Socioeconomic characteristics and reconviction patterns of Indigenous adults released from provincial custody, 2016/2017
Released: 2026-05-14
Among Indigenous (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) adults released from provincial custody in 2016/2017, fewer than one in three (29%) registered the majority (68%) of all new convictions recorded in the four years after release. Compared with Indigenous adults with few or no reconvictions, those with a high frequency of reconvictions fared worse in terms of economic well-being and other indicators, both before and after incarceration.
Released today, the Juristat article "Socioeconomic characteristics of Indigenous adults reconvicted after release from provincial custody, 2016/2017" uses linked data from the Canadian Correctional Services Survey, the Integrated Criminal Court Survey, the T1 Family File, the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System and other sources to explore the overlap between reconviction patterns and socioeconomic indicators. Criminal convictions of Indigenous adults from the four years prior to and following incarceration are examined alongside data about their economic well-being, family status, emergency healthcare use and other indicators. Findings are situated within the broader context of the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the Canadian criminal justice system.
Few, if any, reconvictions for 3 in 10 Indigenous adults within four years of release
Among Indigenous adults released from provincial custody in 2016/2017, the type and frequency of new convictions varied. The largest proportion (30%) of those released had few, if any, new convictions during the four years following incarceration. Within this low reconviction group, most (66%) had no reconvictions during the study period, and 25% had a single reconviction (Table 1).
The most common type of reconviction offence was administration of justice violations, though the frequency with which these occurred differed greatly between reconviction groups. More than 1 in 10 (12%) of Indigenous adults in the low reconvictions group had at least one new conviction for an administration of justice offence in the four years following release, along with all (100%) of those in the high reconvictions group.
Majority of all reconvictions recorded by a small proportion of Indigenous adults released from custody
In sharp contrast to the low reconviction group, just under 3 in 10 (29%) Indigenous adults released from provincial custody recorded a high and persistent frequency of reconvictions involving all types of crime (violent, property, administration of justice and other Criminal Code offences) in the four years following release. All Indigenous adults in this group had five or more reconvictions in the four years following release, and almost all (94%) recorded their first reconviction within a year. Overall, this group registered over two-thirds (68%) of all reconvictions recorded by Indigenous adults released from custody during the four-year study period.
Indigenous adults with high frequency of reconviction fare worse on indicators of economic well-being
The majority of Indigenous adults released from provincial custody in 2016/2017 faced significant economic and health-related difficulties both before and after their incarceration, reflecting the impacts of colonialism on Indigenous peoples' lives both inside and outside of the criminal justice system. While disadvantage was widespread among these individuals, key differences were noted which aligned with their patterns of reconviction.
Economic well-being, both before and after incarceration, differed among reconviction groups. For example, Indigenous adults with low reconvictions (40%) were more than twice as likely to report any income from employment within three years following their release than those with high reconvictions (15%). Conversely, the prevalence of low-income was lower among Indigenous adults with low (72%) versus high (87%) reconvictions, and a smaller proportion relied on government transfers as their main source of income (69% among those with low reconvictions versus 89% among those with high reconvictions).
Indigenous adults with fewer reconvictions experience less change in economic status from before to after custody
Economic well-being decreased from before to after incarceration for most Indigenous adults released from provincial custody in 2016/2017, and those with a high frequency of reconviction experienced the most drastic changes. For example, reporting any income from employment decreased by 15 percentage points for the high frequency group, while the decline was much smaller among those with a low frequency of reconviction (-2 percentage points). Similar patterns were noted when it came to reliance on government transfers and the prevalence of low-income (Chart 1).
Chart 1
Selected economic indicators reported by Indigenous adults released from provincial custody prior to custody and after release, by reconviction pattern, 2016/2017
The length of time spent in custody before release did not appear linked to the magnitude of change in economic well-being. Among Indigenous adults in both the low (63%) and high (64%) reconviction groups, most had been in custody for less than three months. Instead, a larger number of reconvictions—and the associated justice system interactions, including arrests, court dates, and other types of interactions—could have more severely disrupted the employment and economic well-being of Indigenous adults with higher reconviction rates.
