As we head into a brand new year, I was curious to look back on the level of reintegration support provided by the Better Life Team and our amazing community over the past year.
One part of Better Life’s responsibility as the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) Pacific Region Faith Community Reintegration Partner (FCRP) is month-end reporting, so I get a regular look at our stats. However, I was still surprised by the number of men and women Better Life has had the privilege of supporting over the course of a whole year.
As you may know, Better Life is often invited into the process of providing reintegration support at one of the nine Correctional Institutions in the Pacific Region (BC and the Yukon), usually within twelve months prior to an individual’s parole hearing. This is followed by another twelve-month period during which the Better Life Team helps with the transition period by reintegrating men and women into their community of faith.
How many men and women? Including both Institutional and Community support:
178 in the Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley/Central BC, plus
30 in Victoria/on Vancouver Island
Providing reintegration support for these 208 individuals equalled 3,532 “reportable” hours of support.
Staggering, isn’t it?
Staggering both that the Better Life Team provided that many hours of support and frankly, that so many hours of support were required for just the portion of individuals who accept Better Life’s support—because all that is just a drop in the bucket when compared to the many men and women that enter parole without any support at all.
What we have found to be true is that healthy reintegration requires support and structure in the context of relationships of trust and accountability.
However, behind the numbers, what strikes me most deeply is that behind a number is a life.
Curiosity begs us ask the question, why commit crimes?
What are the series of events, the life, the experiences that led someone to offend, to break the law?
The answer to that question is very complex and is answered by each individual’s unique story. However, one common denominator is trauma.
What life trauma, and as we are learning, what generational trauma even, has led this individual to commit a crime, or even lead a life of crime?
And most importantly, is there a way to help address and heal the trauma that often underlies an individual’s criminal behaviour?
Again, there is complexity to any answer. However, what we have been discovering is the development of very effective treatments for trauma that, once undergone, can provide an opportunity for healing, growth and consequently, experiencing a new and better life.
One of Better Life’s Board of Directors is a psychotherapist who first exposed the Better Life team to an effective therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy.
In so many respects, EMDR is a therapy that affirms the beliefs of people of faith, specifically the Christian faith, and the understanding that human beings are created in the image of God, fearfully and wonderfully made, in such a way that trauma can have a far-reaching impact in preventing us from experiencing the life that God created us for.
I’m going to allow the experts to finish the story. In this podcast, two women of faith, Dr. Anita Philips, with therapist Kobe Campbell, provide an excellent and encouraging introduction to EMDR therapy.
My hope is that this can be a resource as you support men and women through their experiences of trauma, and potentially, a treatment that can be valuable to you personally.
The podcast can be accessed here.* (*If you’re not on an Apple device, the podcast is by Dr. Anita Phillips (In The Light: The Podcast) titled ‘The Dwelling Place,’ October 21, 2022.)
Your body is a sacred dwelling. Generations of memories are stored within you. Some are beautiful and some really hurt. In this follow up to our Story Time episode we're diving deeper into how generational trauma manifests in our bodies. Guest therapist, Kobe Campbell is our guide on this leg of the healing journey. She's introducing us to the power of EMDR therapy and Dr. Anita is switching things up by putting herself in the client chair to make sure you have the tools you need to dwell in peace and wholeness. Get 20% off your first purchase of any Munk Pack product by visiting Munkpack.com and entering our code ANITA at checkout.
Recently a new friend asked me what I did for a living.
I began to tell him about the vital work of community reintegration. His response? “Good luck with that!”
Frankly, I wasn’t surprised—and perhaps you’ve had similar responses as well.
Hardly a week goes by without national or provincial news about a high-profile offender who has reoffended. Such headlines persuade us there is no hope for a healthy reintegration experience.
Thankfully, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
While the work of reintegration can be very complex, in general, the high-profile cases that capture news headlines are more often than not a result of an offender leaving a correctional institution with no meaningful, comprehensive support.
We know that healthy reintegration becomes possible when we can help offenders into the ‘relational resource centre’ of their church or faith community.
