“It’s Pure Chaos Every Day”: COVID-19 and the work of Canadian federal institutional parole officers
| Author | Mark Norman,Rosemary Ricciardelli |
| DOI | 10.1177/20662203211056487 |
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
Original Article
European Journal of Probation
2022, Vol. 14(1) 1–20
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/20662203211056487
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejp
“It’s Pure Chaos Every Day”:
COVID-19 and the work of
Canadian federal institutional
parole officers
Mark Norman
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
Rosemary Ricciardelli
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, Canada
Abstract
As the Canadian federal correctional system grappled with the onset of the COVID-19
pandemic, institutional parole officers, who play a central role in prisoners’case man-
agement team, remained essential service providers. Working in uncertain circum-
stances, these correctional workers navigated new and rapidly changing protocols and
risks, while attempting to continue to provide support to those on their caseloads. Based
on semi-structured interviews with 96 institutional parole officers, conducted after
Canada’s“first wave”of COVID-19 infections, we analyze three ways in which their work
was impacted by the pandemic: shifting workloads, routines, and responsibilities; in-
creased workloads due to decarceration (i.e., efforts to reduce the number of incar-
cerated individuals); and the navigation of new forms of risk and uncertainty. This study
advances the understanding of stress and risk in probation and parole work and presents
recommendations to ameliorate the occupational stresses experienced by correctional
workers during and beyond COVID-19.
Keywords
COVID-19, parole, prison, risk, stress
Corresponding author:
Rosemary Ricciardelli, Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Arts Administration
Building, 4th Floor, AA4054 230 Elizabeth Avenue. St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7, Canada.
Email: rricciardell@mun.ca
Introduction
Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) employs over 1200 parole officers, who either
work in one of the 43 federal correctional institutions or at parole offices or residential
facilities in the community (CSC, 2019a). CSC is responsible for the incarceration and
community supervision of individuals given sentences of 2 years or more, while pro-
vincial and territorial correctional systems are responsible for people whose sentences are
a maximum of 2 years less a day. A case management team, assigned to each federal
prisoner, is responsible for developing a correctional plan outlining “treatment and
recommendations for rehabilitation…[and] serves as a basis to monitor the inmate’s
progress throughout their sentence”(CSC, 2019b,Discussion). CSC’s institutional parole
officers (IPOs), typically supervising caseloads of between 24–32 prisoners, play a central
role in developing and monitoring prisoners’progress against their correctional plan.
IPOs hold regular meetings with prisoners on their caseload, help them access programs
that contribute to their correctional plan, work with a community parole officer to develop
a supportive release plan, and ultimately make recommendations to the Parole Board of
Canada about whether or not a prisoner should be released (CSC, 2019b). Most prisoners
can apply for full parole once they have served the earliest of 7 years or one-third of their
sentence (prisoners with life sentences face longer eligibility periods), and may apply for
day parole in advance of their application for full parole. All prisoners, except those with
indeterminate or life sentences, are granted statutory release for the final one-third of their
sentence, unless the Parole Board of Canada issues a detention order to keep the prisoner
incarcerated for the remainder of their sentence (CSC, 2019c). Prisoners may also, in rare
instances such as terminal illness, be granted parole by exception—referring to ex-
traordinary circumstances motivating a need for accelerated parole (Parole Board of
Canada, 2021).
Like other correctional systems around the world, the Canadian federal correctional
system was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 global pandemic, which was de-
clared by the World Health Organization in March, 2020. As of 12 April 2021, 29 federal
correctional institutions had reported outbreaks, 1463 prisoners had tested positive for
COVID-19, and 5 had died (CSC, 2021). As of 23 February 2021, the rate of federal
prisoner infection was higher than 10%, over five times that of the general Canadian
population (Office of the Correctional Investigator, 2021). Further, as of 8 February
2021,140 CSC employees had tested positive for COVID-19 (Public Safety Canada
2021). Within the first month of the pandemic, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety re-
quested that the CSC and Parole Board of Canada “consider early release for some federal
inmates to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 behind bars”(Harris, 2020, para. 1). The
push for decarceration—which can be defined as “alternatives to incarceration, such as
serving sentences in the community rather than in prison, as well as the premature
conclusion of a criminal sentence, and the aggregate reduction in the prison population”
(Ricciardelli et al., 2021, p. 495, p. 495)—was part of a broader global effort to reduce the
impact of COVID-19 among prisoners, particularly those advanced in age, or with
underlying health conditions or other physical vulnerabilities (Burki, 2020). However, in
the Canadian federal system, COVID-19 had minimal impacts on decarceration
2European Journal of Probation 14(1)
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