Incarceration in Canada
Incarceration in Canada is one of the main forms of punishment, rehabilitation, or both, for the commission of an indictable offense and other offenses.
According to Statistics Canada, as of 2018/2019 there were a total of 37,854 adult offenders incarcerated in Canadian federal and provincial prisons on an average day for an incarceration rate of 127 per 100,000 population. Of these, 23,783 were in provincial/territorial custody and 14,071 were in federal custody. [1]
Young offenders are covered by the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), which was enacted in 2003. In 2018/2019, an average of 716 youth between the ages of 12 and 17 were incarcerated in Canada, for a rate of 4 per 10,000 population. This number represents a 10% decrease from the previous year and a 32% decrease from 2014-2015. [1]
Indigenous people are vastly over-represented and make up a rising share in the Canadian prison system, making up 30.04% of the offender population in 2020, compared to 4.9% of the total population.[2] In 2018-2019, the offender population included Caucasians at 54.2% and Black people at 7.2%; meanwhile, Asian people made up only 10.3%, thereby being vastly underrepresented compared to their share of the overall population at 25.3%.[3]
History[edit]
The correction system in Canada dates to French and British colonial settlement, when all crimes were deemed deserving of punishment. Such was often meted out in public, as physical pain and humiliation were the preferred forms of punishment, including whipping, branding, and pillorying. In other cases, offenders were transported to other countries and abandoned to their fate. Execution was also used as punishment for serious crimes.[4]
In 1789, Philadelphian Quakers in the United States introduced the penitentiary as an alternative to such harsh punishment. The concept of long-term imprisonment eventually spread to England as an alternative to exiling offenders to the penal colonies, including Canada.[4] The first penitentiary in Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) was opened in 1835 as the Kingston Penitentiary. This facility was built by the colonial government and, at the time of Confederation in 1867, it was under provincial jurisdiction (of the Province of Ontario). It came under federal responsibility with the passage of the Penitentiary Act in 1868.[4]
In 1859, the offences punishable by death in Canada included murder, rape, treason, poisoning, or injuring a person with the intent to commit murder, mistreatment of a girl under 10 years of age, arson, among other things. As of 1869, only three offences were punishable by death: murder, rape, and treason.[4]
The federal government opened additional penitentiaries in other parts of Canada in decades following Confederation. An increase in crime during the Great Depression saw a rapid increase in Canada's incarceration rate. The Prison for Women opened in 1934. The Archambault Commission (officially the Royal Commission to Investigate the Penal System in Canada) was established that year in response to riots, overcrowding, and strikes in Canadian prisons. The final report was published in 1938 and was the first comprehensive report in Canada to emphasize crime prevention and offender rehabilitation.[4]
In the 1960s, new approaches to rehabilitation and reintegration were adopted. The first 'gradual release' program was introduced at Collins Bay Institution, wherein inmates were allowed to work outside the institution during the day and return in the evening. In 1969, an experimental living unit was opened at medium-security Springhill Institution in Nova Scotia, as part of a community pilot program to aid inmates in preparing themselves for "outside" life.[4]
Capital punishment was abolished in Canada in 1976. Also in the 1960s and 1970s, various halfway houses were opened, as well as governments and community groups taking on the essential needs of ex-inmates by providing them with room and board, and often helping them find work, enroll in school, and obtain counselling services.[4]