Temporary absences reduce unemployment and returns to custody for women offenders

Temporary absences (TAs) play an important and effective role in the gradual reintegration of women offenders into the community, and generally, the more TAs the offenders participate in, the greater the benefits.

Overall, 44% of women offenders received a TA during their sentence. Women who received a TA were generally more likely to be higher risk, higher need, have lower Reintegration Potential, and were serving a longer sentence. This is consistent with the Risk/Need/Responsivity principles, which state that resources are most effective when targeted to higher risk offenders.

Participation in TAs was also related to community outcomes. A significant dosage effect was found for returns to custody for any reason and returns to custody for a new offence: the more TAs an offender received, the lower the chances of returning to custody. For unemployment and returns without an offence, merely participating in a TA (yes/no) demonstrated a significant reduction in these negative outcomes.

The objective of TAs is to assist in community reintegration by allowing gradual and conditional access to the community while supporting offender rehabilitation efforts. This is achieved by allowing certain eligible and approved offenders to leave the institution for short periods of time to strengthen connections in the community or pursue rehabilitative opportunities not available in institutions.

Given the costs associated with temporary absences, as well as the potential risk to public safety inherent in allowing offenders conditional access to the community, it is necessary to determine how they are being administered and whether they are achieving their objectives.

A separate study has examined temporary absences for all CSC offenders, but additional research is needed to examine if the findings are applicable to women offenders.

Helmus, L., & Ternes, M. (2015). The impact of temporary absences and work releases on community outcomes (Research Report, R-350). Ottawa, ON: Correctional Service of Canada.

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