Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Nov 15/99) - In keeping with their mandate to try to heal rather than just house inmates, the Nunavut Department of Justice is doing their best to break the cycle of abuse that has so many offenders trapped.

Heading up that important work, and developing programs that specifically target Inuit offenders, is Baffin Correctional Centre psychologist Dr. Wayne Podmoroff.

Speaking of one of his newest projects, the alternatives to violence program, Podmoroff said his primary goal was to try to help men change the power structures that underlie many of their abusive tendencies.

"The objective and goal is to reduce the incidences, the frequency and the severity of violence perpetrated on women by men," said Podmoroff.

"We eliminate the gender bias and show them how some of their faulty thinking leads to conflicts."

He explained that because society is male-dominated, men may believe that it's OK to control women and children and to use various forms of violence and abuse to express their emotions or to have things done in certain ways.

Podmoroff said program participants start by looking at their own behaviours and communication patterns. This, he said, involved understanding their emotions and finding alternative methods of dealing with the anger that goes along with the desire for control.

"We have to understand the physiology of anger and where anger lies and what happens when we externalize anger and internalize it," he said.

For those men incarcerated because of externalized anger, Podmoroff said they needed to learn how to block their negative thoughts about other people, go into a time-out situation whereby they removed themselves and participated in healthy physical diversions which allowed them to burn off the adrenalin. Podmoroff said the final step was to talk out the incident with a counsellor or an elder.

As for men who internalize anger until it exploded in inappropriate ways and places, Podmoroff said the key to healing could be found by learning to refuse their instincts to shut themselves off with drugs or alcohol. After learning to ignore their tendencies for flight, Podmoroff said they needed the same time-out and talk therapy sessions.

Men falling into both categories are also given the opportunity of attending relationship counselling with their partners alongside the larger group therapy format.

"We have to understand what anger strategy we use and then we develop and learn different ways of dealing with anger," said Podmoroff.

And the success rates are telling. Since its inception four months ago, only one offender has returned to BCC for an assault charge and the act of violence they committed was less severe than their original crime.

Along that same line, the participants have asked they be given homework and have requested that a second session be added to their weekly 90-minute program.