Statistics on Visible Minorities in Youth and Adult Prison Systems

April 4, 2022

Question:
Is there a means to discover statistics on visible minority populations in adult and youth prison systems?  I am aware that there are statistics in the data portal for people self-identifying as Indigenous, but that’s only one part of the researcher’s question.  The broader scope of “visible minority”, and the narrower subset of “Black” are at the core of his research.

Public-access resources are best, but the researcher may be open to restricted or licensed resources.

Answer:
A quick check of the publications of Correctional Services Canada was completed and your researcher might find the statistics from a couple of these publications to be of interest.  

• (Federal offender self-identified race statistics from) 2015 Corrections and Conditional Release Statistical Overview
  
• Ethnocultural Minorities and the Canadian Correctional System
  
• Diversity and inclusion in Correctional Service Canada personnel
  
• Within the title list, please note Research publications, re:
  https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/research/005008-2000-eng.shtml 

Examples of research topics & publications
    a) Offender Profiles and Forecasting,
Gottschall, S. (2012) Ethnic Diversity in Canadian Federal Offender Admissions. Research Report, R-263. Ottawa, Ontario:  Correctional Service of Canada.

Admission Profile of Ethnocultural Offenders: Emerging Research Results

    b) Health and mental health
Concurrent Disorders and Substance Abuse Disorders among Visible Minority Offenders

*new data tables on visible minority admissions for adult and youth (for select provinces: NS, ON (adults), AB and BC) were released on April 20, 2022.

Correctional Services and Race

Question

A student is looking for statistics around race and prisoners/prison population. I know the Adult Correctional Services Survey does tell us how many aboriginal inmates there are, but I'm wondering if that's as far as we can get with respect to race/ethnicity of the Canadian prison population. Am I missing anything?

Answer

Looking at the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, the only information available on race/ethnicity for the prison population is an Aboriginal identifier.

They suggested that you contact the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) (http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/cont-eng.shtml) to see if they collect data on the race or ethnicity of individuals in their facilities. They are not sure however if they would collect data for provincial/territorial institutions.

You could have luck with CSC. I browsed the Publications section of the CSC website and one of their publications includes a figure that shows the % of the offender population (as of April 9, 2006) which is Caucasian, Hispanic, Aboriginal, Asian, Black and Other. The publication also includes a table that shows a more detailed description of the offender population as well as counts and % changes for 2001-2002 and 2005-2006. (Source: Corrections and Conditional Release Statistical Overview 2006 -
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/res/cor/rep/_fl/FINAL%20English%20CCRSO%202006.pdf -- see pages 51 and 52. The notes below the figure and table define "offenders".)

Correctional Facilities Population

Question

I understand from the Census Dictionary that residents of correctional facilities are enumerated using the institution's administrative records. Is it possible to find out exactly the nature of the information recorded? And would anyone know the method by which the admin record is translated into a census record?

Is the correctional facilities population included in aggregate records for the Census at any geographic level?

Answer

It is correct that correctional facilities are enumerated using the institution's administrative records. Census enumerators complete the 3A Census questionnaire for usual residents in correctional facilities using their administrative records. The 3A form collects basic demographic data: marital status, sex, date of birth(age), and first language.

Usual Residents of correctional facilities are considered as part of the institutional population. Any Census product (regardless of geographic level) where the universe includes institutional population will include residents of correctional facilities unless otherwise stated. For example, the 2006 Census population counts released on March 13, 2007 and the Age & Sex data released on July 17, 2007 include the institutional population and as a result include the residents of correctional facilities.