Canadian Corrections Research Articles

Non-Specialist Treatment Model for Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in Canadian Carceral Settings: A Telemedical Focus


 
 
 Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a pronounced health problem in carceral settings globally. For Canadian prisons, it is estimated that approximately 25% of those incarcerated have been previously exposed to HCV. Despite being a high prevalence context, Canadian corrections facilities have largely failed to provide adequate care to those with HCV due to their reliance on traditional treatment models. Specifically, this involves hospital-based specialist clinics for patients in corrections facilities nearby – a practice known to be associated with a low incidence of treatment initiation. This paper will explore the use of a contemporary model premised on empowering non-specialist care and the use of telemedicine. This model has found success within other global settings, as will be discussed using case studies from Australia and the United States, and other HCV literature. With the WHO setting an ambitious 90% HCV global reduction goal by 2030, it has become imperative that Canada prioritizes high prevalence populations, such as those in carceral settings, and in turn, looks to more efficient and targeted models of HCV care for these individuals.
 
 

Canadian Correctional Officers’ Experiences of Workplace Safety and Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This research examined the experiences of Canadian correctional officers (COs) in providing essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study applied theoretical models of stress to explore correlates of COVID-related stress in the correctional setting. Provincial COs (N = 596) took part in an online survey at the end of 2020. Only a quarter of participants reported they felt safe at their workplace during the pandemic. Participants also reported high levels of work stress typified by significant changes to their job responsibilities and role confusion stemming from pandemic-related policies. While most participants agreed that their workplace successfully implemented safeguards, they indicated key downstream considerations were lacking and perceived low levels of certain types of support. Several individuallevel, situational workplace stressors, and coping resources were revealed to be significant correlates of COVID-19 stress. In estimating a hierarchical linear regression model, COVID-19 stress was found to be primarily driven by perceived safety precaution implementation when controlling for individual-level vulnerabilities. Findings examine the impact of COVID-19 among frontline workers in forgotten sectors such as corrections to contribute knowledge that can be used to support COs’ well-being in the face of future infectious disease planning, as well as implications for policy planning.

Longitudinal study of Canadian correctional workers' wellbeing, organizations, roles and knowledge (CCWORK): Baseline demographics and prevalence of mental health disorders.

BackgroundResearchers and practitioners have begun to recognize and empirically examine the mental health challenges facing public safety personnel (PSP). Empirical results from longitudinal data collection among PSP remains extremely scant, particularly for institutional correctional workers. We designed the current study to assess the mental health of Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) correctional officer recruits (CORs) across time to help clarify potential challenges to or protective factors for mental health across correctional officer (CO) careers.MethodsThe current study uses data from the Canadian Correctional Workers' Wellbeing, Organizations, Roles, and Knowledge (CCWORK) study. The study uses a longitudinal design with self-report surveys administered online prior to CORs beginning the CSC Correctional Training Program. Initial baseline survey data were used to assess demographic information and mental health symptoms endorsed at the outset of the training program.ResultsParticipating CORs (n = 265; 40% female; age = 32.8, SD = 9.1) began training between August 2018 and July 2021. Participants were less likely to screen positive for one or more current mental health disorders (i.e., 4.9%) than previously published rates for serving correctional officers (i.e., 54.6%), including reporting lower rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (i.e., 2.4 vs. 29.1%) and major depressive disorder (i.e., 1.9 vs. 31.1%).Conclusion/ImpactPrevalence of positive screens for current mental health disorders in CORs appears lower than for the general population, and significantly lower than for serving correctional officers. The current results suggest an important causal relationship may exist between correctional work and detrimental mental health outcomes. Maintaining the mental health of correctional officers may require institutionally-supported proactive and responsive multimodal activities.

What it takes to be a "Good" correctional officer: Occupational fitness and co-worker expectations from the perspective of correctional officer recruits in Canada.

Selecting individuals who are the right "fit" for correctional work is not an easy task for prison administrators because of the dangerous nature of correctional work and the centrality of prison employees in the prisoner's rehabilitation process. We analyze fitness for correctional work from the employee's perspective, complementing the scholarship focused on the employer's view. We measure occupational fitness in terms of co-worker expectations, analyzing 104 semi-structured interviews conducted with Federal Canadian Correctional Officer recruits in 2018/2019. Recruits in our sample expected a correctional officer to be accountable, reliable, and confident. Understanding the mind-set of new hires provides insights into the correctional officer role and allows employers to align employer-employee expectations, as well as review training and recruitment, which can improve the employee well-being and reduce turnover rates.

