NCJ Number
131526
Date Published
1989
Length
29 pages
Annotation
In 1988, the Canada Correctional Service approved the pilot implementation of a new Custody Rating Scale as part of the Penitentiary Placement Process in the Quebec and Pacific regions, representing centralized and decentralized systems respectively. This interim report describes the staff training and quality control monitoring of the pilot implementation, discusses the degree of staff acceptance of the program, and examines preliminary data on the degree of concordance between security level designations derived from the scale and actual placement decisions.
Abstract
The report is based on data pertaining to all penitentiary placements in the two pilot regions between August and October 1988. There were errors in Custody Rating Scale scoring in 36 (over 23 percent) of the cases; the wrong security level was calculated in 5 of those cases. In some cases, critical information or documentation was missing, a problem that must be addressed regardless of what procedure is used to place inmates. In combining responses from case managers in both regions, the researchers found a 74.3 percent concordance with the security classifications provided by the Scale. Although the Scale assigned 15 percent of cases to maximum security, 55 percent to medium security, and 30 percent to minimum security, in actual placements, fewer inmates than recommended were assigned to minimum and maximum security facilities. 6 tables, 1 figure, and 2 appendixes