Provincial auditor Judy Ferguson is raising concern that Saskatchewan’s Justice Ministry has only implemented three of the seven recommendations she put forward in 2011 for rehabilitating adult offenders.
“These are essential in the rehabilitation of adult offenders in the community,” Ferguson said.
These recommendations include ensuring risk assessments for re-offending are completed within six weeks of an adult entering a community program like probation or parole, preparing progress reports and ensuring high-risk offenders have regular contact with a probation officer or equivalent.
The ministry reviewed a sample of case files from the Regina Correctional Centre and found that half did not have a complete risk assessment within six weeks, a quarter didn’t follow the supervision policy and three quarters did not have regular progress reports.
Deputy justice minister Dale McFee said while this review was Regina specific, similar problems exist throughout the province.
“So if you’re not following your policies and implementing your policies then your program isn’t being rolled out as it’s designed. So you increase the chances of people repeating offences,” Ferguson said.
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McFee said these risk assessments can take 20 to 30 hours to complete. The ministry will be conducting a review on this process next year.
“We feel that we will get this addressed within the next year and get it to the point where we want it,” McFee said.
“If we have to increase staff due to an increased case load, that’s something we’ll do.”
Recently, the ministry began using a new IT system that is expected to increase efficiency for generating these reports.
“We have 8,000 people in community corrections on any given day,” McFee said.
“So folks in the field can actually track this and realize who’s due for an assessment, who’s due to be met with. So without an IT system or a backbone on the data this is a hopeless cause.”
The auditor does note that the ministry has succeeded in implementing programs that ensure high-risk offenders are monitored in community programs and have priority access to suitable rehabilitation programs.
Opposition leader Nicole Sarauer said that if this issue isn’t dealt with effectively, the province is wasting money.
“Address addictions issues, address mental health issues. If we’re constantly pushing them through the system we’re seeing more and more money being spent on this without addressing the underlying problems,” she said.
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