I believe that parole is a key social rehabilitation measure. Giving someone parole, guidance and supervision in the community ensures the safety of our communities. We can assess the person when they come out of custody and see how they're progressing in the community. If they become disorganized, if they fail to comply with their intervention plan or if they don't commit to their social reintegration, it's always possible to suspend their parole.
Parole helps protect our communities. The statistics speak for themselves. A person granted parole is less likely to reoffend than a person granted statutory release after serving two-thirds of their sentence. A person granted statutory release is less likely to reoffend than a person incarcerated until the end of their sentence.
As a criminologist, the thing that concerns me most for the community isn't the people granted parole. It's the people who remain incarcerated until the very end of their sentence and who, after 10, 12 or 15 years in prison, return to our communities without any form of supervision or guidance. This is a real issue. About 50 or 100 people a year are kept incarcerated in penitentiaries.
When we try to address this issue in the community, we're faced with a void. No one wants to fund these services. The ex-offenders are no longer under the jurisdiction of correctional services, so the correctional services aren't responsible for paying for the services. Public safety isn't responsible for doing so either. Health and social services don't want to fund these types of programs. After 15 years in prison, the ex-offenders must turn to resources for homeless people. That's what concerns me.