General in transferring Mr. Perrault to New
Haven and on any public safety issues arising

from the transfer,”*”

In May 1994, before the release of the Prowse
Report, the temporary absence policy was
amended for youth programs. This move
reflected the increased concern for public
protection in releasing decisions. Discussing
offender risk and public safety, the Prowse
Report stated:

In considering public safety, staff should be
careful not to confuse risk to public safety
with security/non-compliance. For example,
a young person may be a high public safety
risk but a low security/non-compliance risk,
or vice versa. Even though the young person
may be a low security/non-compliance risk,
public safety must be the paramount

consideration. 38

This statement exemplified the problem that
arose in the Perrault case. Evidence supported
the view that Perrault was a low
secutity/non-compliance tisk, despite his failure
to return on a prior temporary absence.
However, sufficient consideration was not
given to the danger Perrault presented to the
public if he were to escape, particularly if he
consumed drugs or alcohol while at large.

The Perrault incident and ensuing Prowse
inquiry made Branch staff more cautious about
releasing inmates on temporary absences.
Youth custody and community staff were
anxious about their personal responsibility. The
pressure was on them to ensure that the right
decisions were made whenever early release was
considered.

Following the Perrault case—and the case of
Jason Gamache that occurred soon after—the
trend to use terminal temporary absences as an
eatly release mechanism was effectively
stopped. Only 16% of early releases were
through terminal TAs in 1994-95. The
ombudsman’s annual report in May 1995
criticized the Branch for this “virtual
elimination” of temporary absences. The
Prowse Commission was blamed for reduced
use of this program. Although there were fewer
temporary absence releases from youth custody,
they were primarily from secure custody.

The Perrault case was influential in terms of the
Branch’s adoption of risk assessment tools,
which provided a more systematic approach to
assessing the risks and needs of an offender.

Policy amendments regarding transfers to
adult centres

Several changes occurred as a result of the
recommendations of the Prowse Report. These
changes went beyond the temporary absence
policy. On April 1994, youth policy regarding
transfers to adult custody was amended to
move decision-making authority to a higher
level.

The amendments specified the regional director
as the person ultimately responsible for the
decision to classify a youth to an adult
cotrectional centte. Prior to this amendment,
there was a lack of clarity regarding who had
the authority to make the decision—the
director of the youth custody centre or director
of the receiving adult custody centre.

37 Section 8, Inquiry Act.
38 Prowse, 1994,

206

Corrections in British Columbia