A flawed Compass: a human Rights Analysis of the Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety

Discrediting Statutory Release

The Panel views statutory release as being an unsuccessful program. That conclusion appears to be driven primarily by the following recitation of a few statistics.

“Of all statutory release supervision periods in 2005–06, 6 in 10 were completed without revocation; however, statutory release cases accounted for 79% of violent reoffending in the community, while representing 35% of the conditionally released population. ²¹⁶

4By using the phrase “79% of violent reoffending in the community”, the Panel magnifies the public’s already exaggerated perception of violent reoffending by those under federal community supervision. Adding to the alarm, the Panel goes on to state:

“The Panel is concerned about the statistics on statutory releases: approximately 40% of statutory releases are revoked, 30% for breach of conditions and 10% for new offences, and violent reoffending rates are three times higher for statutory releases than for discretionary releases. The risk posed by these offenders and the potential for even greater risk as a result of the changing profile of the federal population points to the need for change.”²¹⁷

After using the actual rates of success for every other category the Panel suddenly switched to the relative rates when describing the rates of violent offences. The relative difference in the rate of violence is expressed as “three times higher” for statutory release then parole. The following chart (Revocations with Violent Offence Rates for Federal Conditional Release²¹⁸) showing comparable rates of offending as provided by the National Parole Board.

Over the five years of data shown in the chart, the average rate of violent offending by those on parole is 1.16% while the average for statutory release is 2.5% - a difference of only 1.34%. To generate the alarming relative rate of 300% only the data in the last year was used. By using this form of statistical comparison the Panel was able to turn a small difference in violent offending of 1.7% into an alarming statistic of 300%.

For another perspective on the risks of violent offences committed in the community by those on statutory release, consideration should be given to the overall contribution of this group to violent crime in Canada. In 2006-07 117²¹⁹ 5 violent offences (all types and severity) committed by statutory release cases constituted 0.035 % of the 306,559 (35 per 100,000) violent crimes reported by Statistics Canada for that year.²²⁰ No violent crime is acceptable, but before we abolish statutory release as an unsafe program it must be understood that only a tiny fraction of violent crime would be addressed. Further, given that release at warrant expiry would follow anyway in less than 7 months on average, the likelihood that the offences would only be delayed slightly would mean no noticeable or real difference in the violent crime we experience in the community.

As the following table shows, in 2006-07, 58.1% of those on statutory release completed their supervision period successfully, while 30.7% who failed to live by the rules were returned to prison for “technical” violations and 9 % were returned with a non-violent crime. That leaves 2.2% who returned for committing a violent crime. In fact, the overall rates of both violent and non-violent reoffending by those on statutory release have been dropping steadily from an already low rate for many years.

The Panel presents data in such a way as to build a case for their proposition that a violent failure rate of just 2.2% amongst those identified as being both the highest need and highest risk offenders is a failed program that should be abolished. However the most concerning omission in the Panel’s analysis is that they make no attempt to address the single factor that would justify the abolition of statutory release: whether the same people, if released free and clear at the end of their sentence would, during a similar period, commit violent offences at a rate lower than the 2.2% rate of statutory release cases. Without this information the Panel is unable to provide any valid evidence that abolishing gradual supervised release for these higher-risk prisoners is not a reasonable balancing of risk against the competing risk of direct unsupervised release to the community.

6The fact that the statutory release cases do relatively worse than the parole group is hardly a revelation. As noted already, this outcome was predicted by the Ouimet Committee in recognition of the fact that statutory release was intended to be used for those who had been refused or did not apply for parole.

The Panel provides a graph and relative rates that shows that “offenders that completed their sentence of statutory release are between 2 and 2 ½ times more likely to be re-admitted on a federal sentence than offenders that complete their sentences on full parole.”²²¹ The fact that those released on statutory release tend to have higher rates of offending after their period of community supervision does not make the case for its abolition as implied by the Panel. If anything, the data shows that supervision actually suppresses offending during the period under supervision. Considering that statutory release periods last on average 6.6 months compared with 25.3 months for parole²²², one could just as easily make the case that the substantially higher rate of offending of statutory release cases after supervision ends is, in part, because the period of supervised reintegration is substantially shorter than with parole. This difference suggests that if we are considering modifying statutory release we should be thinking of longer periods of community supervision before warrant expiry - not its elimination. We have no way of knowing whether the reoffending rates for parole cases after expiry of the sentence would be greater if the period of supervision was limited to 6.6 months, but the prospect of greater rates of offending is quite plausible.

Surely the true test of statutory release is not whether those released by this method commit more crimes than those released on parole, but whether they commit more crimes than would be the case if they had been released directly to the street with no access to community programming designed to meet their needs nor direction and support that is part of the supervision process. The Panel makes no effort to address that question. Instead the Panel strung together and presented largely irrelevant statistics to bolster their case while ignoring years of work by the Research Branch of the Correctional Service of Canada on effective reintegration. The most recent summary of that research stated boldly:

“Of all the factors that influence public safety, the Correctional Service of Canada, in collaboration with the National Parole Board, can only influence the safe release of offenders into the community. There is solid evidence to support the premise that the gradual and structured release of offenders is the safest strategy for the protection of society against new offences by released offenders.

For example, recidivism studies have found that the percentage of safe returns to the community is higher for supervised offenders than for those released with no supervision.”²²³ [Emphasis in original text]

It is difficult not to conclude that the case presented by the Panel for the abolition of statutory release was a superficial justification of the position already taken by the government rather than an objective review of the facts.

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