Lower incarceration rates still indicate room for improvement

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This article was published 22/12/2020 (1899 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LOCAL criminology and restorative justice experts are lauding Manitoba’s decrease in incarceration rates as a “positive” step.

While Manitoba maintains one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, rates for both adults and youth have gone down by 12 and 15 per cent, respectively, from 2017-18 to 2018-19, suggests a Statistics Canada report released Monday.

It also highlights drops of 20 and 34 per cent, respectively, in the average daily counts of adults and youth involved in the province’s correctional services since 2014-15, which coincides with a downward trend countrywide spanning the last four years.

“I don’t think it’s really clear if there’s any sort of one particular program or initiative that has made a difference,” said Michael Weinrath, a criminology professor at the University of Winnipeg.

Weinrath said incarceration rates often don’t reflect crime rates, as crime has increased in Manitoba over the same four-year period. “There’s other factors that can be afoot,” he said in a phone interview Monday.

Among them, police and Crown activities are important factors in terms of how aggressively they pursue arrests and argue for longer sentences or oppose bail.

He said Manitoba’s decrease in incarceration rates could reflect the province’s commitment to restorative justice and its adjustment to the Jordan decision, a 2016 Supreme Court ruling that set the maximum amount of time — from when a person initially faces charges to when their trial ends — at 18 months in provincial courts and 30 months in superior courts.

However, Weinrath said the province should continue finding ways to get people to trial faster — a sentiment echoed by Sharon Perrault, acting executive director at John Howard Society of Manitoba.

The proportion of Manitobans in remand still outweighs those in custody at 68 per cent, despite a 14 per cent decrease from 2017-18 to 2018-19.

Perrault said it’s worth revising which individuals can be released without posing a risk.

“It’s a proven fact a lot of people will do better often in the community when they’re engaged in causes of support,” she said the John Howard organization offers programs and supports for aggression, healthy relationship building and substance abuse to people in the justice system.

“It’s always better if we can look at solutions other than incarceration,” said Perrault.

Indigenous adults and youth still make up a disproportionately higher number of admissions to custody, at 75 per cent of adults in Manitoba and 47 per cent of youth countrywide.

Damon Johnson, president of the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg, cautions the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the poverty of Indigenous Manitobans.

With increases in poverty, the province can usually anticipate increases in crime, he said. “There’s a long way to go.”