Pandemic era impacts on the federal custody population profile: indigenous men

Research Highlights: There were substantial pandemic era shifts among Indigenous men in the federal custody population.

Over the course of two fiscal years, marked by the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) experienced a minimal decline (-129 or 3.3%) in the federal Indigenous men in-custody population from 3,866 at mid-year in 2019-20 to 3,737 at year-end in 2021-22. It is noteworthy that all of the decline in Indigenous men was in the first year of the pandemic, whereas there was an increase in year two from year one.

Federal institutional population counts and individualized case characteristics are recorded as standardized reports in CSC's Offender Management System (OMS). Data were extracted (April 14, 2022) to establish a three-year trend (Mid-year 2019-20 to Year-end 2020-21 and Year-end 2021-22) of the in-custody counts for federally sentenced (two years or more) Indigenous men and for selected characteristics: age, diversity (First Nations, Metis, Inuit), sentence length, major offence, criminal risk (index), and dynamic factors (rating at intake).

Accordingly, the Indigenous men in federal custody population (see Table 1) has become;

1. slightly older as Indigenous men in-custody are more likely to be in the 35 to 64 age group then they were prior to the pandemic (48% to 51%);
2. stable representation First Nations, Metis and Inuit;
3. sentence lengths have become longer over this time period with the majority serving sentences of 4 years and over and indeterminate sentences;
4. there has been a profound change in offence type composition with more serving sentences for a Murder or Schedule 1 offense and combined this percentage has climbed to 84% by March 2022;
5. albeit the sentence length and offence type have changed over time, there does not seem to be an accompanying change in criminal risk; and
6. for dynamic needs, this population continues to be very high need and the proportion of those with a high need rating is now 90% - up from 86% in Mid-year 2019.

There has been a major shift in the profile of Indigenous men over the pandemic era. Indigenous men are a longer sentenced population with increased need for intensive interventions. This will have long-term impacts on correctional planning, Indigenous-specific interventions and likely disproportionately influence medium and maximum-security institutions into the near future.

Please e-mail 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