Initial custody placements of federally sentenced black men

Research Highlights: Federally sentenced Black men account for 8% of all initial custody placements over the past five fiscal years.

The Office of the Auditor General recently produced a report on systemic barriers in corrections. In response to one of the recommendations, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) agreed to undertake a validation exercise on the Custody Rating Scale (CRS) specifically on Black men. In order to lay the groundwork for future research on the CRS with respect to predictive validity, initial security classification data were drawn over a five-year period. The initial security level (maximum, medium or minimum) decision of every federally sentenced person is based on the combined professional appraisals of three separate factors: institutional adjustment, escape risk and risk to public safety. CRS results are incorporated into an overall security classification assessment but they do not solely define the final Offender Security Level (OSL) decision.

The CSC's RADAR-PRIME Reporting System standardizes the historical reporting of a wide variety of metrics at the national and regional levels. Population Management: Initial Assessment and Placement records the congruence between CRS designations and OSL. Comparative OSL data were drawn for five separate fiscal years (2017-18 to 2021-2022) for Black men offenders.

As reflected in Table 1, initial security classification data show that over the past five years Black men have decreased both numerically and proportionally. It appears that about 15% were placed at maximum security and this amount has been relatively constant over the time period.

Table 2 presents overall CRS and OSL concordance rates for Black men of 70.5%. The CRS-OSL under-ride rates to lower security were greater than over-ride rates to higher security for Black men at 20.8% and 8.7%, respectively.

The disproportionate representation of Black men in federal custody has been largely influenced by increasing numbers and proportions of new admissions to federal custody. However, during the pandemic era (2020-21 & 2021-22) there has been a noteworthy decline. The observation that Black men reflect an annual average of 8% initial assessment and placement decisions necessarily raises broader upstream concerns in the criminal justice system.

The relatively higher under-ride rate (20.8%) of the CRS by final OSL decisions combined with the substantial over-ride rate (122/1,627 or 7%) of CRS minimum to OSL medium for Black men suggests that other factors might be operating in the classification decision-making process. Psychometric examinations of the CRS and initiatives to develop culturally informed initial security assessment processes may yield more appropriate custody placements for Black men.

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Prepared by: Larry Motiuk and Leslie-Anne Keown