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Tuesday, April 6, 1999
For release at 8:30 a.m.
1997/98
The average number of adults behind bars fell for the first time in more than a decade in the fiscal year 1997/98. On any given day, 32,970 adults were in either a federal prison or a provincial or territorial jail, down 3.3% from the previous year when the number peaked at 34,089. The source of this decline is most likely the downturn in the crime rate.
This decrease followed the sharpest decline in the number of offenders sent to jail in decades. In 1997/98, 218,526 offenders were placed in custody, down 6.2% from 1996/97. Still, this number of incarcerations was 7.2% higher than it was a decade ago.
Data from the Adult Correctional Services Survey also show that overall, on any given day in 1997/98, an average of 157,766 individuals were either behind bars or on community supervision, up 0.3% from the previous year.
Chart: More adult offenders serve their
sentence in the community
About 124,796 adults were on some form of community supervision such as probation, parole or statutory release, up 7.6% from 1996/97. However, this increase takes into account the impact of Bill C-41, proclaimed into law in the fall of 1996. This legislation created a new type of community-based alternative to imprisonment called a conditional sentence. It allows judges to sentence to a conditional term of imprisonment an offender who would otherwise have been sent to prison.
If the impact of the legislation was excluded, the number of adults on community supervision in 1997/98 would have increased only 1% from 1996/97.
Many factors can influence the size of Canada's correctional population, including changes in the demographic profile of the Canadian population, legislative changes, police enforcement practices, changes in the crime rate, sentencing practices and early release policies.
The correctional data in this release take into account the impact of Bill C-41 and exclude the data from the Northwest Territories.
In the fall of 1996, Bill C-41 was proclaimed into law and was intended to reform the sentencing system in Canada. An important provision of the Bill was the creation of a new type of community-based alternative to imprisonment called a conditional sentence. A judge can sentence to a conditional term of imprisonment an offender who would otherwise have been sent to prison. Only persons sentenced to prison terms of less than two years are eligible to receive a conditional sentence. Conditional sentences permit an offender to serve custodial terms in the community under supervision. The objective is to provide non-violent, low-risk offenders with effective, less costly, community-based alternatives while using limited resources for the incarceration and treatment of more serious offenders.
Any decline in the inmate population as a result of the new disposition would be seen in the provincial/territorial rather than the federal population (sentences of two years or more). Since the creation of the new conditional sentence, over 20,000 offenders began serving a conditional term of imprisonment in the community.
It is still too soon to determine whether the decline in the number of supervised community programs admissions is attributable to the new legislation, particularly when admissions to custody were declining prior to the introduction of conditional sentences.
The number of adult offenders sent to jail each year has been declining since the 1992/93 fiscal year. On the other hand, growing numbers of offenders each year have been placed on some kind of community supervision. During the past 10 years, the number of offenders under community supervision has increased five times faster than the number behind bars.
In 1997/98, 108,828 adult offenders were sentenced to serve all or part of their sentence in the community on some type of supervised community program, most likely on probation or parole (+17.0% from 1996/97). However, if the impact of Bill C-41 and the data from the Northwest Territories were excluded, the level would have been about the same as in 1996/97.
The majority of these offenders (77%) were on probation and the rest on parole or statutory release.
Fewer offenders were placed in custody in both federal and provincial/territorial institutions during 1997/98. The number of offenders sentenced to federal prisons during the year declined 3.4% to 4,412.
A total of 214,114 adults were placed in custody in provincial and territorial correctional centres, down 6.2% from 1996/97. Some 98,646, or 46% of these inmates, were serving a sentence. About 49% were remanded into custody awaiting a court disposition, while the remaining 5% were being held on temporary detention.
The number of incarcerations in provincial and territorial jails in 1997/98 was 7.3% higher than it was 10 years earlier, while the number of federal incarcerations was only 2.2% higher.
In 1997/98, males represented 91% of all offenders placed in custody in provincial and territorial jails, a percentage which has not changed since 1992/93. Female offenders represented a much smaller proportion (5%) of offenders sent to federal prisons in 1997/98.
The prison population is getting older in provincial and territorial institutions, but getting younger in federal prisons. For provincial and territorial inmates, the median age was 32 in 1997/98, up from 31 the previous year. On the other hand, the average age of offenders in federal prisons was 33 in 1997/98, down from 36 in 1996/97.
Aboriginal people were over-represented in correctional institutions relative to their population. While they represented 2% of the general adult population, they accounted for 15% of the individuals placed in custody in provincial and territorial institutions in 1997/98. However, this was a decline from 18% in 1993/94. Aboriginal people accounted for 17% of offenders placed in federal prisons in 1997/98, up from 12% in 1993/94.
