Deprived of a Fighting Chance.: An Inside Look at Rehabilitation in a Canadian Prison

By Ghi Dean

A teacher combats harassment from correctional officers and jumbles of red tape from a succession of managers while trying to deliver correspondence courses to adults in a maximum security detention centre.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483531311

Book preview

Bembenek

CHAPTER ONE: PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS

Jim Carroll, meanwhile, was contemplating a very different matter. The quiet policeman, who was not usually surprised by the misery human beings could inflict on each other, was stunned by the fact that so many people had known about Maynard’s false testimony, yet no one had tried to do anything for the man who was languishing in prison for a crime he might not have committed.

—Michael Harris, Justice Denied

Jail. Never had I ever considered setting my foot in one. They contained dirty, unpredictable men, tattooed, muscular and stubble-faced, who had broken the law and robbed, hurt or killed innocent people. These brutes were in jail so we good people could forget them. They deserved their punishment and could take it stoically, because they led tough lives and no feelings.

Having spent most of my life in the protected environments of my home and the education system, I knew little about jail that was not stereotyped, out-dated or false. Licence plates and horizontally striped suits with numbers came to mind. Did this transform inmates back into model citizens or evaporate them into thin air? Like most people, I did not know or care. Women in prison did not even come to mind.

Prison reform could not have been further from my mind when, in December of 1990, with a semester free from teaching, I heard about a position in a detention centre, providing correspondence education for adults. I longed for a change from classroom teaching. An experimental position, the job sparked my interest and a dormant sense of adventure. I applied. I could stay as long or as short as I liked. I decided to try it.

At the interview the negatives of working in rehabilitation in maximum security were explained. There was a lot of scope for unpleasantness. It was a real jail. This was not a place for people who were upset by bad language or locked doors. Prisoners were described as sex-starved, foul-mouthed and desperate, although appreciative of visits. The guards were depicted as tunnel-visioned and inflexible, especially where rehabilitation programs and staff were concerned. Staff dynamics were described as polarized: the guards versus the goody-goodies. I was a to be goody-goody.

The Volunteer Coordinator who helped conduct the interview told me that this institution was the worst place in the world to work. I thought my last school had been. I had just spent four-and-a-half years teaching grade 9 French to students who had developed a healthy five-year loathing for that subject and for French teachers. I never went home from those schools. I fled. I was interested in a change.

My first snapshot of prison life: There was a physical to undergo on site, in the male (f.y.i. I am a woman.) health care unit. It was a busy place. I waited, watching prisoners usually euphemised as ‘inmates’ or ‘offenders’ in their locked windowed room. Their body language suggested anger, depression, rebellion, lethargy, boredom and inactivity. As the inmates were escorted one at a time to see the doctor I caught snatches of what was happening. One man needed some teeth pulled. Somebody had an infection. Another man had been hurting himself. Somebody just seemed to be there for attention. Disgusting and pathetic. These people didn’t seem likely to change my antipathy towards prisoners. Staff was hurrying because they wanted the patients back in their living quarters—i.e. units or ranges—before one of the daily counts. A male nurse asked me if I was the new principal.

The nursing staff did not make their count deadline so lunch was served to the waiting inmates. It was Christmas week. Turkey, mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables. Wholesome food on plastic plates. Pre-mixed coffee. The inmates received only spoons from a rack, which was locked with a little padlock. Spoons were counted as they were handed out and again as they were returned. It made sense. This was the real thing. Even spoons could be dangerous.

My turn came and I was probed, prodded and questioned about my overall health. It seemed ominous that this five-minute invasion was necessary because, for my regular teaching position, where one deals with our country's brightest hopes for the future only a TB test had been required.

A few days later, with no qualifications in psychology, criminology or social work other than the experience I had gleaned from teaching and mothering, I signed a contract as an unclassified rehab 2 officer, the contract to be renewed every six months, no job security, no benefits. It didn't matter because I didn't plan to stay more than five months. Those who hired me knew I intended to return to a teaching position. The attitude about the job was so casual. Little seemed to be expected.

