Publications

Taking Risks: Incorporating Gender and Culture into the Classification and Assessment of Federally Sentenced Women in Canada

Kelly Hannah-Moffat and Margaret Shaw
March 2001

The research and publication of this study were funded by Status of Women Canada's Policy Research Fund. This document expresses the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official policy of Status of Women Canada or the Government of Canada.

Status of Women Canada is committed to ensuring that all research produced through the Policy Research Fund adheres to high methodological, ethical and professional standards.

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Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Hannah-Moffat, Kelly, 1967 -Taking

Risks [computer file]: Incorporating Gender and Culture into the Classification and Assessment of Federally Sentenced
Women in Canada

Issued also in French under title: Oser prendre des risques : Intégration des différences entre les sexes et entre les cultures au classement et à l'évaluation des délinqantes sous responsabilité fédérale

Includes bibliographical references.
Issued also in print format.
Mode of access: WWW site of Status of Women Canada.

ISBN 0-662-65432-3 [print format]
Cat. No. SW21-66/2001 [print format]

1. Women prisoners - Canada.
2. Female offenders - Canada.
3. Correctional institutions - Canada - Security measures.
4. Risk assessment.
I. Shaw, Margaret.
II. Canada. Status of Women Canada.
III. Title.

HV9507.H36 2001   365'.43'0971   C2001-98133-5

ABSTRACT

This report is based on an 18-month study (June 1998 to February 2000) funded by Status of Women Canada. Its purpose was to assess critically the underlying assumptions and current practice of classification and assessment in federal women's prisons, and their implications for gender and diversity; and to contribute to the development of more gender-specific and culturally sensitive approaches. The study included a review of the literature, consultations with Correctional Service of Canada headquarters staff and with stakeholders outside the correctional system; an interdisciplinary workshop, and site visits and interviews with 70 staff members working in eight federal institutions.

The study raises the complex theoretical, legal, methodological and practical issues involved in classification and assessment processes to encourage further research and debate and the development of less discriminatory practices. Most jurisdictions employ gender-neutral classification systems; a few have attempted to add on female-specific items. There is growing evidence that risk is gendered and racialized, and this cannot be accounted for by adding on to existing male-derived scoring systems. Despite acceptance of the recommendations of the task force report, Creating Choices, the gender-neutral classification system developed for men has been applied to women in Canada. Staff in the women's prisons have variable training and experience of classification and risk assessment, and there is a clear need for them to communicate and train together on a regular basis.

The report concludes that the Deputy Commissioner for Women should have greater autonomy and power, replacing the current regional reporting structure. The legal requirement for security classification should be reconsidered for women in light of section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act requirement of specific provision for women and Aboriginal detainees. The report also recognizes that the security and assessment needs of Canadian federal women's prisons and the Healing Lodge are different from those of the men's institutions by virtue of gender, minority heterogeneity, size and varying population characteristics, and require a separate assessment system to be developed. Cross-disciplinary and external research should be undertaken to assist its development, to expand knowledge of women's pathways into, and out of, offending, and to take account of the knowledge and experience of staff and inmates in women's facilities, as well as external stakeholders.

There is a general methodological rule that studying the borderline cases of a system provides insights into the principles of the system itself. Since the system of classification depends upon exclusion...one looks at what is apparently marginal to the system in order to understand the system.
                           - Jonathan Culler quoted by Kulka (1996).