Why Are Workplace Social Support Programs Not Improving the Mental Health of Canadian Correctional Officers? An Examination of the Theoretical Concepts Underpinning Support.

In Canada, public safety personnel, including correctional officers, experience high rates of mental health problems. Correctional officers’ occupational stress has been characterized as insidious and chronic due to multiple and unpredictable occupational risk factors such as violence, unsupportive colleagues and management, poor prison conditions, and shift work. Given the increased risk of adverse mental health outcomes associated with operational stressors, organizational programs have been developed to provide correctional officers with support to promote mental well-being and to provide mental health interventions that incorporate recovery and reduction in relapse risk. This paper uses two theories, the Job Demand Control Support (JDCS) Model and Social Ecological Model (SEM), to explore why workplace social support programs may not been successful in terms of uptake or effectiveness among correctional officers in Canada. We suggest that structural policy changes implemented in the past 15 years have had unintentional impacts on working conditions that increase correctional officer workload and decrease tangible resources to deal with an increasingly complex prison population. Notably, we believe interpersonal support programs may only have limited success if implemented without addressing the multilevel factors creating conditions of job strain.

‘It's Complicated’: Canadian Correctional Officer Recruits’ Interpretations of Issues Relating to the Presence of Transgender Prisoners

AbstractDrawing upon semi‐structured interviews with correctional officer recruits in training (n = 55), we reflect on recruit interpretations of transgender (trans) prisoner placement within federal prisons in light of recent changes instigated by Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau. Recognising that prison is a carceral and gender binary space, we assert that trans prisoner lives and experiences cannot easily be appropriately recognised or included in prison policy and prisoner management procedures. Our findings reveal that most recruits are supportive and appreciative of the complexities of trans experiences, yet some, especially those with prior experience working in prisons, describe occupational strains tied to accommodating trans prisoners.

Assisted dying for prison populations: Lessons from and for abroad

Canadian federal legislation setting out the framework for medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada came into effect in June 2016. Because of section 86(1) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, as soon as MAiD became available in the community, it also needed to be made available to federal prisoners. There are some good reasons to be concerned about MAiD in the Canadian corrections system based on logistical, legal, and moral considerations. Fortunately, Canada is not the first country to decriminalize assisted dying and so Canadian policies and practices can be compared to others and take some lessons from their experiences. Thus, by reviewing the legal status of assisted dying in prisons internationally, the regulation of assisted dying, demand for assisted dying from prisoners, and the process for prisoners accessing assisted dying, this article offers a comparative overview of assisted dying for prisoners around the world in an effort to inform Canadian and other jurisdictions’ law, policy, and practice.

Cryptosporidiosis Outbreak Investigation in a Canadian Correctional Facility Using Novel Case Finding Tools.

Eliminating Cryptosporidium oocysts is particularly challenging in prison environments, and limited information is available on best practices for outbreak control. This report aims to expand the evidence base through the lessons learned from an outbreak at a Canadian federal penitentiary in 2013. The outbreak investigation methods included inmate and staff case finding, hypothesis-generating questionnaires, and environmental investigation. A clear source of Cryptosporidium into the facility could not be identified; however, there were a number of possible sources of ongoing propagation within the facility. There were difficulties obtaining valid data on inmate and staff cases and exposures. This report discusses the novel epidemiological tools used in this investigation to address the complex challenges of a correctional setting.

Adam Capay: Injustice toward First Nations offenders in Canadian corrections

Adam Capay: Injustice toward First Nations offenders in Canadian corrections

Offender Risk Assessment Practices Vary across Canada

The dominant Canadian approach to offender rehabilitation, the risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model, requires assessing offenders' likelihood of recidivism and their criminogenic needs (i.e., risk/need assessments). The current study examines the risk/need assessments routinely used in Canadian corrections and compares their risk category labels. All Canadian jurisdictions used a risk/need tool for general recidivism, most used sex-crime-specific tools, and a few used tools specific to intimate partner violence. There was, however, considerable diversity in the names, number, and meaning of the risk category labels, which could result in different responses to the same individual based solely on the version of the risk tool used in any specific jurisdiction. Our results suggest that increased attention to the meaning of risk category labels could facilitate offenders receiving the most appropriate and fair correctional responses.

