Most Court Records Sent to Federal Prisons Contain Paperwork Errors: Audit Report

A patch is seen on the uniform of a corrections officer in the segregation unit at the Fraser Valley Institution for Women during a media tour, in Abbotsford, B.C., on Oct. 26, 2017. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

Up to 80 percent of court records sent to federal prisons contain paperwork errors, according to an audit report by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC).

Released on March 7, the report said that most Warrant of Committal (WOC) documents the CSC received from courts of various jurisdictions contained typographical errors. WOC is the “sole official document source for the detention and conveyance to a correctional facility,” wrote auditors, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

The report said errors are commonplace in paperwork that keep track of federal inmates’ length of sentence and date of eligibility for parole. They were identified by the agency’s National Manager, Sentence Management (NMSM) tasked with ensuring that sentences and court orders are administered in accordance with the law.

“The NMSM has stated that approximately 75-80% of WOCs contain errors,” said the report, titled “Audit of Sentence Management.”

“These errors or clarification items are reported to NHQ [National Headquarters] when critical. Otherwise, they are not tracked.”

The audit was prompted by the 2017 release of Jarrod Bacon, a convicted drug trafficker and member of the Bacon Brothers crime family of Abbotsford, B.C. Mr. Bacon was accidentally freed while 16 months remained in his sentence. Prison managers blamed a typo in the files.

“It is important that all errors in court documents are being tracked, monitored, and reported regularly to management,” said the CSC auditors. “Frequent reporting will allow management to accurately measure the average amount of time staff spends correcting these errors and in turn, have informed discussions with criminal justice partners to remedy the issue.”

‘Undetected’

The report noted that, after the Bacon incident, sentence management staff are to fully check all inmates’ files within six months of their arrival. “[This is to] ensure that all required documents are maintained in the file and that the sentence structure is accurate,” it said.

A random review, however, found that out of the 3,860 inmate files (from 2019 to 2021) required for audit, over 250 (7 percent) were not completed.

For aggregate sentences of four years or more, a second audit is to be conducted within 12 months prior to release, the report added.

“However, sentence management staff indicated that, aside from the initial required audit, the directive does not include intermediate audits for offenders serving either indeterminate or life sentences,” auditors said.

“This could result in inconsistencies or errors in these files that may go undetected.”

A random review of the 12-month pre-release audits found that 33 percent (224) of the inmate files (669) required for audit in the period of 2019-2021, went incomplete as well.

The auditors stressed the importance of ensuring “sentence structure calculation errors” are detected and corrected in a timely manner.

“This will also reduce CSC exposure to civil liability and the risk of jeopardizing public safety through unlawful release or detention of offenders.”

In addition, the report recommended moving towards “a more electronic-based database” given that “court decisions that have an impact on an offender’s sentence … are not always received in a timely manner.”

“The purpose of sentencing is to protect society,” it said. Avoiding errors in paperwork would help in “separating offenders from society where necessary.”