When healthy relationships of trust are established and modelled, when accountability is nurtured, and when resources such as employment, therapy, addiction treatment and housing are made available, a parolee begins to gain one of the invaluable qualities of life: hope.
And what we are discovering is, when a parolee does re-offend, the re-offence is typically less severe than previous offences. Further, that situation becomes an opportunity to focus our relationships and resources more closely on and around the specific challenges that parolee is wrestling with.
Does faith community reintegration work for every offender?
Full disclosure: yes . . . and no.
Yes, because:
Every dimension of support that ‘we’ (the Better Life Team and all the amazing churches and faith communities, mentors, and volunteers) can offer impacts a parolee’s life for the better, and often for eternity.
Just this spring, LS entered parole. Because of the nature of his crime, he couldn’t go back to his former occupation. But LS was willing to begin again at the bottom. He recognized his need for the support of his church community.
Recently, a Better Life Team member and I met with LS. He shared examples of his growing faith and his desire to serve in his church in the area God has gifted him (to give back).
He spoke about Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality, an excellent book by Dr. Henry Cloud that LS’s Better Life reintegration partner had given him before he was released on parole, and how he is applying its principles in his life each day.
He talked about how, while humbly being willing to ‘begin at the bottom,’ he was now being given the opportunity to provide site management and the promise of greater advancement in the future in his new field.
The story of LS’s life is being written, or perhaps ‘rewritten,’ in such a redemptive way.
Another recent example is CM.
On the day of CM’s release, the Better Life reintegration partner, who had been supporting him while he was still inside, and I accompanied him to a church within a close distance from his halfway home.
CM told the pastor his story and the pastor welcomed CM into his community and talked with him about the ways that he could experience meaningful relationships and support at the church. A pathway for healthy reintegration was created for CM to travel on.
So, where does the ‘No’ come in? When doesn’t faith community reintegration work?
Really, the only time faith community reintegration can’t ‘work’ is when there’s no church or faith community available to reintegrate the individual into.
And that, in a nutshell, is the challenge.
Our hope, our prayer, and our commitment as Better Life is to have trained, equipped and supported churches and faith communities throughout the Pacific Region that are ready to welcome and support a parolee through their community reintegration.
We are continually meeting with and providing training for churches and faith communities, but we need so many more.
And, certainly for Christians, our faith compels us directly from the words of Jesus to invest in the ‘least of these.’ (Matthew 25)
On this Giving Tuesday*, I would like to ask you to consider responding in two ways:
First, are you a part of a church or faith community that Better Life could meet with and help train and resource as a welcoming and supportive community for healthy reintegration? Email adam.betterlife@gmail.comto start the conversation.
Your financial contribution will enable Better Life to continue to provide training, resourcing and support to church and faith communities so that their doors are opened and their mentors and volunteers are prepared to provide a life-changing experience for a parolee.
With thanks,
Adam Wiggins
Executive Director
*”GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world. GivingTuesday was founded in 2013 in Canada by CanadaHelps.org, GIV3 and several other founding partners.”—from GivingTuesday.org
Other than the recent forest fire smoke, it’s been beautiful in the Fraser Valley.
As mentioned in a previous update, one of the ongoing challenges that offenders and paroles face is the battle against addiction.
I am no expert in addiction, although I’ve had the privilege to support numerous friends and family through facing the challenges of addiction, but one of the experts who has helped me understand the challenges and treatments of addiction more clearly is Dr. Gabor Maté.
Dr. Maté was very active in caring for patients with significant addiction challenges in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. I find his book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, invaluable. His most recent book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, is also very relevant for the support we provide in reintegration.
While it doesn’t communicate from a ‘faith’ perspective, I believe it can be invaluable in helping all of us understand the vulnerabilities in each of our lives where we are especially susceptible to temptation and weakness.
(Edit for clarity: I just want to take a moment and emphasize that this interview in no way represents Better Life’s endorsement of spiritual or cultural practices discussed in the course of the podcast. My hope is that we could learn from Dr. Maté’s expertise regarding addiction, specifically the discussion of issues of attachment and vulnerability, and the role they play in addiction and recovery.)
