Poor record- keeping on crime is a problem

Despite the federal government’s enthusiasm for putting people in jail, there’s good reason to impose community sentences on offenders who don’t represent a significant threat to public safety. After all, we know that prison tends to create better criminals and costs taxpayers an enormous amount of money — $ 194 per offender per day in jail, to be exact.

In contrast, a community disposition, where the offender is required to complete various programs under the supervision of a probation officer, allows the offender to continue working, to support himself and his family and to pay taxes. And it also costs taxpayers a mere $ 7 per offender per day.

But, of course, the offenders must be properly supervised while in the community. And if recent reports are to be believed, offenders are receiving little supervision, which is putting the community at risk.

The reports detail B. C. AuditorGeneral John Doyle’s recent review of the work of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor- General’s Community Corrections and Corporate Programs division, which is responsible for supervising adult offenders who are serving community sentences. And the reports have emphasized that out of a random sample of 260 offenders under community supervision, only 90, or 35 per cent, completed their assigned rehabilitation programs.

Now if this is true, it represents a serious problem. But as the auditor-general’s own review makes clear, we don’t know if it’s true.

Indeed, the A- G emphasized that the recorded completion rate may not be accurate because many assigned or completed interventions are not documented in probation officers’ records. Now that is also a problem — to which we will return — but it does call into question the publicized 35- per- cent completion rate.

But even if the 35- per- cent rate is accurate, it could be explained by a number of factors.

Notably, the A- G states that programs for certain needs — such as housing, employment assistance or educational upgrading — sometimes don’t exist, and for others, availability is limited.

This means that the offenders may not complete the assigned programs, but not through any fault of the offenders or probation officers.

And finally, the A- G notes that many offenders require multiple interventions, but can often only complete one program at a time. Probation officers must therefore prioritize programming — for example, drug rehabilitation might take precedence over employment training — and hence some programs might not be completed.

Consequently, the 35- per- cent completion rate might not be as problematic as it first appears. But what is problematic is that we just don’t know — and much of the reason for our not knowing can be traced back to the Community Corrections division’s lax record- keeping.

For example, we have already mentioned probation officers’ failure to document all interventions, and the A- G also notes that supervisors failed to review officers’ work frequently enough.

But even more troubling, the division’s own resource needs are not clear from its records. We know that probation officers are now supervising a record high 24,000 offenders — a 28- per- cent increase in just five years — but according to the A- G, the division hasn’t provided proper analyses from which to determine resourcing needs or staffing capacity.

Similarly, the A- G criticizes the division’s analysis of offender recidivism rates, another serious problem given that the division considers reducing recidivism to be one of its primary goals.

Now given the many influences in offenders’ lives, it’s unrealistic to expect probation officers to singlehandedly prevent them from reoffending. But since the division’s goal is to prevent recidivism, one would expect it to measure reoffending accurately.

The A- G’s report therefore seems to condemn record- keeping more than any failure to ensure offenders complete programming.

And, fortunately, the A- G offers helpful recommendations to improve such matters, recommendations the division has accepted. Hence it’s now incumbent on the division to follow through.