Listen to Prisons Inside/Out, a podcast from Correctional Service Canada. Follow along as we take you beyond the walls of our institutions, highlighting the important work we do to protect Canadians and change lives every day.
Kirstan: Have you ever wondered how parole works in Canada? What exactly is conditional release and who is responsible for supervising offenders as the transition back into the community? In today's episode, we're exploring exactly that. I'm your host, Kirstan Gagnon, and welcome to another episode of Prisons Inside Out.
Until now, our podcast is focused on the role of the Correctional Service of Canada plays from inside of our federal prisons. We've interviewed correctional officers, wardens and other frontline staff who manage the care and custody of inmates, all from inside the walls.
But did you know that a large part of the Correctional Service of Canada's responsibility falls outside of those walls and inside our communities? To put things in perspective. Last year, there were about 22,000 individuals serving a federal sentence in Canada. Of those, approximately 13,800 were incarcerated in a federal prison and the other 8500 were under community supervision.
As we've explored in previous episodes, offenders make the first steps towards change from within the prison setting. However, if that change is to last, it must continue into the community where most offenders eventually return. Conditional release is far from freedom, but it's a crucial first step into a gradual transition of returning to our communities as law abiding citizens.
But who exactly is responsible for supervising these individuals in the community and ensuring that they don't pose a risk to our safety? That's the job of Community Parole Officers, like today's guest, Dalila.
She often refers to her parole colleagues as the unsung heroes of corrections, as their work is mostly done outside of the spotlight of the Canadian public. But after today's episode, we're hoping to change that.
Kirstan: Well, hi, Dalila, and welcome to Prisons Inside Out.
Dalila: Good afternoon.
Kirstan: Thank you so much for having us here to visit the Ottawa parole office. Tell me a bit about what you do.
Dalila: : So I am a community parole officer, and I work here in the nation's capital. We are the largest parole office in the Ontario region. We're actually the second largest in all of Canada. So we supervise approximately 350 federal offenders, men and women here at the office. And as a Community Parole Officer, I have a caseload of about 20 federal offenders that I supervise. We do have a women's unit, but I don't supervise female offenders. I only supervise male offenders.
Kirstan: And I notice the Correctional Service of Canada mission downstairs in in Inuktitut. Um, so tell me a bit about that.
Dalila: Well, um, Ottawa has the largest Inuit at population outside of the north. So we have a large amount of Inuit offenders that are in the Ottawa area. We also have an Inuit halfway house in the Ottawa area, which is quite unique. It's called Ikaarvik halfway house. So as a result of that, we have approximately 15 to 20 on any given month Inuit offenders that are supervised through the Ottawa Parole office.
Kirstan: And tell me a bit about how you got into this line of work. It's just fascinating.
Dalila: Well, yeah. So my story is, I think, a little bit unique. So I've always really been fascinated with the human mind and what makes people do what they do. So even from a very young girl, I was always interested in Agatha Christie books, and I always loved crime novels. And I was really fascinated about the Correctional Service and the prison system, but also just law enforcement in general. And I really found that, um, I wanted to work in a facet of the criminal justice system where I could have direct contact with people but help people.
So I knew that working within the courts or policing wasn't necessarily going to be my avenue. And I really wanted to work within the prison system. So the two options really often are, you know, correctional officers. But parole officers was really something that really attracted me. And once I found out about careers as a parole officer, I knew that's what I was going to do. So here I am.
Kirstan: That's great. And we have parole officers in federal institutions, and as you do in the community, um, what's the main difference?
Dalila: Well, I've done both. So I started originally in provincial corrections in 2001, in the Ottawa area. In 2006, I joined the Ottawa parole office, and then I got the opportunity to work in a prison. I competed for a job, and I got a chance to work at Collins Bay Penitentiary. So I've always wanted to work in a prison and in Ottawa. The reality is that you'd have to move to Kingston. So I came to Kingston and I worked at Collins Bay, and I was actually the lifers parole officer at Collins Bay. So all the men that I had on my caseload with lifers, so they had just transitioned from a maximum security setting to a medium security setting.