They took me to the admitting and discharge area for fingerprinting and a mug shot. As I turned to get a paper towel after washing the ink from my hands, I faced a full-colour picture of a vagina held open by a couple of well manicured fingers. Welcome to jail.

On the first workday the only formality left was for me to take the oath. The Deputy Superintendent was necessary for this and she was not available that day. Nobody seemed to care much. It took him three months. If I had not reminded them it would have been forgotten.

The detention centre had fences, razor wire, cameras and electronic doors, but otherwise was not what I expected. The building and the inmates looked calm, clean and orderly. There were no torture chambers, no dark drippy, rat-infested dungeon, no eerie constant screams emanating from behind the walls. The grey and white uniformed guards (a.k.a. Correctional Officers or COs) were unarmed and carried no whips or clubs.

All the basics seemed to be looked after: for the mind they had a school, a library and now correspondence courses; for the soul there was a chapel and its chaplain and some volunteers; for the body they had the health care unit, a cleaning staff, a laundry for regular clean clothing, a yard for physical exercise and a kitchen. The food was not gourmet dining but looked wholesome, healthy and plentiful. For their safety, the inmates were under constant surveillance by trained unarmed uniformed men and women.

For me it was the opportunity of a lifetime. By default, I had free rein to organize a program to deliver correspondence courses to adult inmates. In spite of the fact that I had to pass through five electronic doors to reach my office I had never felt so liberated in my life. A department unto myself, within the regulations of the institution, I could decide what to do and when.

Another rehab employee showed me my office, a windowless concrete walled broom closet with a desk, a broken typewriter on a triangular shelf in a corner above the desk, two filing cabinets and a storage cabinet with doors. A silent witness to managerial apathy towards what I was to be doing, the room gave clues to its history. There had been no one in the job for eight months. A pile of mail two feet high covered the desk. Boxes, large envelopes and blue binders cluttered the floor. Dust was everywhere. A bookshelf boasted a conglomeration of schoolbooks and two impressive-looking sets of reading cards for literacy training. One filing cabinet contained an accumulation of used Independent Learning Centre (ILC) application forms. An empty box had contained an answering machine.

On the wall there were a fire alarm and a strange set of light switches, one of them sadistically labelled ‘Electric Chair.’ They operated the lights in the adjacent unit. Most importantly, the television sets for the unit around the corner were also turned on and off from that office. A CO told me I had landed in the only room in the detention centre that could not be locked.

The telephone, which I was warned to disconnect and lock away every night, had an outside line and a long distance line. The correctional officers' phones were only for communication inside the building and they would use mine if they could.

There was no chair. The Arts and Crafts instructor next door lent me one of his until one could be bought for me. He warned me to put my name on everything that belonged to me with typewriter correction fluid if I wanted to keep it. Good advice. Why wouldn’t there be thieves in jail?

My location was in a secure part of the building near a unit, an area with cells. This one was used for inmates who would have to go to court the next day, so it was usually quiet and empty until the afternoon, when staff started bringing in those scheduled for court the next morning and those who had returned from court but would have another session the next day. These inmates were taken to their destination early in the morning so they had breakfast before the others. It made sense.

I was very impressed with the overall discipline and the silent, serious, matter-of-fact way that inmates were escorted in the halls. It was a stark contrast to the helter-skelter in the high schools I had worked in for the last six years. Students there don't walk in single or double file any more, even during fire drills when a disciplined evacuation can mean the difference between life and death. Here at the detention centre, society's ‘worst’ were walking in single file, speaking only when spoken to. How did they do it? It looked like a team I wanted to join. The Ministry of Education and Training might learn a few things from the Ministry of Corrections. As it turned out, the reverse was also true.

The first week was easy and pleasant. I kept wondering when it was going to get difficult. There were stresses, but compared to what I had experienced at school, it nothing.

CHAPTER TWO: THEY'LL NEVER DO ANYTHING!

Never deprive someone of hope, it may be all he has.