I recently attended a commencement ceremony at Kinghaven Treatment Center. One of the men graduating from the program had asked for Better Life support and to be reintegrated into a church community. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, I was blown away!
Four men stood up to share their stories and spoke about the people, the program, and the relationships.
As I listened to men tell about their experiences and friends and family share their words of support, I couldn’t help but think this was a picture of healthy reintegration! This was what every offender desperately needed for healthy reintegration. It was powerful!
And it was a picture of why Better Life and the entire reintegration network is so committed to placing parolees into supportive faith communities where the experience and modelling of healthy relationships, needed resources, and faith practices can have a game-changing/life-changing impact on an offender.
The stories at the ceremony also highlighted that a very high percentage of offenders wrestle with issues of mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and addiction. What may come as a surprise is, far too often, addiction treatment and mental health are left unaddressed as an offender moves from a Correctional Institution to parole.
It’s heartbreaking that, when the challenges of addiction and mental illness are left unaddressed, the probability of reoffending is extremely high, even when we place the affected individual into a faith community.
As these challenges become more obvious to Better Life, we have renewed our commitment to advocating for the men and women we support so that both addiction and mental health needs are taken seriously and addressed. We will continue to advocate for those who are challenged by addiction to go into treatment before they are reintegrated back into the community so that they have the best opportunity to experience a healthy reintegration and become a contributing member of their community.
As we think about the issues of addiction treatment and therapy for mental health issues, we were recently able to send DG to a very specific type of therapy for PTSD. DG’s experience shows how valuable therapy can be for reintegration.
DG writes:
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) has gained in popularity over the past 20 years and is quickly becoming an accepted method of treatment for people experiencing symptoms related to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), or those who have experienced some form of trauma in their past. Rest assured, there is no shame in attempting to resolve something so impactful upon your quality of life.
The treatment is primarily accomplished via ‘talk therapy,’ with the added component of guided eye movement. This serves to ‘reprogram’ how the brain interprets and responds to some of life’s many challenges. This therapy can be quite intense for a person and one would be well-advised to allow time to decompress, post-session. The number of sessions required depends upon the depth of the issue being targeted and one’s receptiveness to the designed therapy.
For my part, while working with a Social Worker some time ago, I raised an issue I was having for discussion. For the longest time, I’d been getting irritated quite frequently—while in my bedroom, awake or asleep—and eventually realized that the sound of my door—any door, being opened or closed—was responsible for eliciting such a strong emotional response. At times, I would feel my entire body tense, becoming hyper-alert. Still others, I would instantaneously become disproportionately angry.
I’ve never doubted that one of the many consequences of serving a lengthy prison sentence is PTSD. Frankly, I am of the opinion that anyone, man or woman, is likely to experience symptoms of PTSD after serving only a year or two behind bars; in some cases, even less! Inexplicably, this issue with doors did not manifest itself fully until I was in the community. Moreover, I have since spoken with a number of CSC staff, who admit to similar psychological and physiological responses.
Though one may think that witnessing violence with some frequency, would be the impetus to symptoms of PTSD, there are numerous less obvious causes which can be equally devastating to the human psyche. Therefore, I would encourage anyone reading this to be open to the possibility of deeper, residual, and unchecked effects of incarceration. At the very least, talk to someone about this. They are likely to bring a more objective view to the situation. Doing nothing about these responses only negatively impacts a person’s quality of life, as well as increases the risk of future problems, which may very well lead back to life in prison. That choice rests with you!
In conclusion, let me add that this is the longest DG has gone without reoffending.
What’s made the difference? As he concludes, That (the) choice rests with you! That’s always, and ultimately, true for each of us. BUT, alongside that choice, when we can provide the people and the resources to welcome and support parolees in the context of a faith community, it truly changes the outcome of a person’s life.
With that in mind, please accept my heartfelt thanks. Thanks for investing in the “least of these,” as Jesus referred to the marginalized in our society. Your investment impacts a life, a community, and ultimately an entire nation!
As you may know, the support that the Better Life Team offers to offenders is managed and funded through something called an “FCRP (Faith Community Reintegration Project) contract.”