So really my goal was really to help them reintegrate and really see a life for themselves beyond the walls of the institution. And a goal for every lifer is really to work the way down to minimum. And then they're one step closer to community, community life. So that was an amazing experience. And I was a parole officer there for approximately six years. And then I returned to the Ottawa area as a community parole officer. So I've been here since 2016.
Kirstan: Great. And for our listeners who don't know what a lifer is, can you explain that?
Dalila: Sure. A lifer is somebody who is sentenced to a life sentence in Canada. I think that it's a misconception that most people who are serving a life sentence are incarcerated. We have many lifers that are serving time in our community on my case, let alone I have four lifers that are serving a life sentence. So they have completed either 25 years for first degree murder. Um, a few of them were second degree murder. And they have served, you know, minimally ten years incarcerated and have worked their way through the max through medium to minimum and are in the community.
Um, the lifers that I have on my caseload have worked tremendously hard to get to community setting. They have, um, completed their correctional plans. They've completed a significant amount of programming. They've had to work their way down and build trust and demonstrate that they are able to comply with rules, that they're able to work hard and manage their risk factors. So there's an incredible amount of trust that they have been able to build in order to be back in the community.
Kirstan: So lifers that are being supervised in the community from a public safety standpoint, how does that work out?
Dalila: Well, um, you know, lifers have obviously they've they've they've harmed somebody significant. And usually it's in the form of a murder. Not everybody serving a life sentence has killed somebody, but the large majority have have killed somebody. So, um, you know, our number one rule is always public safety and protecting Canadians and protecting our communities. So as a lifer, um, there's a there's a lot of eyes on them, whether it's through parole officers, whether it's through halfway houses, whether it's through law enforcement agencies.
And we always keep in mind victims of crime, that's a huge role in the work that we do. We're always mindful of the victims of of the crimes. And we ensure that the offenders are complying with their risk factors and that they're complying with their risk conditions, ensuring that they're able to reintegrate back into society in a safe way.
Kirstan: You talked a lot about community and partnerships and how important that is. I know that you work very closely with the police. For example, can you talk to me a bit about how important those relationships are with our community partners?
Dalila: Absolutely. Being a parole officer is really being, um, able to manage relationships in a very meaningful and collaborative way. We can't do our work in isolation when we manage offenders. The number one role as a parole officer, I would say, is being able to gather and collect information and assessing and analyzing that information. So we collect information directly from offenders, but we also collect information from a variety of sources, including halfway house staff, program officers, family members, law enforcements, victim groups, community agencies.
So we have to develop a very wide network of collateral contacts in order to manage and supervise the offenders. And the offenders know that, and oftentimes they will share some of their community supports, and then we will follow up with those community supports to ensure that everything is going well and that they're doing what they're supposed to do. I always tell collateral contacts that I want to hear from them when the offender is doing well, but obviously I want to be the first person that they call when there are concerns with that offender as well.
Kirstan: That's great. So let's say an offender is about to be released from a federal institution, and you are going to intake them into the community. Can you describe the process in terms of what planning goes into such a process and the steps?
Dalila: So, um, as a parole officer here in the Ottawa area, I do the majority of the preliminary risk assessments. So as soon as an offender gets a federal sentence, we get paperwork from the court. It's called the warrant of committal. They it gets faxed to our office, and we have five days to go and visit that offender at the local Ottawa jail. So we interviewed that offender, and we collect basic tombstone information for the offender. You know, mental health, suicide, community supports, community contacts, addiction information.
But we also get the offender's version of the offenses. That's really important to get that from the very beginning. And then we're able to kind of paint a picture of that offender before he's transferred to our intake unit. The intake unit in the Ontario region for all federal offenders is Joyceville Institution. So once they are at the local detention centre, they all get put on a bus and they get transferred to Joyceville Institution where we do the comprehensive risk assessment. The offenders are at Joyceville for approximately three months, and during that three months is where we develop the correctional plan.
So what programs does the offender have to take? So hopefully when he's back out in the community they are making better choices. We also determine security classification. So they're either going to be a maximum a medium or a minimum security offender. So we actually plan for the offenders release from the day that they enter our care in custody. So we don't wait till the last minute. We actually plan for their release from the moment that they get out. Um, so part of that is really investing in collaborating with the offender in developing a correctional plan.