—Unknown

Although Corrections hired me to deliver a program, they did not expect me to accomplish much. I was willing to be casual about things for about one day. Then watching inmates being escorted in the halls jolted me to the reality of my new job. Some of my clientele would be murderers and rapists. I decided I’d better have a plan. How does one help adults in conflict with the law? How does one get them to want to work? How does a teacher gain their trust and co-operation while maintaining their respect and keeping her own hide safe? What would I respond to if I were in their place?

A little personal brainstorming pointed to five things: absolute honesty, consistency, timely communication, reliability and punctuality. Never make a promise unless you can keep it, and if something happens and you can’t keep your promise, immediately go and explain it yourself. Try to understand the students and to empathize with their situation. Don’t ask what they are accused of. (Some did tell me, but I never asked.) Aim for good experiences to counteract the bad they have had. Let them taste the satisfaction of small successes and build on that. Be sincere. Show compassion. Let them know where they stand. These became my rules to live by.

This book is not being written to persuade anyone that all inmates are unfortunate victims of circumstances. But genetics, family dysfunction, poverty, ignorance and a poor social milieu contribute significantly everyone’s character. The earlier lives of some of my students were so bad that jail was actually an improvement—especially in winter, when it beat a cardboard box on a cold street. The fact that they are being punished for a crime is never forgotten. What is forgotten is that they are incarcerated for rehabilitation. Society expects them to be reformed before they come out.

Understanding the inmates came first. It is hard to fathom what it must be like to be incarcerated. The surroundings are unpleasant: incessant noise, little light, and worse, no privacy. The people wear cheap poorly fitting jeans and flimsy T-shirts. Fear and low self-esteem pervade the day-to-day boredom. With nothing constructive to do they focus on their own miserable state. Their demeanour betrays powerlessness over their fate and a life-or-death jungle-like tension in the unit.

But I could never feel the total experience. I could not imagine what it must be like to wake up on a prison range and not to be able to go home.

Life in jail is hard. The walls are concrete, the decor is chipped paint, on steel bars and furniture. Living quarters, also referred to as units or ranges consist of a large common room with a number of cells along one or two of the walls. Cells have a sink and a toilet, sometimes a writing desk and a stool, all concreted into the floor or the wall. No toilet seat. The bed is a slab of concrete with a cheap kapok mattress on it. Inmates spend most of their daytime hours locked out of their cells in these rooms with steel tables and benches bolted firmly onto the floor. Since cells are not much larger than a bathroom and populated with two, three or even four people, moving around is more comfortable in the larger room. Showers and toilets are in one corner behind a chest-high privacy wall. There are mirrors aimed at the areas more difficult for the guards to see. Absolutely no privacy. Inmates can make calls on one of two telephones and watch television—one set for about thirty people. When they go out for fresh air they go to a walled yard. At night they are locked into their cells. Although they are doing ‘time,’ they cannot watch it. The unit clock is where they can’t see it.

My first Program Administrator had been in his job only a week or so himself when I was hired. He worked hard and was kind and helpful whenever I needed support or information, but he usually left me alone on the job. He gave the impression that people here were trying to do their best. I anticipated becoming an integral part of what looked like a good team.

No one approached me about rules. My primary resource people were my Program Administrator and the Volunteer Co-ordinator, both quite busy. There had to be some restrictions in a maximum-security environment. Common sense helped. During the interview I had been told a lot and almost nothing. The relaxed supervisory style made me feel trusted as I had seldom felt trusted in the school system. I asked a lot of questions. I learned. I thrived.

I was working for two Ministries: Corrections and Education and Training, and had a supervisor in each. The most organized instructions came during a visit from Justin Bolger, my Supervisor from the Education side, who gave me a facilitator's handbook and went over the most important regulations. He warned me to avoid registering inmates in Chemistry, lest an enterprising inmate blow the place up. Good advice.

Briefly, the Independent Learning Centre or ILC is a branch of the Ministry of Education and Training of Ontario. Its mandate is to provide secondary level correspondence courses to adults who wish to further their education but cannot attend a regular school. The prison education system will be further explained in the next chapter.