Over a year ago that contract term ended and “came up for bid”—in other words, we (and any other interested parties) needed to put in proposals for the contract going forward.
Better Life duly submitted a proposal . . . and waited, and waited, and waited! In fact, we had to submit a second proposal at the end of 2021 because of ambiguous language in the original Request for Proposal (RFP) that invalidated the process. Thankfully, we were able to keep operating without interruption under temporary contract extensions for the duration.
Well…it’s a pleasure for me to announce that Better Life was again awarded the FCRP contract!
The current government contract now extends into the Spring of 2024. This means that we can continue to invest in providing the invaluable support required for healthy reintegration.
We always say at Better Life that our commitment is to support the men and women who are in, and are coming out of, Corrections. However, as a Correctional Service Canada contractor, we have access to the prisons and halfway homes beyond that granted to a purely volunteer-based organization. This has truly been a gift through the pandemic, in particular.
The value of what Better Life does was reinforced to me recently as a brand new parolee, CI, was welcomed into his halfway house in Surrey.
CI’s Better Life Team support chaplain, Glenn, and I visited to be introduced to the new manager of CI’s halfway house and then we drove CI to a nearby church that Better Life has begun a partnership with (we provide the church and its mentors and volunteers with training and support.)
I listened as CI told the pastor his story. A story that includes being released from prison previously, but with no community support. CI had breached the conditions of his parole and was sent back into prison, where he met Glenn—and through Glenn, recognized Jesus, and surrendered his life to Him.
As CI met with the pastor, he talked about the strength that his faith now gives him—but also, how he would not be connecting with this church on his own, or at the very least how much more difficult and intimidating it would be.
Instead, there we all were! CI, the pastor of the church, Glenn and myself talking about the intentional steps that CI can take to experience the strength and support of a church to help him continue to grow in his relationship with Jesus and to experience a very different direction for his life.
I realize that many of you that we connect with through this Better Life Blog are members of faith communities that provide support for parolees. We’re grateful for you!
If your faith community doesn’t yet have access to Better Life’s online training, which we are continuing to develop, please email me at adam.betterlife@gmail.com and I would be happy to provide it for you.
I wish I could have brought each of you to the Christmas celebration hosted by one of our Chilliwack-area team members and his wife.
What was so impactful was that, after an incredible meal, we had a time of sharing. Each of the men who had received Better Life support spoke about how it has been a life-changer for them.
In fact, men were phoning into the event because they wanted to share their stories and express their gratitude for the support they had received.
As I prepare online reintegration training for our faith communities, I recognize how complex the work of reintegration can be. There are many important details that need to be kept in mind.
However, at times, I’m overwhelmed by the simplicity. As I listened to men share stories about how their lives had been impacted through the support of a Better Life team member, what was mentioned most of all was the consistency: “You were there for me.” “You kept showing up.” “Your actions convinced me that you cared and that, because you cared, I mattered.”
As the larger Better Life community, let me say thank you.
I am deeply grateful for your support and for how investing in ‘the least of these’ can make an invaluable difference in supporting offenders to become valued and contributing members of our society.
Thank you for joining us in our mission of “Eradicating Recidivism, one life at a time.”
Merry Christmas and all God’s best to you and yours for 2022!
Adam Wiggins
General Director
Message from the Better Life Integration & Support Society Board of Directors
This has been a challenging year for our Society, yet we have continued to see wonderful results as men and women are being integrated back into our communities successfully.
This success has been due to the staff and volunteers that God has led into this ministry. Everyone has been used mightily in this work.
We would especially like to thank Adam Wiggins, our General Director, who has been inspired in his work with the Society. He took over at a critical time and has led us through some difficult and frustrating times. In spite of these challenges, Better Life has continued to grow in size and impact.
One specific challenge has been the delays in our bid to reacquire our current contract with the Correctional Service of Canada. This contract is our greatest source of funding and also gives us access to the bulk of our contact with inmates in federal custody.
The delay in our bid being assessed has hampered our ability to develop the necessary initiatives to be better equipped and to stabilize our resources into the future. Our existing contract was extended time and time again with no increase in our revenue and with no indication of the final decision. We recently were notified that no one was awarded the contract and that another submission will be required.