We will see what we feel like is is the best approach, but we also encourage the offender to participate in that process. It's extremely important for the offender to buy into what they feel they need in order to have a successful life when they come out, so when they come up with further eligibility dates for their day, parole, full parole eligibility dates, the institutional parole officer will meet with their offender and ask the offender to provide what their parole plan is. That parole plan is then sent to the local community parole office where they are applying to reside.
We have community assessment meetings with our local halfway houses and the halfway house screen, and review each offender that has applied to their halfway house to determine whether or not they can support and meet the security needs of that offender. If that offender is accepted at the local halfway house of their choice, then the community parole officer develops what's called a community strategy. Um, how the office proposes to manage that offender. So we recommend the conditions to the Parole Board, but ultimately it is up to the Parole Board to impose the conditions.
Kirstan: Okay
You talked about buy in, offender buy in, and I want to unpack that a little bit, because earlier we were speaking about the importance of, um, safety in the community and how an offender has a lot to lose if they're in the community and they reoffend. Right. Tell me a bit about that.
Dalila: Um, I think that being a parole officer, it's about building rapport and building trust. A lot of our offenders come into the system not trusting anybody. Um, whether it's from their personal trauma or their family growing up or their experience within the court and the correctional system. And my job, I feel, is really about developing trust in a rapport. And that can be a very big challenge. But it's a challenge that I happily take on because I feel that that is my greatest impact that I can have as a parole officer. Um, many offenders, um, want somebody to just listen to them.
They want to be heard without judgment. And as I said earlier, the best way to manage offenders and ensuring public safety is being able to collect information. So if I'm not able to get an offender to open up, if I'm not able to collect information from that offender or from community supports, it makes my job much more difficult to manage risk. So rapport building and building trust and having that offender buy in to the importance of our relationship from a professional standpoint and knowing that, good or bad, I will always be there and they can always call me um, and my job is really ensuring that they make healthy choices moving forward.
Kirstan: So you have a lot of experience as a parole officer. Um, is there an aha moment for you where you went? This is how I need to build that rapport with, um, offenders in order to be successful.
Dalila: Um, yeah. I mean, there's so many that I can think of. Um. I am a woman of colour, so I grew up in the Ottawa area and I grew up with conflict. I grew up with crime. I grew up with gangs all around me. And many of the men that I have dealt with grew up in very similar circumstances. So I feel like I could really relate to a lot of them. Um, when I was at Collins Bay, I remember one of my life was said to me, "wow, you're the first brown person I have ever seen as a parole officer." And we're talking in 2006.
Right. And that kind of took me aback. Right? And I really felt like, wow. Um, you know, there is a lot of diversity in the institutions, but there isn't necessarily or there wasn't at the time, a whole lot of diversity within frontline staff. So I think it's really important that we have diversity and we have staff that reflect the diversity of Canada. So that was a big aha moment for me. Um, and in the community I find that many offenders, um, they, they can connect with somebody who could just listen to them, and that's really important.
Um, I really take the time to just provide a non-confrontational, non-judgmental approach to the work that I do. Um, it's really about getting that offender to, to open up and so that we can manage risk.
Kirstan: That was really well said. Thank you. Tell me what a typical day looks like for you. Because I know you seem very busy. Your staff is, um, seems very positive and very busy as well. How does how does a typical day look like?
Dalila: Um, well, I always say expect the unexpected and be prepared for the unexpected. There is no typical day. A typical day can consist of on one day report writing, writing reports for the Parole Board. But for today, for instance, I have a new release that's just getting out from the institution. So, um, he's an indigenous offender. So I've connected with our indigenous liaison officer, who's going to come and do the initial interview with me. I've also, you know, connected with the police. We connect with our halfway house partners. We connect with victim agencies.
