Effecting Change Through Outreach and Partnership

Effecting Change through Outreach and Partnership
by Mark Prieur and Jane McDonald, Parole Board of Canada

The criminal justice system is a field that is often misunderstood and that is generally ripe with misconceptions. The area of conditional release is a good example of this. Just ask the Parole Board of Canada (PBC), the government agency in that country mandated to make conditional release and pardons decisions.

The PBC makes approximately 25,000 conditional release decisions, and a similar number of pardons decisions, every year. And although its track record is excellent for both conditional release decisions – over the past 10 years 93% of offenders on day and full parole have not committed a new offence, and 99% have not committed a new violent offence, while on parole – and for pardon decisions – 96% of the more than 400,000 granted since 1970 remain in force today – public confidence in both systems remains low in Canada.

“These statistics tell a very positive story and clearly show that the Board is effectively meeting its mandate of contributing to public safety,” says PBC Chairperson Harvey Cenaiko. He attributes the disconnect between the public’s perception of the system and its reality to a combination of factors. Chief among these are the general public’s limited awareness of the conditional release and pardons systems, and the media’s tendency to focus on high-profile, violent offenders. “These misconceptions present a picture of the system that is not always accurate or based on factual information,” he says.

To address this situation, the PBC invests time into public education and outreach. Canada’s Corrections and Conditional Release Act mandates the PBC to establish and maintain a program of communications and public education to enhance its effectiveness and openness, and this is something the Board takes very seriously.

“Outreach gives us a chance to speak directly to our various stakeholders and to inform them about the conditional release and pardons systems – how each one works, their measurable benefits and outcomes,” says Caroline Douglas, Director of Communications at the PBC. “It also gives us an opportunity to interact and engage with these audiences – which includes victims of crime, women, and Aboriginal people – about the Board and the services available to them.”

In 2009, the PBC undertook a review of its outreach program with a view to enhancing its effectiveness and reach. As a result of the review, the PBC updated its national outreach strategy, emphasizing two key objectives: to establish a planned, targeted, and measurable outreach program; and to identify and pursue opportunities for collaboration in the delivery of outreach activities, to maximize their impact and the Board’s limited resources.

To view the power point presentation from a workshop given at the APAI Annual Training Conference concerning PBC’s outreach program visit
.http://www.apaintl.org/resources/documents/ParoleBoardofCanadaOutreachProgram.pdf

“One group that I felt the Board needed to increase its outreach efforts to was our criminal justice partners, such as the police,” says Mr. Cenaiko. “They play a crucial part in the Board’s ability to make high-quality decisions through the quality of information they provide to us, and this is a message I was eager to share with them.”

The focus on partnerships is a key aspect of the Board’s approach to outreach given the large geographical area the PBC must cover – its five regional offices together cover a span of some 3.8 million square miles – and the limited resources at its disposal.

On example of a key partnership is the PBC’s joint work with the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) in the area of victim services. Under Canadian law, victims of crime are entitled to certain information about the offender who harmed them while that offender is under the jurisdiction of the PBC and the CSC. As Regional Manager of Community Relations for the Atlantic Region Sylvie Blanchet explains, “Given our joint responsibility in the area of victim services, it makes perfect sense for us to do joint outreach to this group, and this has allowed us to increase the amount of outreach we do with them.” And the efforts are paying off. Ms. Blanchet says that once the decision-making process is explained to victims, they usually come out with a better understanding of how and why decisions are made. “They may still not agree with the decision,” she says, “but they understand the reasons behind it.”

Another example of a key partnership is the highly successful pilot project that the PBC recently concluded in Nova Scotia with CSC and the Halifax Regional Police.

Mr. Cenaiko maintains the information that Board members pull from Crown briefs, psychological assessments, police reports and other sources is essential. In fact, the work of law enforcement is absolutely critical to the Board’s success as decision-makers.

“Decisions are available to the public and explain how the Board assesses risk,” he says. “Our goal, then, is to get timely and detailed intelligence information in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Our challenge as an organization has always been ‘how do we achieve a clear picture of the offender that leads to the highest quality decisions and greater public safety?’”

Atlantic Regional Director General Brian Chase has devoted considerable time and energy to that very question.

“Because the Board’s mandate intersects with law enforcement, it is important to better understand one another’s roles, how they fit together, and how we can work even better together,” he says.

In 2008, following training sessions between the Board in Atlantic Canada and the Halifax police, officials in both organizations acknowledged that a coordinated effort should be made to produce a model police report that would be simpler to use, yet still comprehensive.

At the time, average police occurrence reports were filled with extraneous information, which took hours to vet, read, analyze and extract information, and then even more time to review by Parole Board staff and Board members.

“Halifax police developed a model that supports both the Board and the Correctional Service in classifying an offender’s security level, assessing risk and/or treatment needs, and making better decisions,” Mr. Chase says. “The model includes not only suggested content but also relevant intelligence that can be safely shared.”

What used to run hundreds of pages can now be reduced to tailored intelligence summaries from a variety of sources—officer observations, street checks, motor-vehicle stops and safety bulletins—that best reflect the offence and include recommendations where content could be better stated or refined.

“We wanted to see this type of approach adopted elsewhere, so we sent Halifax Detective Constable Bob Lomond (now retired) out on the road to five outlying Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachments in Nova Scotia to present the new model,” Mr. Chase says.

“All five RCMP detachments responded very favourably to the new model, and their response convinced us that it could be useful not just throughout Atlantic Canada but right across the country,” he adds.

While Halifax police have realized tangible benefits, the creation of the much reduced, summarized report has also saved tens of thousands of dollars in person hours at the Parole Board and Correctional Service of Canada.

Mr. Cenaiko says, “Information is key and it will really help the Board when assessing offenders many years, even decades, after police reports have been compiled on them.”
Good information exchange between criminal justice partners, he insists, is an important way to keep the system running well.

It is a success story the PBC plans to build on through continued outreach and public education with its key stakeholders and the public.

To view the power point presentation from a workshop given on this topic at the 2011 APAI Annual Training Conference visit: http://www.apaintl.org/resources/documents/PoliceInformationRelatedtoCorrectionsandParole-Canada.pdf