The volunteer co-ordinator, whose job it was to solicit, interview, brief and assist volunteers to provide programs, took me on her rounds, showed me the general lay-out of the building and advised me how to speak to inmates. When asked for a map she smiled a knowing smile. There were no maps. People were supposed to get lost before they got out. It made ‘jail’ sense.

With the office functionally organized, I cautiously ventured onto the units to sign up students. There was no need to be nervous. It felt good, because when I shouted: Anybody want to take correspondence courses? about six or seven people would head for the door of their living quarters and sign up enthusiastically for something to do.

It was surprisingly easy and pleasant to talk to inmates. They looked normal and reacted politely. It contrasted with the slurs I heard from COs: They just wanna see a different face. ; They haven't seen a woman for ages. ; They won't do anything. ; They're no good. Some tried to tell me the inmates' alleged crimes to squelch my enthusiasm. It worked, but only temporarily.

The first few days, fifteen to thirty people a day registered. To reflect CO commentary, many inmates probably thought nothing was going to happen. For many it never had before. Possibly they were signing up out of curiosity, or just to talk to a woman for a few minutes. Maybe for the pencil, paper, or envelopes that would come with the course. Whatever their motive, all spoke politely and acted sincere. Their expressions revealed gratitude at being registered. And yes, they did enjoy talking to a new face.

People are coming and going all the time in a detention centre. Its main function is to detain people who are waiting for their trials, being tried, or awaiting sentencing. After sentencing they are transferred to a provincial correctional centre if they have to do less than two years and to a federal penitentiary if more. If they appeal they stay.

At school I had always kept meticulous records. As books started to come, I checked who was ‘in’ with the prison register every day. This is a daily list detailing who is in court, who is in the detention centre, who has been transferred or released, where everybody is located in the building and whether the person is a male or a female when the name gives an unhyphenated Canadian no clue. I kept all current applications in a binder.

An Ontario inmate enrolling in a correspondence course makes an agreement with the Ministry of Education and Training, which obliges him to continue it even after leaving us. A procedure to forward the mail is therefore necessary. It became an important part of my daily routine to check who was in court, transferred out or released. I was amazed at how the numbers grew. As fast as they left us new students enrolled. They were eroding the credibility of the negative COs. The job was rapidly becoming less casual on all fronts.

Transfers can be internal or external. Inmates who stay in the facility longer than the average three weeks are routinely transferred from one unit to another so that they do not form relationships strong enough to make friends, enemies, escape plans, or schemes for obtaining contraband. When he is transferred, a CO may not give the inmate the time to get his or her schoolbooks. I learned to follow up on this. Losing books meant that the money and effort invested by the taxpayer were wasted. I was very sensitive to the cost of the program.

Most officers were as sullen as their charges were responsive. Many inmates had likeable personalities. One who stood out in the first month was a short, skinny woman, Katherine X. A regular guest, tough and cynical, she told me more about the nitty gritty of the institution than any of my co-workers. Most of her advice was accurate and funny. She took several courses and always needed more envelopes, pencils and erasers. Notebooks too. With only her thoughts for company a lot of the time she enjoyed composing and copying poems. It's amazing how many poets there are in prison.

She was returned to us several times in the first year. I enjoyed talking to her and we discussed many things except for her background, prostitution. It was my policy not to pry, to give my students a chance to make a good impression, free from the past that had brought them to jail. Ironically this woman who always had advice for me about what I was allowed to give to inmates and what not, never completed a course.

A small shy insecure woman who did work hard was Stacey B. She was the first to complete a course and my first examinee. She passed her Grade 11 Well-Being, one of the ‘Personal Life Management’ courses, returned to her hometown and didn't come back. I called ILC a number of times because she was so anxious to receive her certificate. It came after she had left and I forwarded it to her.

Brad F. took a Family Studies course. At first he seemed to be working sporadically, but his teacher was not marking his lessons promptly and he was waiting to see how he was doing on them before he would continue. One phone call to the teacher straightened out the problem and he completed the first ten lessons, earning a certificate worth half a credit. This small success inspired him to continue with the second half of the course.