Please pray that the new bid, currently being prepared, will be successful and that our resources will continue to grow.
To all our staff and volunteers, may God bless you and your families. Thank you for your dedication and efforts in assisting the marginalized groups we support.
Merry Christmas and may you have a Happy and Rewarding New Year.
Today we’re bringing you the remarkable first chapter of Astrid’s story, written six years into her reintegration process in Germany:
Getting released from Fraser Valley Institution for Women almost six years ago felt like kind of being reborn.
Being on the inside, I never felt I had been held captive in darkness and now was going to see and be blinded by the light, not at all. I had just simply gotten used to this artificial security. After 12 years, inside became a safe place. I had found solace in knowing the ropes.
This truth was revealed one morning, in my ninth year, when my superficial greeting of “How are you?” to another woman got a sarcastic, “Oh couldn’t be better, I am living my dream!” in response.
Sure, no one finding themselves inside the barbwire is living their dream, but to me, at that moment in time, it felt I was.
How could that be? I had found what I couldn’t in this big wide world outside of the fence; a place I felt secure, a place that did feel like home. Inside, away from the luring haste of life, I came to moments of being home in this temple, my body, in which God lives.
Meeting the parole board in September 2015, I had the chance of release—and with release, a ticket to freedom to a country I had not lived in almost 20 years, where I would not be supervised by any governmental body.
I was not anticipating this day with joy and excitement, but rather with fear. Fear of giving up my safe place. Life on the inside for the past 12 years had come easy to me, ever since the first serious advice from the Institutional Parole Officer: “You are not here to make friends!”
As a woman in her mid-thirties with a past of broken and troubled relationships, not knowing what a healthy relationship was or could feel like, I was only relieved not to have to engage in any of it anymore. This was the first big relief. Keeping to myself made flying under the radar in jail easy and not having to be with others left time for me to be with me.
Prior to committing murder, I led a highly functional lifestyle. I was drug and alcohol-free, but unaware of having been caught up in the addiction of codependency and busyness to avoid being human.
Being far away from God and myself led me to go astray not only spiritually, but also emotionally and mentally. I ended up spiralling in a vicious cycle of taking flight in suicidal thoughts that ended in committing murder. A truth so hurtful and so shameful.
WHY?! This one word, this one question was the only word left to mutter in my heart and my head. Why did I rebel against God? Did I want to prove to God that I was unlovable??
There was no reprieve, nor answers in psychology reports. The “whys” and “how coulds” just echoed inside my head, mingling with labels and confusion.
“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
That first hour inside a dark holding cell, stillness spoke love to me in a whisper so gentle and soothing that I felt held, not by walls I could not see, but by a divine strength. Years later I found out that is the meaning of the name given to me by my parents, Astrid, “divine strength.”
Twelve years later, having been held by God’s grace like a fledgling in a nest, it was too scary to face freedom in a country I had not lived in for twenty years and meet my family who I had hurt. But God made clear it was time to fly and fly towards home.
Facing my family was hard, and after so many years I felt so divided. The longing to belong was greater than ever, but with the pain I had inflicted, I felt our distance had grown and acceptance was unreachable. I knew and felt that they could not be there for me and that I had become a burden. This was nothing new to me. I had felt and known this before. Once again, I had to look out for myself, or so I believed.
As a baby I had been received by a midwife. Now at age 47 I was praying to God for a mid-sister. Grace stepped in a wondrous way into this role—unexpected! Just like God does it—creatively and with perfect timing.
I met Grace in the summer, three months before my parole board hearing. She stepped in as chaplain because our chaplain had gone on vacation. Grace led the worship service for us women inside and she approached me after conducting the service. She recognized my accent, as her husband is German. So, we connected and whenever she came in, we chatted about our experiences living in Germany. She shared her joy in raising three children, then teenagers, in two cultures, while I shared my concerns in returning to a culture I felt detached from and a family past I did not know how to engage in, yet nevertheless needed to mend.
