The government hasn’t officially released the numbers yet, but the CTF acquired new data ahead of time on the number of inmates accidentally released from provincial institutions.

We also obtained details on how long it has taken to return each accidentally released inmate to provincial institutions over the past four years.

You can see that last year’s (2013/14) total of nine accidentally released inmates was higher than the previous two years. This 'spike' occurred despite the province making changes to address the problem back in 2012/13. The province’s 2012/13 report noted:

“In response to a number of accidental releases of persons in custody, the Minister of Justice directed that a comprehensive, independent review of factors leading to accidental releases be conducted. The review was completed and the recommendations are being implemented.”

Hopefully we see a drop once 2014/15 is complete. In the mean time, here are the numbers:

2010/11: 15
2011/12: 7
2012/13: 6
2013/14: 9
2014/15: 1*

* Note: The 2014/15 fiscal year is just underway, data was only available for the first month of this 12 month period.

In terms of when inmates were returned, you can see (click here for the data) that of the 38 accidentally released inmates over the last four years (plus a month), most were returned to custody with a month; 12 taking more than a month to be returned to custody.

Yet, one lucky inmate got to spend last summer free as a bird; he or she was released April 2, 2013 and wasn’t taken back into custody on September 13, 2013.

So why does the CTF care? A couple reasons:

1) When an inmate is accidentally released, resources are tied up having to recapture that individual. What the total tab is, I don’t know, but given policing and justice costs, we’re likely talking more than a few bucks.

2) There’s a public safety and accountability component. How many mistakenly released inmates committed crimes while out and about? How would you feel if you had to pay to fix a window in your house because it was smashed by an inmate who was supposed to be behind bars?

It’s good to see the numbers are down from 2010/11, but clearly there’s more room for improvement.