Acting Out: Exploring Applied Theatre Practices in Canadian Correctional Facilities

The colonization of Aboriginal peoples in North America involved systematic efforts to control and eradicate Indigenous knowledges and cultures. However, Aboriginal peoples have resisted colonization through creative expression; creating space for the exploration and critique of the myriad identities informed by this relationship. This study focuses on work by prominent American and Canadian authors Louise Erdrich, Tomson Highway, and Daniel David Moses. Erdrich, who self-identifies as Chippewa with mixed European ancestry, is best known for the interconnections of short narratives between and within her novels. Tomson Highway, a Cree novelist and playwright, is most famous for his cycles of “rez” plays detailing life on a fictional Ontario reserve. Daniel David Moses, member of the Delaware First Nation in Brantford, Ontario and acclaimed Canadian playwright, is best known for his parody of non-Aboriginal constructions of the “authentic Indian” in his work. These authors use political destruction of normative categories, particularly gender transgression, but also past and present, here and there, material reality and the spirit realm to create space for the playful exploration of Indigenous identities. I explore the ways in which gender transgression is nested in larger themes of playful category destruction and creative reconstruction to open up issues of political importance to these authors. By exploring these themes in conjunction with author biographies and interviews, I identify the political motives and implications of category transgression.

It’s Your Job to Save Me: The Union of Canadian Correctional Officers and the Death of Ashley Smith

Abstract The death of Ashley Smith represents the first time in Canadian legal history that correctional officers were criminally charged in the death of a prisoner under the care of the state. In response to these unprecedented charges, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers (UCCO) mounted a highly public campaign in defense of the officers. In this article, I review UCCO’s media statements following Smith’s death, submissions to various government review committees, and the current Global Agreement between UCCO and Correctional Service Canada (CSC) regarding federally sentenced women. I suggest these narratives work to reproduce administrative segregation as necessary to manage “troubled young women” who are constituted as an unsafe working condition for officers. I highlight the failure of UCCO to influence government policy, unlike the effective success of unions in the United States, and I challenge the place of UCCO in Canada’s trade union movement.

Aboriginal Youth Overrepresentation in Canadian Correctional Services: Judicial and Non-Judicial Actors and Influence

The crisis of Aboriginal over-incarceration in Canada is one of the most well-documented features of our Criminal Justice System. This crisis is especially profound in the youth context. While the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) has reduced Canada’s overall youth incarceration rate in recent years, the relative proportion of detained Aboriginal youth has actually increased. This article explores Aboriginal youth overrepresentation in correctional services under the YCJA in an attempt to discern why it has been less effective at reducing custody rates for Aboriginal youth compared to their non-Aboriginal peers. This article suggests that the YCJA has failed to remedy Aboriginal youth overrepresentation because it has focused too heavily on sentencing principles and judicial discretion. It is argued that more attention must be paid to the earlier stages of the criminal justice process during which Police, Crown Attorneys, and Probation Officers exercise low-visibility discretion in ways that disproportionately circumscribe the eventual range of sentencing options available to Aboriginal youth offenders.

Corrections Reform in Kosovo: A Qualitative Study of Canadian Corrections Advisers’ Experiences in a Post-Conflict Environment

This case study of corrections reform in Kosovo contributes to the growing academic literature on corrections reform during peacebuilding missions in post-conflict environments. Fourteen Canadian corrections advisers who were deployed to Kosovo between 1999 and 2006 were interviewed about the dynamics and challenges they experienced abroad. Interview transcripts were coded and analysed using NVivo10. Five key themes emerged from the data: the importance of understanding the local context; the prevalence of corruption; the lack of attention and resources devoted to corrections reform in post-conflict Kosovo; the challenges of providing safe and secure confinement for prisoners detained in facilities staffed by police and military personnel; and the challenges of working with ‘experts’ who seemingly lacked expertise and genuine concern for developing local capacities. These themes are summarized followed by a discussion of the limitations of the study, the directions for future research and the policy and practice implications of the findings.

Measuring the Prevalence of Current, Severe Symptoms of Mental Health Problems in a Canadian Correctional Population

This study measured the prevalence of current, severe symptoms of a mental health problem in an adult population of inmates in Ontario, Canada. The Resident Assessment Instrument-Mental Health was used to measure the prevalence of symptoms among a sample of 522 inmates. Propensity score weighting was used to adjust for nonrandom selection into the sample. Prevalence estimates were derived for the total inmate population, remand and sentenced, males and females, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal inmates. It is estimated that 41.1% of Ontario inmates will have at least one current, severe symptom of a mental health problem; of this group, 13.0%, will evidence two or more symptoms. The number of symptoms is strongly associated with presence of a psychiatric diagnosis and level of mental health care needs. Female (35.1%) and Aboriginal (18.7%) inmates are more likely to demonstrate two or more current, severe symptoms. Greater efforts must be made to bridge the gap between correctional and mental health care systems to ensure inmates in correctional facilities can access and receive appropriate mental health care services.