Not only did God provide Grace for me to go home to my home country with (strange coincidence or God’s plan, but we both arrived back in Germany around the same time), but God revealed himself in the welcoming hugs and the gift of home. A dear friend from school and her husband picked me up from the airport and received me back into this society that I feared. They delivered me to the town of Celle, a town I had never lived in; a town of civil servants, home to three courts and one jail for men, but also a town where the Christian restorative ministry of the Schwarze Kreuz (“Black Cross”) had its office.
This ministry had vouched for me in the reintegration process. Making an exception, they offered me their little guest room, the size of the prison cell, helped me with bureaucratic processes, in meeting volunteers, in settling, and they gave me time to make independent steps towards finding my own place and work.
After six months, I found work in the field I had been trained in 25 years earlier. After nine months, I found an apartment in a timbered framed house from the 1600s in the middle of the dainty and ancient town center. Nine months after starting work as a furniture maker in a shop, I felt relieved in getting laid-off. My mental state had deteriorated under ongoing fear and anxiety, making concentrated working impossible. The employment counsellor was kind and patient, realizing I was putting too much pressure on myself with unrealistic expectations.
I was held back from applying for jobs, but he offered me a work program called a “1 Euro Job.” Literally, for each hour of work, I earned one Euro. Since I had not picked up on the negative stigma that this program held, I went for it like a relieved greenhorn and I got sent to the church just around the corner from where I lived. I sought out the sexton of that church and was put to work 20 hours a week in assisting the sexton in cleaning and maintenance work. For two years I was on social assistance working at a 1 Euro Job while growing in Christ and building relationships.
During the years inside, I had not missed much from this free world, but I had missed hearing live music in real life time and space. While hanging out in front of the radio listening to CBC Radio Two, I repeatedly prayed “God, please let me hear music again, real music in the moment of time where it is been created.”
This longing was fulfilled on the second day of my 1 Euro Job. It was early morning prior to the church opening. I was cleaning the empty sanctuary when the music director came in and rehearsed at the large organ hovering above the balcony. There I stood, in awe, with the vacuum cleaner in my hands and tears in my eyes, muttering, “thank you, God, thank you.”
Over the years, people have asked me, “What was the hardest after getting released?” It has been these moments of joyful surprises revealing God has heard me, sees me, and wants me to know he is with me at all times and in all ways. This realization is still hard for me to wrap my heart and soul around.
Another realization that hit me hard was the meaning of counting—being counted. In jail, the “headcount” held the highest meaning for staff and women, thus we all had to abide by its reoccurring importance. For everyone—the counter, as well as the one counted—this was a challenge to accept. I fought it in the strangest internal ways, repeatedly, until this one day when I learned of the saying, “count your blessings.” It has transformed the meaning of the ‘head-count’ for me to that of a blessing. It became a divine act. God himself was counting us worthy. I was counted worthy by God to belong to him.
On my first train ride—common transportation in Germany, both reliable and affordable—I had seated myself in an area for a group of four passengers. To my surprise, a four-year-old boy plopped himself in front of me, looked at me and counted proudly in German, eins, zwei, drei… when into the second digit his mother and older brother joined him and me. There I was, part of a family, joining the child in front of me in counting. He counted out loud to me vigorously, only to interrupt to let me know he could count till one hundred, preparing me for what was to come.
I gave him all my attention, feeling blessed by being counted to and not counted as a number. Those blessed moments made me tear up, and they were the moments I had to process and learn to receive as worthy of.
On the first Sunday after release, I went to the church nearest to my new home, the Schwarze Kreuz. It was Thanksgiving Sunday, and after the pastor released us with a blessing, he invited the congregation to a soup afterwards at a sister church within walking distance. I did ask one woman outside where the lunch would take place, but she was unsure and could only give me the rough direction.
I was not just hungry for food; I was hungrier to find a parish. So, I cycled in the direction the woman had pointed out, trusting I would and could find what I was looking for. Churches in Germany usually come with belfries, so I kept looking for one while cycling. Becoming unsure, I gave up looking and turned away from that direction to find my way back home.
