Incarceration can reduce the likelihood that youth will re-offend, according to a long-term study published by the Simon Fraser University.
First published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, the study dates as far back as 1998 and remained ongoing up until 2011.
Researchers monitored 1,700 individuals from youth into adulthood who had been incarcerated at a young age and found that they were less likely to reoffend compared to those who hadn’t been.
“80 per cent of those studies were conducted in the United States, and almost all of them occurred during periods of mass incarceration,” says Evan McCuish, who co-authored the study.
“Canada is not the United States. Canada does not practise mass incarceration, and we don’t have privatized prison systems, so we do need our own research to begin to investigate these themes.”
The study was based on data from BC Corrections allowing the researchers to specifically review offenders in the Canadian justice system and its findings altered the narrative of previous U.S. studies that found incarceration increases recidivism rates, or that it had no effect at all on the individual’s action once released.
“We found that, in British Columbia, people who spend more time in prison end up engaging in less offending in the future,” said McCuish. “We don’t know, however, whether this is due to deterrence or due to rehabilitation processes. Are people not re-offending as much because they were deterred by their prison experience, or are they not re-offending as much because of the rehabilitative services that they received in prison, and that actually helped them reduce their offending upon release?”
McCuish went on to say that people released from prison may be less likely to reoffend because they are subject to closer supervision and monitoring.
The next phase of the study’s research will be establishing whether the findings are linked primarily to prisoner rehabilitation or if incarceration simply serves as a deterrent to committing future crimes.
The study comes at a time when politicians are calling for stricter penalties for violent offenders and bail reform.
Canadian premiers called for bail reform in a joint letter following the Council of the Federation in Halifax last year.
“We urge the federal government to consider any necessary changes related to both bail and sentencing, including further legislative amendments,” reads the letter.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has repeatedly criticized the Trudeau government for being soft on sentencing and inadequate bail reforms.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pledged a “jail not bail” approach to violent offenders, accusing the Trudeau government of being responsible for higher crime rates across cities because of their catch-and-release judicial policies.
McCuish plans to further his studies in the hopes that his research can be used to help inform policymakers in tackling such issues.
“What I see as my job is to provide that evidence basis so that the decisions that policymakers make are actually informed by research and not just informed by what we think anecdotally,” he said.