Federal inmates served an average of 45 months in penitentiaries during 1997/98, up from 43 months the previous year. Those serving life sentences represented 4.3% of the population in federal prisons in 1997/98, almost unchanged from 4.6% the year before.
In 1997/98, federal, provincial and territorial governments spent $2.08 billion on the adult corrections system compared with $1.88 billion in 1993/94. Adjusted for inflation, total operating expenses increased 4.6% during this five-year period.
Table: Operational costs for adult correctional services
______________________________________________________________________________
Provincial/t- Federal costs Total costs
erritorial
costs
_____________
(current
dollars)
______________________________________________________________________________
$'000
_______________________________________________
1993/94 881,988 996,904 1,878,892
1994/95 913,250 980,280 1,893,530
1995/96 948,887 970,041 1,918,928
1996/97 970,289 998,264 1,968,553
1997/98 1,028,029 1,049,418 2,077,447
______________________________________________________________________________
Total costs
_____________
(constant
1993/94
dollars)
______________________________________________________________________________
$'000
1993/94 1,878,892
1994/95 1,885,948
1995/96 1,871,221
1996/97 1,886,777
1997/98 1,964,559
______________________________________________________________________________
Federal operating expenses reached $1.0 billion in 1997/98, a 10.3% increase from 1993/94 when adjusted for inflation. Provincial and territorial governments spent just under $1.1 billion in 1997/98, down 0.4% when adjusted for inflation.
Provincial/territorial governments spent an average of $43,734 on each inmate in their jail systems in 1997/98, up from $40,562 the previous year. The average cost for inmates in federal penitentiaries was considerably higher at $51,202, up from $48,078.
Available on CANSIM: tables 00180701 and 00180703-00180706.
Juristat: Adult correctional services in Canada, 1997/98, vol. 19, no. 4 (85-002-XPE, $10/$93; 85-002-XIE, $8/$70) and the Internet publication, Adult correctional services in Canada, 1997/98 (85-211-XIE, $28) are now available. See How to order publications.
For more information or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Information and Client Services (1 800 387-2231, or 613-951-9023; fax: 613-951-6615), Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.
Seven-day period ending March 14, 1999
Carloadings of freight (excluding intermodal traffic) during the seven-day period ending March 14, 1999, decreased 6.2% to 4.5 million tonnes from the same period of last year. The number of cars loaded decreased 3.5%.
Intermodal traffic (piggyback) tonnage totalled 357 000 tonnes, a 7.2% increase from the same period of last year. The year-to-date figures advanced 11.0%.
Total traffic (carloadings of freight and intermodal traffic) decreased 5.3% during the period. This brought the year-to-date total to 48.3 million tonnes, down 6.0% from the previous year.
All year-to-date figures have been revised.
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods, and data quality of this release, contact Robert Larocque (613-951-2486; fax: 613-951-0009; laroque@statcan.gc.ca ), Transportation Division.
1996 Census
The Dimensions series demonstrates the potential for analysis of census information. Released today is the final of seven CD-ROMs, Canadian income and earnings for 1990 and 1995 (94F0005XCB, $60). This CD-ROM presents information from the 1996 Census on the total and employment income of individuals, wages and salaries of paid workers, the total income of census families and private households, and the incidence of low income in 1995 among families, unattached individuals, and the total population. Tables are provided for Canada, the provinces and territories. For the most part, the tables include comparable data on incomes in 1990 from the 1991 Census.
The CD-ROM is packaged with the software Beyond 20/20TM. With many powerful features, the browser allows the user to quickly and easily search and sort data, and to copy tables and charts to other Windows applications.
For further information, contact your nearest Statistics Canada Regional Reference Centre.
National economic and financial accounts, fourth quarter 1998
Catalogue number 13-001-XPB
(Canada: $44/$145; outside Canada: US$44/US$145).
Mineral wool including fibrous glass insulation, February 1999
Catalogue number 44-004-XIB
(Canada: $5/$47; outside Canada: US$5/US$47).
Coal and coke statistics, January 1999
Catalogue number 45-002-XPB
(Canada: $12/$114; outside Canada: US$12/US$114).
Electric power statistics, January 1999
Catalogue number 57-001-XPB
(Canada: $12/$114; outside Canada: US$12/US$114).
Juristat: Adult correctional services in Canada, 1997-98
Catalogue number 85-002-XIE
(Canada: $8/$70; outside Canada: US$8/US$70).
Juristat: Adult correctional services in Canada, 1997-98
Catalogue number 85-002-XPE
(Canada: $10/$93; outside Canada: US$10/US$93).
Adult correctional services in Canada, 1997-98
Catalogue number 85-211-XIE
(Canada: $28; outside Canada: US$28).
All prices exclude sales tax.