Larger degree of change in family status from before to after custody for Indigenous adults with higher reconvictions
Family status—as measured by the presence of a spouse or children in the home—varied among Indigenous adults with different reconviction patterns. Those with low reconvictions after release were more likely than those with high reconvictions to be married or have a common-law spouse (24%, compared with 12% of those with high reconvictions) or child (24%, compared with 14%) in the home when they left custody.
The magnitude of change in family status was also larger for Indigenous adults with high reconvictions, suggesting another way in which instability was higher for this group. Among those with high reconvictions, 13% fewer had a spouse in the home after their release, compared to before; this decrease was smaller among those with low reconvictions (-4%). Similarly, 24% fewer Indigenous adults with high reconvictions had children living with them after release compared with before, a larger drop than among the low reconvictions group (-10%).
Indigenous adults with high reconvictions have more emergency department visits, including for drug overdose
Overall, most Indigenous adults who left provincial custody in 2016/2017 had at least one visit to an emergency department in the five years following release (78%). While similar proportions of those with high (78%) and low (76%) reconvictions had at least one such visit, those with high (60%) reconvictions more often had five or more visits than did those in the low (44%) reconvictions group. Visits that included drug overdose among the noted health concerns were more than twice as common among those with high (31%) compared with low (12%) reconvictions.
More Indigenous adults with low reconvictions live in rural, northern and Indigenous communities
Urban and southern areas of Canada can offer residents proximity to services, including probation offices and other services relevant to people who have been previously incarcerated. Larger proportions of Indigenous adults with high reconvictions reported addresses in urban (66%) and southern (71%) areas, compared with Indigenous adults in the low reconviction group who resided in urban (51%) and southern (62%) locations. Additionally, those with low reconvictions more often lived in Indigenous communities after release (25%, versus 16% of those with high reconvictions). Indigenous communities may be able to offer culturally relevant and kinship support to community members following custody, with fewer barriers to access than may be found in non-Indigenous communities.
Note to readers
For this study, a cohort of 7,499 Indigenous adults released during the period from April 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017, from provincial custody in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, was selected from the Canadian Correctional Services Survey (CCSS) data file. Individuals were included in the study cohort if they met the following criteria: they had been sentenced to full-time custody in a provincial correctional facility; the length of their custody sentence was greater than one day; the most serious offence for which they were sentenced was a Criminal Code or other federal statute offence; they were adults at the time of their release; and their correctional supervision was carried out in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta or British Columbia. Individuals were excluded from the analysis if they died during the four years following release.
A parallel cohort of non-Indigenous adults meeting these criteria was also selected, though comparisons between the two groups were limited; see the Juristat article "Socioeconomic characteristics of Indigenous adults reconvicted after release from provincial custody, 2016/2017" for more information. Records from the CCSS were linked to data from the Integrated Criminal Court Survey (ICCS) to derive information on individuals' reconvictions after release. Latent class analysis was then used to identify four groups with distinct patterns of reconvictions.
A reconviction is defined as any new federal statute conviction (in any province or territory) with an offence date during the follow-up period. Because the conviction date is heavily influenced by court processing times, the offence date was used to represent the timing of the conviction. To allow enough time for almost all cases with an offence date within the follow-up period to reach a guilty decision in criminal court (including findings of guilt by the court and guilty pleas), the conviction date itself could have occurred up to two years after the end of the follow-up period.
The linked CCSS/ICCS data file was integrated with the T1 Family File, the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System, and the Canadian Vital Statistics – Death database through the Social Data Linkage Environment. For more information on linkages, see the Data sources and methodology section in the Juristat article "Socioeconomic characteristics of Indigenous adults reconvicted after release from provincial custody, 2016/2017."
For ease of readability, the term "Indigenous communities" is used in this release. It is important to note that this term does not necessarily represent all Indigenous communities in Canada. For information on how the communities discussed in this release were identified, see the Data sources and methodology section in the Juristat article "Socioeconomic characteristics of Indigenous adults reconvicted after release from provincial custody, 2016/2017."
Products
The article "Socioeconomic characteristics of Indigenous adults reconvicted after release from provincial custody, 2016/2017" is now available as part of the publication Juristat (85-002-X).
Contact information
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