Um, so that's, you know, that's a normal day, but a normal day most often really comprises of me going out in the community and supervising my caseload. Um, so I supervise about 20 offenders, and the majority of the meetings are in the community. They're not in the parole office. We do meet some offenders in the parole office, but we really want to see offenders where they're at. So, um, it might surprise some, but most of our offenders are, in fact, working. They're working in the community or they're in school or they're actually in training. So we will go and visit offenders at their worksites and really connect with them there.
Um, number one, we don't want them to miss work because, you know, they have jobs and they have priorities. So we often will connect with them during their lunch breaks, or we will find time on the side just to, uh, to do our meetings. But we will also attend their homes, their halfway houses and, um, meet with them there and do our supervision meetings.
Kirstan: And would you help an offender find a job in the community?
Dalila: Absolutely. Yeah. We have an employment counselor that works at the Ottawa Parole office, and we work very closely with John Howard Society, Elizabeth Fry Society, and as well as a number of Indigenous and Inuit organizations in the Ottawa area for job and employment based training and support.
Kirstan:And I think Canadians may be wondering, how many times does a parole officer have contact with an offender to make sure that the public is remaining safe?
Dalila: So offenders are supervised based on their level of risk in need. So we have high risk offenders and we have low risk offenders. I mean, our work is 24/7, so we are always managing that offender. So most offenders are residing in a halfway house, so they will always have eyes on them. And they'll have halfway house workers that are monitoring their sign ins and their sign outs. You know, when they're leaving, where they're going, how long they're leaving with, um, all residences that offenders are going to generally are approved ahead of time. So there's a lot of safety net or safety guards put in place to manage the offenders in the community when they're outside of sort of our peripheral view.
Kirstan: And I know the Correctional Service of Canada has a lot of partners that run these halfway houses where an offender can be placed and, um, they would reside there and potentially get services there, etc.. Tell me a bit about those houses.
Dalila: So in the Ottawa area we have nine halfway houses. We have a woman's halfway house. And we also have an Inuit based halfway house. We also have several halfway houses that specialize with mental health offenders and geriatric offenders. So we we try to place offenders at a halfway house based on their on their needs. That's really important. There's also accessibility issues. As we know, we do have an aging population, and we do have some geriatric offenders who, you know, perhaps are in a wheelchair or motorized scooter or have, you know, physical ailments that require, you know, an individual room, an accessible shower.
So we do have specialized halfway houses, and we really try to send the offenders to the halfway house that meets their needs.
Kirstan: Um, for an offender. Do you hear any feedback about the services offered or the supports?
Dalila: Yeah. Um, I think offenders generally are very apprehensive about being on parole. And people will tell you being on parole has actually it's a lot of work. And sometimes offenders will say that being incarcerated can be easier at times. There's a big responsibility about being on parole. There's a significant level of accountability and people that you need to report to, and that can be overwhelming. But I think, you know, the first three months are generally the hardest time and an offenders release. And once we can get over that anxiety and build that rapport and trust, generally offenders, you know, will do well.
Um, but being on parole is definitely a lot of work. There's a lot of conditions to comply with and, um, the fear of going back to prison.
Kirstan: So what happens if an offender doesn't abide by their release conditions?
Dalila: Well, you know, first and foremost, public safety is always number one. And victim safety is always number one. But on the flip side, we do take taking an offenders liberty away very seriously. It's not a decision that we take very lightly. The reality is, is that we will have offenders that will breach their conditions, and inevitably we have little options but to suspend their release and return them back to custody. But there's other times where we do have to take a very considerate approach and we meet with the offender and we will call them into the office, and we will have a discussion with that offender about what went on.
And we always ask for transparency and honesty, and we really want to get to the root cause of why they breach that condition. Um, if it's an Inuit or Indigenous offender, we will bring the elder or we will bring our Indigenous liaison officer in the room as well. Um, and we will have a conversation about what happened and how we can manage risk if we decide not to issue a warrant and suspend. So there's a lot of factors that go into making a decision to take away somebody's freedom.
Kirstan: And you spoke about having a large quantity of Indigenous offenders, Inuit in particular. Um, do staff, um, speak different languages to be able to assist them better? Yeah.
