Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 1 ISBN

Transcription

1 Offences Against the Administration of Justice: Statistical Summary Research Unit Strategic Services Branch Correctional Services Division Solicitor General and Public Security 2011 Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 1 ISBN

2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Purpose of the Study Alberta Justice and Attorney General and Alberta Solicitor General and Public Security initiated a joint research project to gather information about the incidences of against the administration of justice offences (AAJO) and how they are processed, and to identify risk and protective factors as they relate to Aboriginal offenders. To provide background for this project Alberta Solicitor General and Public Security completed an analysis of the Corrections Offender Management Information System (CoMIS) and the Alberta Community Offender Management system (ACOM) to look at the types of charges of adults and youth who are released from custody. This summary provides an overview of the main findings of the analysis. All statistics were analyzed for the period 2003/2004 to 2008/2009. Key Findings Adult Releases All counts (admissions, releases, and in-house) of the adult offenders in custodial facilities have been rising over the last several years (2003/2004 to 2008/2009). It is observed that counts relating to adult cases released from custodial facilities that include an administration of justice offence on the case (sentenced or remand) have also been rising (36%) during the same time period. o As a proportion of all releases, those with an administration of justice offence on the case accounted for 56% of all releases in 2008/2009 versus 51% in 2003/2004. The sentence length for those cases with only administration of justice sentenced charges is lower than for those with sentenced non administration of justice charges. The age of those individuals with cases that have an administration of justice offence is lower than for those that do not. Of the categories of released cases from custody and community programs, those with at least one sentenced administration of justice offence on the case have the highest proportion of Aboriginal individuals Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 2

3 (41.3% versus approximately 23% of non AAJO cases in custody, and 25% versus 20% of non AAJO programs in the community). Youth Releases All counts (admissions, releases, and in-house) of youth offenders in custodial facilities have been decreasing overall during the period included for this study (2003/2004 to 2008/2009). It is observed that counts relating to youth cases released from custodial facilities that include an administration of justice of offence on the case (sentenced or remand) have also been decreasing (6%) during the same time period. This decrease is not as large as for all releases, hence, administration of justice offences have increased as a proportion of all releases. With regard to the trend for the type of release over the past several years, mixed offence cases comprise the majority of releases (60%-62%), followed by pure non-administration of justice cases (21%-24%), and pure administration of justice cases (16-17%). Cases with sentenced mixed offence types and pure cases with sentenced non-administration of justice offence types typically receive higher sentences than pure administration of justice sentences or mixed cases with only administration of justice sentenced offences. Of the categories of released cases, those with an administration of justice offence on the case have the highest proportion of aboriginal individuals (approximately 38%) compared to cases with no administration of justice offences (20%). Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 3

4 Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary August 30, 2011 BACKGROUND In late 2008, Alberta Justice and Attorney General and Alberta Solicitor General and Public Security (SG&PS) initiated a joint research project to gather information about the incidences of against the administration of justice offences (AAJO) and how they are processed, and to identify risk and protective factors as they relate to Aboriginal offenders. To provide background for this project SG&PS completed an analysis of the Corrections Offender Management Information System (CoMIS) and the Alberta Community Offender Management system (ACOM) to look at the types of charges of adults and youth who are released from custody and community programs. The analysis of selected community programs is preliminary. This summary provides an overview of the main findings of the analysis. The results are broken into categories of cases released with a) only AAJO b) only non AAJO and c) mixed offences. All statistics were analyzed for the period 2003/2004 to 2008/2009. Adult Offenders Age The age of those individuals in both custodial and community corrections with cases that have an AAJO is lower than for those that do not. Examining the entire six year period, 2003/2004 to 2008/2009, offenders with cases released from custody with no AAJO were an average of 34.7 years old Aboriginal offenders were an average of 34.3 years old, and non-aboriginal offenders were an average of 34.8 years old. Offenders with cases released from custody with at least one AAJO were an average of 31.3 years old Aboriginal offenders were an average of 30.8 years old, and non-aboriginal offenders were an average of 31.5 years old. Offenders in community corrections with no AAJO were an average of 33.2 years old Aboriginal offenders were 32.1 years old and non- Aboriginal offenders were 33.4 years old. Offenders with an AAJO in community corrections were Aboriginal offenders were 30.1 years old and non- Aboriginal offenders were 31.4 years old. There has been no change in the average age of adult offender releases within the six year period, and a small consistent decrease in the age of aboriginal offenders across all types of release. Gender 82% of female offenders released from custody had an AAJO on the case, and 79% of male offenders released had an AAJO on the case. 53% of the female offenders released with an AAJO on the case were aboriginal, in contrast to 42% of the female offenders released with no AAJO on the case were aboriginal. Although the proportions are not as high for aboriginal male offenders, a similar difference between the types of released case can be observed: 36% of male Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 4

