Community

The Forensic Centre is completing a Literature Review on recent research on gang violence reduction strategies, and steps and pathways to successfully leaving gangs to assist STR8 UP with current/future programming and to validate current approaches.  The Centre is also preparing a comprehensive cost analysis of the program.

This Northeast Youth Violence Reduction Partnership (NYVRP) is a five-year project (April 2015 to March 2020) funded by the National Crime Prevention Strategy to develop and evaluate programs and services for high-risk youth in three northeastern Saskatchewan communities, with the aim of reducing youth offending and creating safer communities. Over the past year, the Centre completed a formative evaluation examining the first three years of the NYVRP. In the future, the Centre will conduct process and impact evaluations for this project.

During 2014, the Centre developed and administered the Saskatchewan Crime Survey to examine Saskatchewan residents' perceptions of crime, feelings of safety and fear, and victimization experiences. To provide insight into the dark figure of crime (i.e., the number of crimes that go unreported), the survey also explored whether respondents had reported any crimes experienced to the police and their reasons for not doing so, where applicable. The Saskatchewan Crime Survey was re-administered in 2016 with the help of the Social Sciences Research Laboratories (SSRL) on campus. Both the 2014 and 2016 surveys were partially funded by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police 'F' Division. Data analysis of these surveys is ongoing. 

Funded by Public Safety Canada, the Centre, in collaboration with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, was awarded a contract to conduct a comprehensive review, meta-analysis and meta-synthesis of the available literature on youth violence and youth gang involvement. Collectively the research team brings representation from four Universities: University of Saskatchewan, Carleton University, First Nations University of Canada, and University of Regina, and is comprised of a combination of academics and field personnel, researchers and clinicians, psychologists and social workers, faculty and students. The aim of the project is to identify the factors that are most strongly associated with delinquency, violent activity, and gang involvement among children and youth 6 to 24 years of age. This study has the potential to inform the development and implementation of appropriate and targeted prevention and intervention programs for youth at risk of these outcomes. The comprehensive literature review has been completed, while work on the meta-analysis and meta-synthesis is ongoing.

The project examines the extent to which information and communication technologies can enable small remote Saskatchewan communities to engage in collaborative risk-driven intervention. An action plan for implementing a tech-enabled Hub in Saskatchewan is in development.

Policing

The Missing Persons Project is the inaugural project of the Saskatchewan Police Predictive Analytics Lab (SPPAL). The main purpose of this project is to set the platform for performing data analysis for the notion of missing. In this direction, missing persons are classified into three categories: intentional, unintentional, and forced. Lists of causal factors and consequences of each category are given. Also, to fulfill a complete risk analysis, it is mentioned how to measure the intensity of an incident based on the subject’s whereabouts and situations. The work takes place in the Predictive Analytics Lab in Saskatoon Police Service. One of the Centre's contributions to this project was the development of a program logic model and evaluation framework.

This project involves the analysis of court and correctional data to assess the need for remand. Cleaning data, validating data, and matching data between court and correctional centres are completed. Furthermore, in order to facilitate extracting data from various datasets, an index table was created. The project is currently underway, performing further data mining on existing datasets.

Law, Courts, and the Judicial System

The Ministry of Corrections and Policing is conducting a three-pronged approach to evaluating the performance of its Community Alternatives to Remand (CAR) program –  an evidence-informed and community-based case management service that provides support to Corrections clients awaiting the conclusion of their legal matters. The Ministry’s evaluation framework includes elements of effectiveness, governance, process, stability, and cost.  This Program Delivery/Process Review focuses on the elements of governance, process, and stability, and will examine how these elements contribute to the success of the Community Alternatives to Remand (CAR) program in achieving its goals, which include:

(a) increasing client compliance with legal conditions throughout the program;

(b) increasing the likelihood of the client attending scheduled court appearances throughout the program; and

(c) reducing the likelihood of the client re-offending during the program.

Corrections

This study analyses 15 years of RPC admissions and discharge data to identify the inmate profile; changes to the inmate profile over the 15-year period; the effectiveness of RPC’s psychiatric treatment; and differences in recidivism outcomes by age, ethnicity, diagnosis, and gender.

This project is seeking to establish a framework for patient-oriented research within the Regional Psychiatric Center (RPC) with the goal of conducting at least one pilot project at the outset. It will establish processes to engage the forensic psychiatric patient to contribute to the selection of research topics and outcomes. This will support CIHR’s goal to improve the health outcomes of Canadians using patient engagement as the cornerstone of evidence-informed health care. Involving forensic patients at the RPC unifies the research goals of the University and the Correctional Services of Canada specifically on Indigenous people and public safety. Involving researchers’ participation in selected topics affords the ability to translate key findings from this population to wider correctional populations to improve the wellbeing of offenders and reduce staff injury.

The project mainly includes two parts as follows: 1) studying unique patterns, or in other words, the way offenders complete the LSI-OR; and 2) employing a machine learning approach, such as Naive Bayes classifier, as an alternative to the LSI-OR. Several articles are underway.

This study seeks to screen for dementia in older inmates and identify the extent to which CSC is accommodating older offenders institutionally and in discharge planning. The pilot project is taking place in RPC with the potential to expand the study to CSC facilities in the Prairie Region. This project is partially funded by a Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF) Collaborative Innovation Development Grant (valued at $49,976).

This project consists of an evaluation of the Regional Psychiatric Centre's Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) pilot project, which will assess inmates eligible for release within 12 months for FASD, and implement a treatment plan for all assessed inmates. This process evaluation includes interviews with the FASD pilot team, document review, and case plan monitoring to determine the extent to which treatment recommendations are implemented, pre-/post analysis of inmates’ incident reports, and analysis of the FASD assessment results.