Dalila: So we do have, um, we have one Indigenous liaison officer here at the office. Um, we we've had elders here work at the office. If we don't have staff that, you know, speak different language, we certainly reach out to our community resources to do that. We do have probably about a third of our staff here that do speak French, and they're in designated bilingual positions, including myself.
Kirstan: Great. Is there a success story that, um, that marks you in your career so far? One that just jumps out?
Dalila: Um, yeah. I always say success is always interesting because, um, success is very relevant to that individual right? There're small victories every day that we do see in the work that we do. But there's also significant milestones that offenders can reach. So, um, you know, success. I've seen, you know, a small victories, but I consider them significant victories. Is someone completing their high school in the community, right. Someone who's, you know, 65 years old who, you know, never, you know, thought that they could back to school and that they could graduate. And then we've supported them and encourage them to go back to, you know, higher education.
And they've completed their high school at the age of 65. That, to me is a huge victory. But, you know, other victories that I've had or successes that I've seen. Um, I had an offender who was convicted of drug trafficking, and he was a real estate agent, and he obviously lost his license. He he got a significant amount of time. And when he came out, like, he never thought he'd be able to get his real estate license back. Um, but he worked really hard, and there was a lot of highs, and there was a lot of lows in his release. Um, and I actually suspended him at one point, and he went back in for about a year.
He came back out and he finally said, you know, I'm really I'm going to get my life back on track. And we really developed a good action plan. He had a timeline, and he had specific items that he knew that he needed to do in order to accomplish those goals. And in the end, he finished his sentence, which was in itself is a success and a victory. Um, but about three years later, um, he called me and he said, "I've gone back to the real estate board, and they're willing to consider looking at my case to see if I can get my license back. I never even thought that they would even consider my case. Would you write me a letter of support?"
So I said, okay, let me have a look. So I ended up writing a letter of support and I said, you know, I'm going to be honest with them. I'm going to tell them, you know, some of the struggles you had, you know, that you were suspended, but also some of the successes that you had on parole. And he said, "absolutely, you know, right. Exactly what happened, because I've been honest with them, and I want you to be honest with them as well." So that's exactly what I did. And a few months ago, he actually called me and told me that they reinstated his license as a real estate agent, despite the fact that he had a prior history of drug trafficking.
So that to me was a huge, huge victory. But I will say, I think some of the biggest successes that I've had is the relationship building that I've had with the offenders I've supervised to have an offender reach their warrant expiry, which is the end of their sentence, and still maintain contact with me. After they finish their sentence, give me a call and say, hey, I'd like to go for coffee. I'm struggling with something, and I want your advice. And you know, I'm always going to say yes. And I always tell people, even when you're done, please keep me in your Rolodex of support systems. I will always be here if I can.
Always reach out to me. Or if somebody is doing really well and they'll call me, you know, a few years later or even ten years later and say, hey, miss, here's a picture of my daughter and my wife, or I bought my my first car, or I bought my first house. That I think is really indicative of the work that we do in terms of building relationships, because they don't have to call us. But if they're still calling their old parole officers, and I think we know we've done something good and that we've had a good impact in their life.
Kirstan: Thanks for sharing those. Uh, it reminded me of, um, someone I spoke to in the Prairie region. He was an Indigenous offender and said, um, thank you for not giving up on me because my journey has taken 27 years. And how different offenders, it just takes a bit longer, um, to get to where they want to be and to set those goals and to achieve them. And so that patience and that steady work really can make a difference. Um, and so I thought, um, that was something that made me reflect upon in terms of, you know, we don't all have the same journey in life, and sometimes we have setbacks.
Kirstan: And, um, you're there as an anchor in a way.
Dalila: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's the most rewarding part. We don't being on the front lines and building those relationships, because at the end of the day, um, a lot of the offenders we work with don't have anybody in their lives that they can trust. But the one consistent thing, sadly, but in some cases, you know, is a good thing is, is the people that they've met through their correctional process and whether it's a correctional officer or an elder or an employment counselor or a parole officer, I would much rather have an offender call me. If they're struggling in the community.
Once they finish their sentence, then go out and commit a crime. Right? If I could be that that voice, that voice of reason or just that ear for them to have someone to listen to...call me as opposed to harming themselves or somebody else.
