Auditor-General of Canada Report: Community Supervision - Correctional Service of Canada
"Under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, most offenders become eligible for release before their sentences end. As a result, nearly all serve a portion of their sentences under supervision in the community.

This audit focused on whether Correctional Service Canada adequately supervised offenders in the community, and accommodated them when required, to support their return to society as law-abiding citizens....

The number of offenders released into community supervision had grown and was expected to keep growing. However, Correctional Service Canada had reached the limit of how many offenders it could house in the community. As a result, offenders approved for release into the community had to wait twice as long for accommodation. Despite the growing backlog, and despite research that showed that a gradual supervised release gave offenders a better chance of successful reintegration, Correctional Service Canada did not have a long-term plan to respond to its housing pressures.

It could take more than two years from the time a site was selected with a community partner to the time the first offender was placed at a new facility. Given that Correctional Service Canada was already at capacity, this meant that the housing shortages were likely to get worse.

Our audit also found that Correctional Service Canada did not properly manage offenders under community supervision. For example, it did not give parole officers all the information they needed to help offenders with their health needs, and parole officers did not always meet with offenders as often as they should have.

This meant that Correctional Service Canada could not find places in a timely manner for many offenders who should have been released into community supervision, and it did not properly monitor many offenders under community supervision."

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