[powderjunkie]

Some general facts

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/...020/aug01.html

Recidivism in the Criminal Justice System

The prevalence of recidivism varies from 9% to 90% in the studies presented below. This is largely due to differences in how recidivism is defined. The narrower the scope of the definition, the lower the prevalence of recidivism. The findings also suggest that how a person progresses through the CJS has an impact on the likelihood they will re-offend. A person whose pathway through the CJS includes police, courts and corrections is at particular risk of re-offending. Other variables such as age, sex, and Indigenous identity also influence the likelihood of re-offending. Given that chronic offenders (five or more re-contacts) account for a large proportion of criminal incidents, understanding the factors related to recidivism could have an important impact on crime in Canada.

Recidivism of federal offenders is declining and new offences are less severe

According to a 2019 CSC study, 2 23% of a 2011/2012 cohort of federal offenders re-offended, 3 compared to 32% of offenders from a 2007/2008 cohort. Of Indigenous male offenders in the 2011/2012 cohort, 38% re-offended compared to 21% of non-Indigenous male offenders. For Indigenous women, 20% re-offended compared to 9% of non-Indigenous women offenders. In addition, 12% of the 2011/2012 cohort re-offended with a violent offence, 4 compared to 18% from the 2007/2008 cohort. Of those who re-offended, 60% were charged with a new offence of a lesser severity.


Saskatchewan: prevalence of re-contact with police higher after correctional involvement, especially among Indigenous people and youth

A 2016 study by Statistics Canada 9 examined re-contact 10 with the Saskatchewan CJS. The study used a population of 37,054 individuals who came into contact at least once with the police because they were accused of a crime in 2009/2010. The study found that the prevalence of re-contact varied based on a person’s pathway through the CJS. 11 Specifically, those whose first contact took them through the full justice system into correctional supervision—in custody or in the community—were found to be particularly at risk of re-contact; just under three-quarters (73%) had re-contact with police for a new offence. In comparison, close to two-thirds (64%) of those whose first contact involved the police only and approximately half (51%) of those whose first contact ended in the court system, had a re-contact with police for a new offence.

For youth whose first contact only involved the police, re-contact was proportionally lower when compared to adults (58% versus 66%). However, over six in ten (61%) youth whose first pathway ended in the court system, had at least one re-contact with police, compared to adults (50%). Re-contact was even more pronounced among youth whose first contact took them through correctional services, where 84% had at least one subsequent contact with police following their correctional involvement, compared to 70% for adults.

Results also showed that Indigenous adults had significantly higher prevalence of re-contact with police following their correctional involvement (80%) than non-Indigenous adults (57%). This was even more pronounced for Indigenous youth with 90% having re-contact following their correctional involvement (compared to 79% of non-Indigenous youth).

Similar to the Nova Scotia findings noted above, this study also found that a smaller proportion of offenders, specifically chronic offenders (21%; n=7,800), were responsible for a high proportion of CJS contact (57%) in Saskatchewan over three years.


Ontario: recidivism is declining for offenders who served a jail sentence of 6 months or more

In 2019, the Ministry of the Solicitor General of the Government of Ontario 15 published a study on recidivism 16 among offenders sentenced to provincial custody. From 2001/2002 to 2015/2016, the proportion of offenders who served a jail sentence 17 of six months or more that re-offended decreased from 55% to 37%. The proportion of offenders under community supervision that re-offended was stable between 21% and 23% (see Chart 1 18, 19).

The study also found that the proportion of offenders who re-offend has been consistently lower for individuals in community supervision than those who served a jail sentence of six months or more (Chart 1).

I'll dig around and see if I can find any more data on chronic offenders