As I cycled by an old, run-down building, I saw people gathered through the windows. Could this be a congregation? I went to the entrance and walked shyly into a slimming crowd. Asking at the counter if I could still drink tea, I was invited to help myself. At an empty table I sat down, and a woman greeted me with warmth and asked if she could sit with me. We chatted and she confirmed the church worshipped together every Sunday at eleven.
This became my church and today this congregation is my spiritual base. Every summer my church goes on a retreat, and at the second retreat I was able to attend, I got baptized.
I am excited to present a book by a long-time friend Better Life staff have had the pleasure to know.
Yves Réal Côté has written his experience of being a ‘lifer’ in Metamorphosis: My path to transformation in collaboration with Criminologist and friend Alana Abramson.
Yves’s story is one of authenticity—the ongoing struggle to experience healthy reintegration, redemption, forgiveness, grace and love.
You can find an overview of his story here:
If you or your loved one has experienced the trauma of crime, or incarceration, or if you support offenders and parolees, I know you will be inspired by Yves’s story!
It is such a tragic story. This young woman had family and community who cared for her, yet they were unaware of her release.
This post isn’t to criticize Correctional Services Canada or any particular Correctional Institution. However, as I read this tragic story, it emphasized for me the incredible contribution community chaplaincy makes.
When an offender is released, they can be walked to the door of the prison, given their belongings and a bus pass, and simply sent on their way, if they have no one waiting to escort them.
Contrast this with the reality that the period following an offender’s release is the most critical in terms of re-offending (rate of recidivism).
Offenders often express that the most stressful time they face isn’t necessarily inside a Corrections Institution. As bleak as it can be, there often develops a rhythm and a pattern to institutionalized life.
What’s most stressful turns out to be the initial weeks and months after release.
Federal Corrections, in particular, involves longer sentence terms, and the world an offender walks out into can seem like a whole new one. Offenders not only have to navigate the complexity of navigating their own finances, dramatically different technology, housing, employment, and relationships, but rejection waits for them at every turn.
Thanks to Google and a deeply connected world of near-instant access to information, the details of their offence are readily available to potential employers, landlords, banks, and other connections.
Rejection, fear, feelings of inadequacy and vulnerability, and this stream of logistical challenges—and potential reconnections with toxic relationships or environments—often push parolees right back into institutionalization.
But what if we change that scenario?
What if, on the day of release, instead of being shown the door, handed a bus ticket or being shipped to a halfway home, there’s a familiar face waiting for them at that door? And that someone—who already has been extending support during incarceration—drives them to their destination? And they engage in the continued conversation about what the parolee can expect, and where their people and places of support will be?
What if the parolee is introduced to a community of faith that they identify with from (before) day one? And they have mentors and places of connection that can provide support as they navigate “a whole new world” full of new or dramatically altered technology, and the need for income and housing, positive relationships, and an environment that supports healthy spiritual practices?
In fact, when we can provide the above ingredients in an individual’s reintegration it is, with no exaggeration, a game-changer—and a life-changer—for that individual.
The most commonly shared statistic is that when parolees are reintegrated into their faith communities upon release, there is an over 70% drop in re-offending.
That’s staggering, isn’t it? That’s good for the individual, the community, the mentors and volunteers (because we’re always learning a lot!), and frankly, the nation!
I am so grateful for all of our churches, faith communities, Better Life community chaplains and volunteers, whose sacrificial investment makes such a life-changing difference for the men and women we serve. Thank you.
If you’d like to find out more about how you can volunteer, or how your church can be involved in the work of reintegration, I would love to hear from you!
In FCRP Part 2, we mentioned that there can be other reintegration pathways better suited to the particular needs of an individual, and when anotherorganization can provide a better match of resources and support, we’re happy to make referrals. For example:
Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA)
CoSA is a unique and innovative community justice initiative for post release support and accountability of offenders in and by the community. CoSA VFV also provides public education programming on how to create safe communities for all.
We care for all those that have been impacted by crime. We regularly visit our community’s correctional institutions, providing faith-based programs. We also engage our Catholic schools and parishes, promoting awareness about social teaching and restorative justice.
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