Examining characteristics of federal Veteran men offenders in Canada by duration of service

Abstract

Recent research shows Canadian federal Veteran offenders (serving sentences of two years or more) are older at admission to federal custody, have greater mental health needs, and are more likely to commit a violent offence, particularly a sex-related offence, than non-Veterans. 1 However, they have more stable institutional behaviour and better post-release outcomes. 2 Other research shows Veteran offenders with longer service had fewer lifetime arrests and institutional misconducts than those with shorter service duration. 3,4 This is the first study to examine how federal Veteran offenders in Canada differ across duration of service.Using Computerized Mental Health Intake Screening System (CoMHISS) assessments completed between August 2014 and March 2018, federal men offenders who self-reported former service in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) were included in this study as Veterans (N = 350). Federal Veteran offenders reported duration of service in one of three pre-existing categories: less than one year (25%), one to five years (36%), and more than five years (39%). Results presented compare those in the shortest and longest duration categories (those with one to five years of service had rates between the two groups reported). This study relied on administrative data with personal identifiers removed prior to analysis and stored on a secure network with restricted access. It was approved by the Correctional Service of Canada's Executive Committee.

Confined in the Binary: The Colonial (Re)production of (Trans)Gender Normativity in Cases of Trans Imprisonment

“…I argue that challenging the inherently oppressive and colonial logics that underpin the Western gender system will at once pave the way for settler trans and Indigenous freedom. I draw on the concept of Indigenous self-determination as articulated in Indigenous thought, and primarily by Indigenous women (Barker, 2005;Ladner, 2009;Monture, 1995;Palmater, 2013;Sunseri, 2000Sunseri, /2009, to inform my analysis of the potential value, limits, and harms of introducing trans rights into binary colonial prisons in Canada, wherein Indigenous peoples are mass incarcerated (Malakieh, 2020;Zinger, 2021) and make up nearly half of all individuals accommodated under CSC's Interim Policy (MacDonald et al, 2022).…”

“…As I approach these policies, I am attentive to the profile of federally incarcerated people who utilize the Interim Policy, half (47%) of whom are Indigenous (MacDonald et al, 2022). I then query how these policies, grounded in a Western epistemological frame, account for Indigenous trans and Two-Spirit ways of being.…”

“…In a footnote, the authors note that the "other" category, which comprised 17% of the total 99 individuals utilizing the policy, included "gender fluid, gender non-conforming/non-binary, intersex, two-spirited, or unspecified" identities (p. 12). Of all those who indicated an identity other than "trans woman" or "trans man," 41.2% were Indigenous, but no further breakdown is given to inform the reader of how Indigenous peoples described themselves (MacDonald et al, 2022). While trans prison policies purport to recognize gender identity, and provide definitions for different forms of gender identities, CSC's own research on the subject (re)produces a binary Western framework of trans identity that obscures differences, including the sovereign embodiment of Two-Spirit peoples.…”

“…Between December 27, 2017, when the Interim Policy was first introduced, and March 13, 2020, there was a total of 99 people identified by CSC that required gender-based accommodations; most of these individuals were trans women (62%) and half (47%) were Indigenous. Two-thirds (67%) of trans women were placed in men's facilities, while almost all trans men (95%) were held in women's facilities (MacDonald et al, 2022).…”

“…As I noted in Chapter 3, risk assessment tools are premised on racialized gender stereotypes, they individualize needs from the social and structural issues in which they arise, and they misclassify needs as risk factors (Hannah-Moffat, 2006Hannah-Moffat & Shaw, 2001;Martel, Brassard, & Jaccoud, 2011;Shaw, 1991a;Shaw & Hannah-Moffat, 2000). CSC currently applies "male" risk assessment tools to trans women and continues to defer to the Static-99R Coding Rules that are crafted for the purposes of assessing risk (MacDonald et al, 2022) which indicates that "to be considered no longer a male for Static-99R purposes, the individual must not have a penis and have lived for at least two years as a woman" (Phenix et al, 2016, p. 21). These tools will inevitably harm trans people due to their cisnormative design which explicitly assesses risk differently based on genital status.…”