Ending conditional sentences will cost provinces millions: independent report

OTTAWA – Restricting conditional sentences is going to cost the provinces and territories almost $140 million a year, produce fewer convictions and reduce the time offenders are under government supervision, says a report from the independent Parliamentary budget officer.

The 97-page study is a detailed and devastating critique of just one small aspect of the massive Conservative omnibus crime bill that is currently before the Senate.

Using 2008-09 data from Statistics Canada and the public prosecutors office, the budget officer provided a minutely detailed account of the impact of proposed restrictions to house arrest and other conditional sentences.

Not only does the report predict a massive, unreported cost to provincial and territorial treasuries, it raises serious questions about the policy effectiveness.

“In effect, fewer offenders will be punished for shorter amounts of time, at greater expense, but in provincial correctional facilities rather than the community,” says the study, which took two researchers five months to complete.

Neither Correctional Service Canada nor the parole board provided data for the study, said Kevin Page, the parliamentary budget officer.

And when Page’s researchers went to Statistics Canada and the provinces for data, “we didn’t get any sense that federal bureaucrats or the government actually had done the costing.”

“We were going to the original source of the data and finding we were the first people asking these questions.”

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s office did not directly dispute the report’s cost findings.

“Our government is committed to holding criminals accountable and ensuring the safety and security of our communities by toughening sentences for serious crimes,” a spokesman for the minister said in an email.

“Conditional sentences, or house arrest, should not be available for serious crimes such as sexual assault, kidnapping, and human trafficking.”

The report concludes that about 3,800 additional offenders would face jail time under Criminal Code changes to conditional sentences in Bill C-10.

And the cost per offender to Canadian taxpayers would increase to $41,000 from the current $2,600 — a 16-fold increase.

Conditional sentences are only available to offenders facing less than two years jail time — sentences that by definition are served in provincial jails. Currently, judges cannot grant a conditional sentence to anyone who is considered a danger to the community, or to a criminal convicted of a serious, personal injury offence.

The report found that ending conditional sentences would have cost the provinces and territories $137 million in 2008-09, including the cost to the court system of offenders going to trial rather than face certain jail time.

And in an ironic twist, the report states that the Harper government’s tough-on-crime measure would actually result in offenders being under government supervision for significantly less time.

Offenders sent to jail get credit for time in remand and earn early releases based on good behaviour, said the report. Those time credits are not available on conditional sentences. The effect would be to reduce the time an offender is under the eye of the state to 225 days, on average, from 348 days.

The report states that its projections are “likely underestimates” and do not include the cost of building more prisons.