5 offenders with an AAJO were aboriginal, versus 21% of male offenders with no AAJO on the case were aboriginal. Similar to custodial corrections, female participants in community programs were somewhat more likely to have an AAJO than male offenders (25% versus 22%). Releases Table 1: Releases per Offender from 2003/2004 to 2008/2009 Number of Releases Percent to to to to to to or more 0.01 Over half of the inmates released in the specified six year period had only one release (i.e. one case), and 86% had four or fewer releases during the six year period. 78% of aboriginal offenders had four or fewer releases, and 42% had one release only during the period; Aboriginal offenders were released an average of 3.3 times, and the highest number of releases was % of non Aboriginal offenders had four or fewer releases, and 58% had only one release; non aboriginal offenders were released an average of 2.3 times, and had the highest number of releases was 50. Offence Types Figure 1 Cases Released 2003/2004 to 2008/2009 by Type of Offences % % % % % % % % % % % % % 43.9% % % % % Mixed offence types on the Case Only Non-Administration of Justice Offences on the Case Only Administration of Justice Offences on the Case The number of releases from adult custody increased between and Figure 1 illustrates the three types of releases categorized for this statistical summary: releases with only administration AAJO on the case; Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 5

6 releases with only non AAJO on the case; and releases with both AAJO and non AAJO on the case (mixed offences). Of the three categories of releases over the time period specified in figure 1, there has been a 35% increase in cases released that had mixed offences, a 37% increase in cases released with only administration of justice offences, and an 11% increase in cases released that had only non administration of justice offences. Figure 1 illustrates the relative proportion of each of the categories of cases released in the time period. Although there have increases in absolute numbers, cases released have shown no notable proportionate changes: the proportion of releases with only Administration of justice offences has increased 1%; the proportion with Non- Administration of justice offences only has decreased 5%; and the proportion with mixed offences has increased 5%. Figure 2 demonstrates adult case category for cases released during the six year time period. Of the categories of released cases, those with at least one sentenced administration of justice offence on the case have the highest proportion of Aboriginal individuals (41.3% versus approximately 23% of the other cases). Figure 2: Case Category by Ethnicity Proportion (%) at least one non sentenced administration of justice offence on a case 2003/ /2009 at least one sentenced administration of justice offence on a case 2003/ /2009 no administration of justice offences on a case 2003/ /2009 A. NON-ABORIGINAL B. STATUS INDIAN C. INUIT D. METIS E. NONSTATUS INDIAN During the six year period 2003/2004 to 2008/2009 there was a higher proportion of aboriginal offenders released from selected community corrections programs that involved AAJO s: 23% of male offenders and 38% of female offenders. In Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 6

