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Life after jail The Conservative government's proposed tough-on-crime bill is likely to land more NWT offenders in jail, according to territorial Justice Minister Glen Abernethy, and the territory's jails are at risk of becoming overcrowded. In a four-part series, News/North is taking a closer look at the North's justice system in an attempt to answer the question: why are the jails so full in the first place? Nathalie Hieberg-Harrison Northern News Services Published Monday, December 19, 2011
"You have the plane that flies into the community with the court party, people go to court and the next thing you know some of their people are taken away, and the community doesn't know where they're going, what they're doing when they're gone, and they don't know how or what they've done when they come back," she said.
"It fosters a division, or perhaps an apprehension, between the offender and their community because the community doesn't know if they actually addressed those things that got them into custody and the offender doesn't know how the community feels about them. So we looked at that and said, 'You know what? We can do something more with this.'"
Caudron, now regional manager for probation services in Hay River, said that since then, they have worked to end the repetition of going to court, serving a sentence and going home.
In part, they have succeeded.
"It started out that we had to do something different," she said.
In most corrections facilities in the south, case managers within the jail have very little contact with probation officers in the communities. In most cases, offenders are sentenced, go to jail, take part in programs if they choose and are released. Once out, they will make contact with probation officers, who monitor them from there.
"There is a bit of a disconnect there, and that is one of the things that I thought really needed to get straightened out," Caudron said.
In Fort Providence, Fort Liard, K'atlodeeche First Nation Reserve, Kakisa and Hay River, community reintegration teams have been piloted, with positive results.
Through monthly teleconference calls, offenders, case managers, probation officers and reintegration teams in the offender's home community track their progress and develop a plan for the offender's release.
They also discuss how the offender is doing in custody, what programs they are taking, and try to address two major challenges most people face when released from jail - where to live and where to work.
Community reintegration teams are made up of elders, family members, RCMP officers, social workers and whoever else could help with an offender's success. In communities without them, probation officers still keep close ties with case managers to track an offender's progress when incarcerated.
Caudron said reintegration teams use a "holistic, integrated approach."
"The community encourages them. They hold them accountable for what they have done, and the offender then isn't in jail by themselves, with no contact from their community, with no support, no encouragement," she said.
"That way, when the offender gets out of jail, the community now knows what programs he took, what he learned from them, because they ask him those questions."
She used the example of a case out of Fort Liard, where the community reintegration team identified things the offender needed to work on, held monthly meetings, were updated on the offender's progress and spoke with them on what was working and what wasn't.
"In return, the offender isn't sitting in jail feeling ostracized, and knows that he has support from people in the community," Caudron said.
"It's so the community isn't looking at him when he gets back saying, 'Hmm, I wonder where you went? Are you a different person than the person they took away?'"
Between 2006 and 2011, approximately one out of three people who go through the justice system have reoffended and been sentenced to custody, a conditional sentence or probation.
According to Caudron, of the 12 offenders who have chosen to have a reintegration team, none have reoffended.
"The community members know their people. They know how they grew up, they know the very positive things, some of the shortfalls and some of the challenges. When you come from a small community, everybody knows everybody," she said.
"The offenders are actually asking for them now. It used to be that we would go to them and say, 'What do you think about a reintegration team?' You need to have some support when you go back to the community."
Next edition: News/North takes a closer look at justice committees across the territory and their community-based approach to crime and reconciliation.
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