat offenders and calculating recidivism rates among convicted
criminals is a murky subject, and one where there is little co-ordination or
co-operation between provincial and federal branches of the justice system.
Critics
say recidivism statistics are deliberately manipulated by the justice system to
play down the seriousness of crime in Canadian society, to justify giving
convicted criminals early release from jail, and make it appear that prisons are
able to successfully reform hardened criminals.
"The
corrections system wants to show that it is racking up impressive success rates.
And to accomplish that they fudge definitions and skew statistics. It amounts to
a campaign of disinformation," says Manitoba MP Vic Toews, justice critic
for the federal Conservative party.
"Unfortunately,
the corrections system does not think that the Canadian public can handle or
understand the complexities of rehabilitating criminals."
Even
some proponents of Canada's justice system acknowledge that there are problems
with the way recidivism rates are defined and calculated.
"A
lot of people will tell you that the official recidivism figures are
ridiculously low and don't show the true level of crime. And they're
right," says Graham Stewart, executive director of The John Howard Society
of Canada, a national charity that helps offenders reintegrate into society.
"These short-term figures taken over a two-year period are very useful for
people in the justice system to collect. But they don't necessarily paint an
accurate picture for the public."
Crime
is on the rise in Canada.
The
national crime rate rose six per cent in 2003, the first increase in a decade,
according to Statistics Canada's Centre for Justice Statistics. The increase was
driven largely by a rise in counterfeiting and property crimes. Break ins, motor
vehicle thefts and robberies all rose last year. Robberies with a firearm jumped
10 per cent, one of the highest increases. The violent crime rate remained
unchanged, although the incidence of homicide and sexual assault fell.
In
Vancouver, the overall number of criminal code violations grew 4.5 per cent last
year, far ahead of Toronto, which recorded a crime increase of only 0.1 per
cent. While the number of violent crimes in Vancouver fell 1.1 per cent in 2003,
the number of break and enters increased 3.4 per cent, motor vehicle thefts rose
6.3 per cent and weapons offences grew 6.7 per cent.
One
of the major problems with calculating recidivism is that provincial and federal
corrections systems don't share information about repeat offenders. Corrections
Canada doesn't even know when one of its inmates is sentenced to serve time in a
provincial jail after leaving federal custody.
"We
wouldn't know if someone served a provincial jail term in between two federal
terms until they re-enter the federal system," says Christa McGregor, a
spokeswoman at Corrections Canada in Ottawa.
"Right
now we don't have the technology to know when someone is sent to a provincial
institution," she adds.
Even
among the provinces, information-sharing on repeat offenders is limited and
strained. Some provincial jails don't collect recidivism statistics, saying too
many people are in their institutions for too short a time to keep track of such
data. The majority of people are incarcerated in provincial jails fewer than 75
days, according to Statistics Canada.
In
B.C., 2,200 people are currently housed in 10 provincial jails. Of those, 39 per
cent are labelled repeat offenders. However, B.C. Corrections only considers
someone a repeat offender if they are convicted of more than one crime in B.C. A
person who has served time in a federal prison in Ontario and a provincial jail
in Manitoba, and is then sentenced to a federal or provincial prison in B.C.
would not, for statistical purposes, be labelled a repeat offender.
That
person would be considered a first-time offender.
"Our
definition of recidivism is applied to people who receive a second conviction to
a term of correctional supervision or custody in B.C.," says Bruce
Bannerman, a spokesman for B.C. Corrections, which is part of the provincial
solicitor-general's ministry. "If someone committed a crime in Alberta and
then came to B.C. and committed a break and enter, we would count that person as
a first offender for the purposes of determining recidivism. That is because we
would not have the data available on their crimes in Alberta."
Other
problems with tabulating recidivism rates include the fact that many law
enforcement agencies and adult courts don't count people's youth criminal
records; government-initiated recidivism studies typically follow criminals only
during the time they are immediately released from jail and on probation; and
most recidivism studies don't consider specific crimes such as theft, rape or
murder when calculating people who reoffend. The longest recidivism study
conducted by the federal government tracked criminals for two years following
their release from jail.
The
RCMP and lawyers across Canada have access to people's criminal records, and
judges do consider a person's past crimes and number of offences when handing
down sentences. People carry their criminal record with them wherever they go in
Canada or abroad.
But
critics say it is equally important for correctional services and governments to
track recidivism rates in order to better understand which prison treatment
programs are working and which aren't, and to assess which criminals are fit to
be released back into society and which ones should remain behind bars.
