Correctional Investigator Report on Overcoming Barriers to Offender Reintegration

In the most recent Weekly Checklist of federal government publications,  there is a link to a recent report by the Office of the Correctional Investigator on Overcoming Barriers to Reintegration: An Investigation of Federal Community Correctional Centres:

"The 2013-14 Annual Report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) features a special focus on the safe and timely reintegration of offenders into the community. The Office has become concerned that indicators of effective community corrections have been trending in the wrong direction in recent years. Parole grant rates are declining (20% in the last 5 years), offenders are serving longer portions of their sentence behind bars before first release, the majority of releases from a federal penitentiary are now by statutory release rather than day or full parole and the number of waived or postponed parole hearings has been increasing . The Office continues to receive complaints regarding the quality of case management practices in which some inmates claim to have little or no contact with their assigned Institutional Parole Officer (...)"

"These trends suggest there are systemic barriers to how and when offende rs are returned to the community und r supervision . Although the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) is not the paroling authority, declining grant rates and the high number of waived/postponed parole hearings in particular speak to its capacity to adequately and efficiently prepare offenders for community release. Given these concerns, the Office undertook to investigate one important aspect of CSC’s community operations – the role and function of Community Correctional Centres (CCCs ). These facilities are operated by CSC and only accept federally sentenced offenders."

"An investigation was completed over a 3-month period (January 2014 - March 2014) with the following objectives:

• Provide an overall profile of the offender population residing in CCCs.
• Gather information about the experi nces and challenges faced by offenders residing in CCCs .
• Review and assess CSC policy, procedures, programs, decisions and actions governing CCCs and in responding to the needs of offende rs residing in these facilities.
• Assess barriers to safe, timely and effective reintegration."

The Weekly Checklist includes a listing of titles made available by the Parliament of Canada, federal departments, and Statistics Canada to the Depository Services Program for distribution to a network of Depository Libraries in Canada and abroad.