Sex Offender Treatment Outcome, Actuarial Risk, and the Aging Sex Offender in Canadian Corrections

The present study is an examination of sex offender treatment outcome in a large national cohort of Canadian Federally incarcerated sex offenders followed up an average of 11.7 years postrelease. A brief actuarial risk scale (BARS), which predicted sexual and violent recidivism, was created for the purposes of the present study to control for risk-related differences between treated and untreated offenders. In total, 732 offenders were identified as having completed (n = 625) or not attended (n = 107) a sex offender treatment program and for whom sufficient information was available to complete the scale. Controlling for risk and individual differences in follow-up time using Cox regression survival analyses and an 8-year fixed follow-up period, treated sex offenders demonstrated significantly lower rates of violent, but not sexual, recidivism. When the treated and untreated groups were stratified by risk level, significant differences were observed only among moderate or high risk offenders. Some significant group differences also emerged on indicators of recidivism severity, with treated offenders demonstrating slower times to sexual reoffense and lower scores on a quantified metric of sexual and violent recidivism severity after controlling for risk. Differences in recidivism base rates between treated and untreated offenders were also larger in magnitude for younger offenders (i.e., under age 50 at release), than for older offenders; however, interactions between age and treatment were not found. The findings are consistent with the risk principle and have possible implications regarding the dynamic nature of sexual violence risk.

Incentives for Research Participation: Policy and Practice From Canadian Corrections

We explored current policies and practices on the use of incentives in research involving adult offenders under correctional supervision in prison and in the community (probation and parole) in Canada. We contacted the correctional departments of each of the Canadian provinces and territories, as well as the federal government department responsible for offenders serving sentences of two years or more. Findings indicated that two departments had formal policy whereas others had unwritten practices, some prohibiting their use and others allowing incentives on a case-by-case basis. Given the differences across jurisdictions, it would be valuable to examine how current incentive policies and practices are implemented to inform national best practices on incentives for offender-based research.

Problem Gambling Inside and Out: The Assessment of Community and Institutional Problem Gambling in the Canadian Correctional System

This paper reports on the results of a multi-site survey of gambling behaviour and gambling problems amongst offenders in correctional institutions in Ontario, Canada, conducted between 2008 and 2011. A total of 422 (completion rate 61.5 %) incarcerated offenders (381 male and 41 female) took part in the study including 301 federal offenders and 121 provincial offenders. Based on the Problem Gambling Severity Index of the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI/PGSI) the prevalence rate of severe problem gambling was 8.9 prior to incarceration and 4.4 % during incarceration. These numbers are substantially higher than rates found among the general public. Thirty-four percent of the sample reported gambling in prison. Half of those who suffered from gambling problems before incarceration continued to have gambling problems during incarceration. People with problems related to slot machines prior to incarceration reported fewer gambling problems during incarceration compared to other problem gamblers.

When Two Worlds Collide: Aboriginal Risk Management in Canadian Corrections

In the last two decades, Indigenous lobbies have pointed a harsh finger at the endemic overrepresentation of Indigenous individuals in prisons in Canada and abroad. In reaction to such a condemnatory critique, correctional authorities in Canada have sought to 'aboriginalize' prisons. This paper addresses some of the prison's adaptation schemes to shed light on three contradictory logics of risk-based management: (1) high-risk aboriginal offenders have little access to risk-reducing programmes; (2) aboriginality undergoes an ontological mutation that occurs during the process of risk assessment; and (3) aboriginal correctional staff play a contradictory role in the (re)production of 'aboriginal risk'. To what extent, then, does the aboriginalization of prisons constitute a valuable transformation?

Housing for Aboriginal Ex-offenders in the Urban Core

Aboriginal peoples are over-represented in the Canadian corrections system. When released, they face challenges. Many return to the communities where their friends and family are but have few housing, educational, and employment opportunities, and have difficult choices to make. This participatory research study included interviews with 30 Aboriginal men who had done jail time and had lived in the downtown core of a major Canadian prairie city. It revealed five overlapping themes describing the experience of being released, getting by, finding a community that would receive them, staying out of jail, and trying to get ahead. The results indicate that there is a gap in services for Aboriginal men who have done jail time, and that housing models to meet this need should be developed with the input of residents in local communities.