Desistance or Recidivism: Factors Impacting Successfully Reaching Warrant Expiration for Canadian Parolees

• In Event: Issues in Parole Supervision

Abstract

To determine factors that facilitate desistance among Canadian parolees, we analyzed the criminal records and case files of federal parolees who were clients of a Day Reporting Centre, an organization that assists high risk parolees with community reintegration. We compared clients, through quantitatively coding factors found in their case files, who successfully completed their sentence or their warrant expired (i.e., desisters; operationalized as not acquiring new charges or returning to prison) with clients who turned back to crime before their sentence was complete or warrant expired (i.e., recidivists; operationalized as parolees who acquired new charges or returned to prison). We looked to determine how factors (e.g., cultural, ethnic, demographic and personal) predict desistance. We sought to determine what aspects of offender experiences, shaped by such personal factors best predict desistance versus recidivism. The study is framed theoretical in the desistance literature and draws on practices of Risk Need Responsivity. It is the first of its kind in a Canadian context and has the potential to demonstrate how understanding of desistance in Canada can alter social, legal, and personal practices in corrections, and to illuminate factors that are most predictive of desistance to then improve reintegration outcomes.

Authors

• Rose Ricciardelli, Memorial University of Newfoundland

• Kimberley Ann Clow, University of Ontario Institute of Technology