Full parole and the aboriginal experience: Accounting for the racial discrepancies in release rates

Aboriginal people comprise 2% of Canada's general population, yet they acco unt for approximately 17% of all federal offenders. This over representatio n of aboriginals in corrections has been attributed, in part, to racial dis parities in the granting of full parole. To date, studies of full parole an d aboriginal offenders have been descriptive and controls for other causal factors besides race have not been introduced. The purpose of the present s tudy was to investigate the extent to which race group differences accounte d for differences in the granting of full parole in comparison to factors n ormally considered in evaluating release potential. All male federal offend ers who reached their full parole eligibility date in 1996 (N = 2479) were followed across forts stages of the parole process as provided for by the C orrections and Conditional Release Act. Results indicated that aboriginal o ffenders were significantly less likely to apply for and be granted full pa role as compared to non-aboriginal offenders. Logistic regression analyses, however; found that race group differences did not predict either full par ole application rates or parole board decisions.