Offenders’ Supervisors Practices in the Context of Conditional Sentencing in Canada

• In Event: The Practices and Strategies of Treatment and Community-based Corrections Personnel

Abstract

Conditional sentence was created in 1996 in Canada, with a purpose of moderation, to limit the use of imprisonment and develop alternative sentences. The sentenced person serves his sentence in the community, and has to respect conditions imposed by the judge. Those conditions are monitored by offender’s supervisors, who must fill a report to the Court whenever the sentenced person violates them. Supervisors are also in charge of the rehabilitation and social reinsertion of prisoners, so they have a double role of help and control.
This presentation aims at understanding how the offenders’ supervisors organize their activities in the context of the conditional sentence. Based on observations made within several community agencies, as well as interviews with supervisors, this presentation will be focusing on the tension resulting from the seemingly opposite goals of help and control for supervisors, and on their autonomy relative to other actors within the system. The presentation will also study the existence of a “local penal culture” within different agencies.

Author

• Elsa Euvrard, University of Montreal