B.C. Crown sought detention at bail hearings for accused 'violent' offenders 28% of the time, data shows

A person in handcuffs is seen in this undated stock image. (Shutterstock)

The BC Prosecution Service released additional data on bail hearings in the province Tuesday, sharing the number of times it sought to keep different types of offenders in custody while they awaited trial.

The manually collected data covers nearly 4,800 bail hearings that occurred between November 2022 and December 2023 and is not exhaustive. The data was recorded during six non-consecutive, two-week periods across the overall time frame, with periods in November and December of 2022 and February, March, May, June, September and December of 2023.

The data is published on the provincial government's website. 

12% of accused 'violent' offenders held in custody

Of the 4,755 bail hearings recorded, 2,355 – or just under half the total – involved alleged violent offences.

The category "violent offences," according to the BCPS, includes "any offence where violence is used, threatened, or attempted," as well as any case in which the accused faces a weapon-related charge.

In those cases, the BCPS sought detention orders for the accused in 663 cases, or about 28 per cent of all alleged violent offences.

The courts granted detention orders in 283 of the cases – roughly 43 per cent of the cases in which an order was sought, and 12 per cent of alleged violent offender cases overall.

Warrants and condition breaches

The percentages were similar for cases that involved alleged breaches of prior release conditions and cases in which the accused had an outstanding warrant.

There were 2,798 cases in the sample – almost 60 per cent of the total – that involved a warrant. That total includes both violent and non-violent offences.

In 541 of those cases – or about 19 per cent of the time – the BCPS sought a detention order for the accused. And on 208 occasions – 38 per cent of the time there was a request and seven per cent of warrant-related cases overall – the courts granted the order.

Likewise, there were 1,386 cases – both violent and non-violent – in which an accused offender came up for a bail hearing after allegedly breaching previously imposed conditions. That's about 29 per cent of the overall sample.

The BCPS sought detention orders in 544 of those cases, approximately 39 per cent of them. Orders were granted in 234 cases, or about 43 per cent of the time the BCPS asked and in 17 per cent of breach-related cases overall.

Combining all three factors – alleged violent offence, outstanding warrant and breach of conditions – yields a sample of 295 bail hearings, or six per cent of the 4,755 BCPS looked at overall.

In these cases, where all three factors were present, the data does not show an increased rate of detention orders sought or granted.

In these 295 cases, the BCPS sought detention orders for 131 of the offenders, about 44 per cent. Judges granted the orders sought on 52 occasions, equating to 40 per cent of the times detention orders were sought or 18 per cent of the 295 cases overall.

Bail reform background

Bail reform has been a political football in B.C. in recent years, with politicians of all parties expressing concern and outrage at crimes allegedly committed by suspects with a history of previous offences.

The B.C. government commissioned former Vancouver police chief Doug LePard and criminologist Dr. Amanda Butler to study the issue of repeat offenders and random violence in 2022.

The pair made 28 recommendations, some of which the province said it would attempt to implement itself, and others of which it incorporated into its pitch to the federal government, which passed a bail reform law that took effect at the start of this year. 

The BCPS released preliminary data on its handling of violent offenders in April 2023. 

At the time, BC United MLA Elenore Sturko – a former police officer – told CTV News Crown counsel was only asking for bail to be denied in about half of cases involving violence and a breach of court conditions.

"Certainly, we would like to see them ask 100 per cent of the time," she said.

The data released this week shows little change in the amount of requests for detention orders the BCPS has been making over time. The rates of requests and granted orders remain fairly consistent throughout the dataset.

Overall, the prosecution service sought detention orders in roughly one-quarter of all 4,755 cases included in the study, and judges ordered detention about 41 per cent of the time they were asked to make such an order.

In the other three-quarters of cases, the BCPS says, prosecutors sought "restrictive bail conditions."

"This could include conditions to protect public safety by restricting or limiting an accused's activities or freedom, but excludes outright detention," the service says in its notes on the data.