Features

On January 20, 2022, Tam Le, a minimum security offender at Stony Mountain Institution, participated in a virtual Walls to Bridges symposium. Tam was not just an observer of the Zoom symposium, though. He was one of the presenters who discussed a study he had coauthored with university professor Dr. Judith Harris.

Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has over 4,000 volunteers who work directly with offenders to support their rehabilitation and reintegration. Volunteering with CSC has deep historical roots going back to the late 1800s. Volunteers in correctional settings can offer an emotional and humanistic interaction that complement interactions with staff. They connect offenders to the outside world and model pro-social behaviour.

As we celebrate Black History Month, Let’s Talk Express wanted to check in with Maxime-Kalifa Sanou, four years after the story on his athletic achievements and his exemplary discipline was published.

If Heather Finn would have only one tip to give staff working with ethnocultural offenders, it would be to listen.

The Atlantic Region Indigenous Initiatives team, CORCAN, the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) and community partners have come together to develop a bike repair and restoration program that will help support and uplift marginalized individuals in St. John’s, Newfoundland (NL).

The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) benefits from nearly 4000 volunteers, which includes 300 dedicated members of CSC's Citizen Advisory Committees (CACs). CSC is required by legislation to have a CACs at every institution and parole office across the country, who are the “eyes and ears” of their communities. This partnership provides CSC an opportunity to raise community awareness of our mandate as well as build trust and accountability with the public we serve.

This past summer, Canadians were saddened when hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children were discovered at residential schools in western Canada. By September 30, the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, hundreds more had been identified on the grounds of former residential schools in various other regions across Canada. People across the country, including inmates at Pacific Institution, wanted to highlight the importance of honouring the Survivors and recognizing the impact of the residential school system on Indigenous communities and individuals.

Shortly after Anne Marie Joyce first started at Correctional Service Canada (CSC) in 2000, she sent around an email that she later realized offended almost every person who received it. She didn’t understand what had upset them until it was pointed out that her military-style directness was not how people communicate in the public service.

On August 27, a dreamcatcher with a tiny orange beaded shirt in its center was placed at the Kamloops Indian Residential School monument. A note below the dreamcatcher said: ‘Made in honour of the residential schoolchildren who never returned home, by the Pathways Indigenous brothers at CSC Joyceville Minimum Institution.’

The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) is proud to work with thousands of members of the public in various capacities across our organization. They help (CSC) fulfill its mandate by bringing a community perspective to our work and contributing to the successful rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders.

The Rev. Dr. Carol Finlay, a retired educator, has always had a passion for helping others and giving back to the community. In 2008, while searching for life’s purpose, she found herself reaching out to Correctional Service Canada (CSC) Collins Bay Institution in Ontario, to propose a new program: a book club for inmates. Carol got the idea from scholars she met online in London, England who had started book clubs in their local penitentiaries.

Michelle Moore, an Institutional Parole Officer at the Correctional Service of Canada’s Matsqui Institution in Abbotsford, British-Columbia, observed a face-to-face meeting between an inmate, under her supervision, and the mother of the young man he had shot and killed.