Many
people who work in the prison system say understanding recidivism trends is
becoming critical as more criminals serve their sentences in communities rather
than jails, and as convicts automatically get statutory release from prison
after serving two-thirds of their sentence. Some critics say it is a public
safety issue.
"Accurate
recidivism rates should be kept because too many people are getting conditional
sentences and avoiding jail. That's supposed to be for first-time offenders, but
a lot of people are now getting three or four kicks at the can," says
Graham Trotman, chair of the Corrections and Sheriffs Services component of the
B.C. Government Employees Union, which represents prison guards in the province.
Conservative
MP Randy White (Langley-Abbotsford), vice-chairman of Parliament's committee on
illegal drugs says: "I think that the courts aren't handing out long enough
sentences. If they kept real recidivism stats, it would confirm peoples' fears
that criminals are getting out of prison too early and are not properly prepared
to be re-integrated into society."
White
adds that corrections services follow criminals to see if they reoffend for
short periods because they're only interested in people who break the law while
on parole or probation -- the logic being that the system will be blamed if it
paroles someone who commits a crime shortly after release. White, and other
critics, say there's no real incentive for prisons to accurately calculate how
likely people are to reoffend after being incarcerated.
"Recidivism
rates are a report card for the corrections system," says Robert Gordon,
director of the school of criminology at Simon Fraser University. "They're
not a report card for the police. They're not a report card for the courts.
They're a report card for the prisons and the corrections system."
But
McGregor, with Corrections Canada in Ottawa, says the justice system doesn't
have the right to keep tabs on people once they're released from jail and
complete their probation.
"Corrections
Canada has no legal jurisdiction after a person reaches their warrant expiry
date. After that people are free," she says.
The
John Howard Society's Stewart would like to see better statistics kept but he
acknowledges that doing so would be an expensive and time- consuming task.
"I
would love it if there was better data out there and if they did a better job of
tracking recidivism rates," he says. "But that would be a huge
undertaking. You have thousands of people passing through the system every year,
many of them for short periods of time. Most people aren't in the system long
enough to be assessed. In many ways, especially at the provincial level, it's a
revolving door."
Still,
many critics are lobbying Corrections Canada to co-ordinate with the provinces
and develop a national database that tracks repeat offenders at all levels of
the justice system. They also want the government to do a better job of
categorizing repeat offenders based on the crimes they commit.
"The
biggest problem is that we don't have a lot of courtroom data and
statistics," says Neil Boyd a professor of criminology at Simon Fraser
University who specializes in male violence.
"We
could use a lot more data so that our analysis is more accurate and beneficial.
And that can start with the provinces and federal government. There should be
better collaboration between the provincial and federal systems."
RETURN
TO PRISON
In
both the B.C. and the federal prison systems, there is one repeat prisoner for
every 1.6 first-timers. That means 39 per cent are repeat offenders.
Federal repeaters 4,798, B.C. repeaters 858.
PRISON
MATH
Estimates
on the number of repeat offenders in Canada depends on who you count.
10%
- Criminals who return to a federal prison within two years of release from a
federal jail. This figure does not include people sentenced to a provincial
prison within two years of release from a federal penitentiary.
37%
- Criminals who return to a federal or provincial prison within two years of
release from a federal prison.
39%
- Criminals in B.C. prisons who are labelled repeat offenders. This figure does
not include people who have served time in federal or provincial jails outside
B.C.
62%
- Those convicted in adult criminal court who have been previously convicted at
least once in youth court.
Sources:
The Correctional Service of Canada, the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety and
Solicitor- General, Statistics Canada.
BACK
BEHIND BARS
The
number of federal prisoners and the percentage who are repeat offenders by
region.
REGION
PACIFIC
Total
in federal prisons: 1,835
Repeat
offenders: 670
Percentage
of repeat offenders: 36.5%
PRAIRIES
Total
in federal prisons: 2,902
Repeat
offenders: 1,193
Percentage
of repeat offenders: 41.1%
ONTARIO
Total
in federal prisons: 3,349
Repeat
offenders: 1,053
Percentage
of repeat offenders: 31.5%
QUEBEC
Total
in federal prisons: 3,106
Repeat
offenders: 1,268
Percentage
of repeat offenders: 40.8%
ATLANTIC
Total
in federal prisons: 1,227
Repeat
offenders: 614
Percentage
of repeat offenders: 50%