7 programs with associated non AAJO s 19% of the males were aboriginal versus 28% of the females. Young Offenders Age The average age of all youth released from custody in the 6 year period, 2003/2004 to 2008/2009 was 15.9 years old, and the average age in the community was 17 years old. The average age of aboriginal and non aboriginal youth offenders were very similar: 16.0 and 15.9 years old for custodial releases; 16.8 and 17.0 for community program releases. Youth show a similar pattern to adult offenders in that slightly younger ages within the youth offending population are associated with released cases involving administration of justice offences; the average age of youth with an AAJO on the case was 15.9 years old and the average age of a youth without an AAJO on the case was 16.2 for custodial releases. The age difference was very small for youth released from community corrections. This was true of aboriginal and non aboriginal offenders and there is no age difference between the two groups. Gender Table2: Case Type Distribution by Gender Case Type GENDER FEMALE MALE 1. sentenced offences of both types on mixed case 2. sent admin of justice charges only on mixed case 3. sent non-admin of justice charges only on mixed case 4. non sentenced mixed case sent pure admin of justice case non-sent pure admin of justice case sent pure non-admin of justice case non-sent pure non-admin of justice case community corrections cases. Within each gender non sentenced mixed cases represent the largest proportion of case types, non sentenced pure administration of justice follow for female youth (18.7%) and non sentenced pure nonadministration of justice offences for male youth (17.9%). Programs with associated non AAJO represent the majority of Releases Unlike adult offender releases which illustrated an increase in the number of adult cases released from provincial custody that have included one or more administration of justice offence, the number of such cases for youth have shown an overall decreasing trend despite some year to year variability. While both total youth releases and youth releases with an Administration of Justice offence have declined between 2003/2004 and 2008/2009, total releases have shown a greater overall decrease (6% versus 10%). Over half of the youth released in the specified six year period had only one release (i.e. one case), and 88% had four or fewer releases. Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 7

8 Figure 3: Youth Cases Released 2003/2004 to 2008/ All releases Releases with an Administration of Justice Offence on the Case Offence Types Of the three categories of releases over the past six fiscal years, there has been a decrease in all of the categories of release: mixed offence cases have decreased 6%, pure administration of justice cases have decreased 3%, and pure non-administration of justice cases have decreased 25%. Figure 15 Figure 4 Youth Cases Released 2003/2004 to 2008/2009 by Type of Offences on the Case % % % % % % % % % % % % % 62% 61% 62% 62% 62% Mixed offence types on the Case Only Non-Administration of Justice Offences on the Case Only Administration of Justice Offences on the Case illustrates the relative proportion of each of the categories of cases released in the time period. Mixed offence cases comprise the majority of releases (60%- Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 8

9 62%), followed by pure non-administration of justice cases (21%-24%), and pure administration of justice cases (16-17%). Of the categories of released youth cases, those with administration of justice offence on the case have the highest proportion of aboriginal individuals. This is also true of community corrections programs. Figure 5: Youth Case Category by Ethnicity Proportion (%) at least one non sentenced administration of justice offence on a case 2003/ /2009 at least one sentenced administration of justiceno administration of justice offences on a case offence on a case 2003/ / / /2009 A. NON-ABORIGINAL B. STATUS INDIAN C. INUIT D. METIS E. NONSTATUS INDIAN Limitations There are numerous limitations of this study due to the quality of the data available through CoMIS and ACOM. These include: self reported information, inconsistent data entry, and some missing data. Only selected community corrections programs were chosen for analysis (Probation, Conditional Sentence, Conditional Supervision, and Community Supervision). It is anticipated that more AAJO s would be found more often in pre-trial programs that were not analyzed. Data is believed to be sufficiently reliable to enable reasonable accuracy of the data analysis results. Discussion and Conclusion The number of releases with an administration of justice offence on the case has followed the same trend as all releases from custody. Rates have been rising for adults and falling for youth. For both adult and youth the data indicate some gender and ethnic differences with regard to proportions of releases with administration of justice offences. While community data show that programs with associated AAJO do not occur as frequently as in custody, analysis is preliminary. Offences Against the Administration of Justice Statistical Report Summary Report 9