Jack L. was a big, gruff looking middle-aged man with an alias. I had to keep track of his real name and his jail name. Although he said he had grade twelve, he signed up for Grade 9 basic Math and asked for help. Jack worked consistently, got a full credit (91%) and started grade 10 in March. He received his last lesson in grade 10 on June 29 and was transferred on July 8. His high marks helped him to feel better about himself.

Eventually I canvassed all the living areas or ranges in both the men's and women's buildings. A number of the inmates had received packages of books and I went around to see how my students were doing. Everybody was very surprised, officers and inmates. Some inmates had lost their pencils; others had just thrown the books in a corner and had done nothing. Some had been moved to another range without being allowed the time to gather their belongings and had lost their books. I took notes: Sam C. needs help with his grade 10 basic Math.

Sam leaned on a mop, reluctantly admitting to needing some help six weeks after getting his books. I tutored him several times and a couple of weeks later his first lesson was returned: 65%. He was ecstatic. He had never passed anything before in his life. Smiling he announced, I almost feel smart.

Our tutoring sessions continued during the next few weeks and Sam's marks nudged their way up. One day he was not interested, but security regulations left us locked up together in a small glassed-in ‘quiet’ room feeling rather awkward. To break the boredom, I suggested we look at the lesson, because I might learn something. It was about keeping track of home finances. He agreed because inmates are encouraged not to disagree with staff and they like visitors.

I did learn something. This man had no idea how to write a cheque, or how to keep track of money. No wonder he was in trouble. As I explained the lesson to him, he became fascinated. Before we knew it, an hour had passed. The second officer required to let us out of the room had returned a long time ago. As I finally left, Sam told me he planned to use this new knowledge when he got out. Two weeks later he went to a correctional centre where he planned to continue his lessons. The last mark I saw for Sam was for lesson five: 80%.

During our sessions we had talked. Sam had problems with money and with drugs. He was now deeply concerned for his family because the electricity and phone were about to be cut off at his house. He had heard about problems his children were having at school and was doing his best to help his wife. This man loved his children and was deeply ashamed of having landed in jail. Both of these were reasons to assume that, with education and some support, this person might be motivated enough to change for the better. Hope helps.

Think about Sam. How hard it must be for him to try to raise his children differently from the way he was brought up when he himself has so very little education. He has to learn how, and do it at the same time, with very little leeway for error. He told me of a three-way phone call he was allowed to have with his children's school to help solve some of his son's problems. He was certainly trying.

On his range, Sam was the ‘boss.’ He became the first inmate spokesman for my program. More inmates on his unit registered. His COs gave him a hard time about it. The experience with Sam made me very proud. Seldom had I felt so useful. I started to think that I could make a very positive contribution here.

The mail brought me an old ILC list one day. It identified all those registered in our correspondence program with my predecessor, who had left eight months earlier. Some of those people were still with us. I looked them up. Gill W. had done 19 out of 20 lessons of a general level Grade 11 English course. That represented a lot of work. Why had she not completed the course? In spite of an alias, I located her in the laundry, operating a steamy ironing machine and continuing methodically as we talked. One of her lessons had gone astray and she assumed that ILC would not give her the exam for that reason. She accepted that kind of vindictiveness without question.

I liked her. She had a name for her legal life and one for her illegal one. Would she write the exam if I got her another copy? Her eyes shone. Sure. I was to keep the names straight. I called ILC. They had mailed her exam but it had been returned. ILC was happy to send another. I informed my client and lent her some books to study. Two weeks later, a bit nervous, Gill wrote the exam earning an 80% average. She started a computer course. Before she left us she had 100% in seven consecutive computer lessons and had started Grade 12 advanced English.

Her next institution did not like ILC courses and discouraged her. She became angry and a discipline problem in their eyes. When, a year and a half later, Gill returned to us because of a court case she was again working hard on her education.

To sum up, within one month it became apparent that although Corrections was