Admission profile of ethnocultural offenders: Emerging research results

Research Highlights: Level of reintegration potential and engagement in correctional plans vary among ethnocultural groups and by gender.

The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has a diverse offender population, underscoring the importance of exploring the correctional experiences of offenders from various ethnocultural backgrounds. These results are part of a larger study examining the correctional experience of ethnocultural offenders in CSC.

One component of the larger study examined the profile of a recent admission cohort of offenders focusing on patterns of risk and need levels, offence history and demographic information by self-identified ethnocultural group. The sample included 10,461 men and 971 women admitted into federal custody between April 1, 2016 and September 30, 2018. Ethnocultural groups with over 20 individuals were examined. Among women, Black offenders were the only non-White, non-Indigenous ethnocultural group with 20 or more individuals. The remaining ethnocultural groups were categorized as “other”.

Table 1 presents the profile of men offenders in the sample with respect to their type of needs, the presence of a responsivity flag and their assessed level of engagement in their correctional plans.

Indigenous, Black, White and Arab/West Asian men and those in the ‘other’ ethnocultural category commonly had high static risk estimates. Similar trends were noted on the dynamic need factors. For Black, Chinese, South Asian and South East Asian men, the Attitude domain was the area most frequently endorsed as high or moderate need; for the remaining groups, the Personal/Emotional domain was the area of highest need. Chinese men were most likely of all groups to have a responsivity flag, possibly related to the likelihood that their first language was not English or French.

In contrast to the profile of ethnocultural men, Black women and women from other ethnocultural groups were rated as having lower static risk, lower criminogenic needs, higher reintegration level, and higher motivation than White or Indigenous women. Black women and women from other ethnocultural groups were less likely to have a moderate or high need in all domains assessed by the Dynamic Factors Intake Assessment – Revised. Over a third of ethnocultural women spoke a language other than English or French at home, although they had similar prevalence of responsivity flags as White women, suggesting that responsivity issues did not tend to reduce their capacity to benefit from interventions more than it did for other groups.

These results suggest that the majority of ethnocultural women have higher reintegration potential than Indigenous and White women. Although most Black and Arab/West Asian men are rated as engaged in their correctional plans, rates of engagement are lower than for men in all other groups. These men may therefore benefit from additional or more tailored correctional services during their sentence. Men from Chinese, Filipino, Latin American, South and South East Asian ethnocultural groups tend to be rated as lower risk and need, suggesting good reintegration potential following their release.

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Prepared by: Laura Gamwell and Kaitlyn Wardrop