Age at Time of Admission to Federal Corrections, 2020 to 2021
Research Highlights: The majority of Indigenous, Black and Others being newly admitted to federal custody are aged 30 and over.
Why we are doing this study
Throughout the peneological literature it has been well established that the 'age-crime curve' is a robust and valid predictor of criminal behaviour, prison misconduct and recidivism. Risk assessment tools and correctional programs intervention strategies both reflect and incorporate age in sentence plans. The Canadian federal system receives persons who are aged 18 years or older and sentenced to serve two years or more. Previous research has found that post pandemic there has been an upward shift in the age structure in federal custody. As some weight is assigned to age during the security classification process, it remains to be seen how much is attributable to various age-related strata across racial groupings in federal admissions.
Publication
What we did
Federal admission counts and disaggregated racial data are recorded as standardized reports in Correctional Service of Canada's Corporate Reporting System-Modernized. Data were extracted for fiscal year 2020 to 2021 on 3,175 new warrant of committal admissions received from the courts. There were also 2,024 revocations and 61 other admissions (e.g. international transfers). Among the new warrant of committal admissions, 1,019 (or 22.4%) were 'Indigenous', 223 (or 7%) were 'Black' persons and 1,380 (or 71.4%) 'Others' (including 'White', 'Asian', etc.).
The Custody Rating Scale (CRS) is an actuarial tool administered at intake to assist with initial security level classification. While the CRS is not determinative of actual placement, it is two dimensional with institutional adjustment and security risk. Moreover, the CRS is comprised of 12 empirically derived risk-related items among which 'age at time of admission' is included in the public security dimension. No (0) weight is assigned by the CRS to persons age 30 and over. Age at time of admission data by CRS weight was disaggregated by racial groupings.
What we found
As reflected in Table 1, age distribution data show that during 2020 to 2021, the majority (65.8%) of new admissions to federal custody were 30+ years of age. While it appears that 58.3% of 'Indigenous' and 51.6% of 'Black' admissions were 30 and over, 'Others' at 71.4% were considerably higher in numbers and representation. Also noteworthy, is the relatively low number of 'Indigenous' (40 or 3.9%), 'Black' (7 or 3.1%) and 'Others' groupings (45 or 2.3%) being admitted under 21 age (92 or 2.9%).
| Age | CRS Item Weight |
Indigenous (N=1,019) (n) |
Black (N=223) (n) |
Others (N=1,934) (n) |
Total (N=3,176) (n) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | 24 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| 19 | 22 | 18 | 2 | 18 | 38 |
| 20 | 20 | 18 | 3 | 25 | 46 |
| 21 | 18 | 31 | 8 | 33 | 72 |
| 22 | 16 | 36 | 15 | 36 | 87 |
| 23 | 14 | 37 | 9 | 62 | 108 |
| 24 | 12 | 42 | 14 | 49 | 105 |
| 25 | 10 | 54 | 15 | 58 | 127 |
| 26 | 8 | 41 | 9 | 68 | 118 |
| 27 | 6 | 51 | 13 | 56 | 120 |
| 28 | 4 | 42 | 9 | 86 | 137 |
| 29 | 2 | 51 | 9 | 61 | 121 |
| 30-39 | 0 | 347 | 68 | 630 | 1,045 |
| 40-49 | 0 | 152 | 31 | 383 | 566 |
| 50-59 | 0 | 78 | 10 | 224 | 312 |
| 60-69 | 0 | 13 | 5 | 103 | 121 |
| 70-79 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 37 | 41 |
| 80+ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 30+ | 0 | 594 (58.3%) | 115 (51.6%) | 1,380 (71.4%) | 2,089 (65.8%) |
What it means
As previously hypothesizedFootnote 1 , the upward shift in age representation in the federal custody population can partly be attributed to age at time of admission across all diverse groups. Consequently, continuous intervention efforts and active engagement with partnerships that consider this are required for the care and safe custody of these individuals.
For more information
For questions and/or more information, please email the Research Branch. You can also visit the Research Publications section for a full list of reports and one-page summaries.
Prepared by: Larry Motiuk and Leslie-Anne Keown
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