Pandemic era impacts on day parole releases to private residences

Research Highlights: There was a substantial pandemic era shift in more Day Parole releases to private residences, with relatively few revocations.

Over the course of two fiscal years, marked by the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic era, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) experienced a decline (-579 or 23.0%) in Day Parole releases (a discretionary release granted by the Parole Board of Canada) from a benchmark of 2,541 in 2019-20 down to 2,313 in 2020-21 and 1,962 in 2021-22. The pandemic placed limits on offender movements, including releases to congregate living situations such as Community Correctional Centres (CCCs) and Community-Based Residential Facilities (CBRFs). Consequently, alternatives such as private residences were considered in releasing offenders.

All releases from federal custody are recorded as standardized reports in CSC's Offender Management System (OMS). Data on Day Parole destinations were extracted from OMS to establish a three-year trend of releases (i.e., pre-pandemic 2019-20 to pandemic era 2020-21, 2021-22), specifically those to other locations.

Over the pre- and pandemic period, 750 offenders were identified as having been released on "Day Parole - Other Location". Upon review, 47 (6.3%) releases were identified as provincial cases and removed from the study sample, leaving 703 federal cases. A manual case file review revealed another subset of 120 (17.1%) cases involving release to a CCC/CBRF or other facility (i.e., long-term care), resulting in a total of 583 federal offenders released to a private residence. Of these, 518 or 88.9% occurred during the two years of the pandemic era. These cases were examined to identify post-release outcomes.

As reflected in Table 1, there was a considerable increase in the number and variety of Day Parole private residence releases during the pandemic era. In the first year of the pandemic, the number of Day Parole releases to a private residence rose substantially from 65 the previous year (2019-20) to 297 in 2020-21, a significant 4.6-fold increase. Moreover, this increase appears to have been sustained, with a relative 3.4-fold increase in the second year (2021-22) of the pandemic.

Also displayed in Table 1 are the various types of home placements associated with Day Parole private residence releases, including homes of parents, intimate partners, other family members, non-family members, or even a personal residence alone. Notably, during the two years of the pandemic era, the largest percentages were accounted for by placement to a parental or intimate partner's home (209 or 40.3% and 173 or 33.2%, respectively).

In Table 2, a follow-up of the pandemic era home placements found that 8 out of 518 (1.5%) were revoked.

Although there was a downward trend in Day Parole releases during the pandemic, there was an upward shift in the number of Day Parole private residence placements, particularly to the homes of parents and intimate partners. It appears that with positive prosocial supports, residential releases can be successful.

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Prepared by: Larry Motiuk and Laura McKendy