Kirstan: That's great. So what would you say to someone considering a career in corrections?
Dalila: That's a big question. I often wonder, you know, if my if my kids were to say to me, I'd like to work in a prison. And I remember having that conversation with my parents and they said, are you crazy? You want to work in a prison, like go to law school? And I said, yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but I really think that I could thrive well in this environment. What I will say, it's an extremely challenging environment. It's very heavy. You're dealing with people at oftentimes the worst time in their lives, but it is also extremely rewarding. Um, some of the skills you definitely need to have is being patient, being able to deal with conflict, you know, working in corrections, it's a very conflict based environment.
So you have to be very quick on your feet and managing conflict and emotions and and solving problems. So I actually thrive in a very conflict based environment because I love solving problems, so you definitely have to love what you do. You can't do this job if you don't love what what you do.
Kirstan: I was just wondering about are there principles or ways of working that work for you and how you do your work?
Dalila: Yeah, that's a good question. I think for me, my approach is I always try to do everything with meaningful intention. If I say I'm going to do something, I always follow through. It goes back to that trust and rapport building. Um, so I try to do everything with intention. I'm never going to say that I'm going to do something if I know I can't do it, if I don't have the solution that I'm going to work towards finding a solution and coming back to that offender and following through. So for me, that's that's really what I try to offer. Do everything with meaningful intention.
Kirstan: That's interesting because earlier on you talked about how important it is to those offenders that they can build a trusting relationship with you because in their life, they might not have trust. Trust at many people. And so if you break that trust, it could be very complicated to gain it back.
Dalila: Absolutely. I think, you know, we expect a lot from offenders and we expect when they mess up we expect them to say, yep, own up to your mistakes. If I make a mistake and let me tell you, I make lots of mistakes, I have no problem going back to that person and saying, you know what? I messed up and apologize for what I've done because it's about really reflecting what we expect offenders to do. So if we expect them to own up to a mistake, we should demonstrate that same skill...
Kirstan: Walk the talk.
Dalila: Absolutely. And we do it and that and that increases your ability to to have that strong rapport with that offender.
Kirstan: So is there anything else you'd like to tell our listeners about the work you do?
Dalila: Parole officers are an extremely dedicated, passionate group of individuals. And I think oftentimes when we think about, um, the criminal justice system, we often think about police officers as being the frontline heroes. We often think about, you know, judges and lawyers and, you know, correctional officers. But I do think in many cases, parole officers are often the unsung heroes. So I really want to dedicate this to to all my fellow colleagues and parole officers. We do a tremendous amount of work, and often the work is not recognized, and I hope to be able to shed some light on the amazing career that we have and the meaningful impact we have on the men and women that we work with, and that we their success is our success.
Kirstan: Well, thank you so much, Dalila, for joining me today for the podcast. I learned a lot about your work. And, uh, again, thank you for everything you do.
Dalila: Thank you so much.
Kirstan: This brings us to the final part of today's episode called Common Corrections. Today's Common Correction is all individuals on conditional release live in halfway houses. Well, this isn't always the case as not all individuals on conditional release live in a halfway house. It really depends on the type of release and the offender's level of risk and needs. While the Correctional Service of Canada makes recommendations, the Parole Board of Canada has exclusive authority to grant, deny or revoke parole.
When granting parole, the Parole Board may impose special conditions it considers reasonable and necessary to further manage an offender's risk in the community, like a residency condition which would require the offender to reside in a halfway house. Offenders on day parole must return nightly to a halfway house, unless otherwise authorized by the Parole Board of Canada. Day parole allows an offender to participate in community based activities in preparation for full parole or statutory release.
As mentioned in previous episodes, most offenders, except those serving a life or indeterminate sentence, must be released on statutory release after serving two thirds of their sentence if parole has not already been granted. Statutory release aims to provide offenders with structure and support before the end of their sentence to improve their chances of a successful reintegration. Community accommodations like these help CSC ensure the continued safety of the public, victims, offenders and our staff.
Do you have an idea for the next Common Corrections? What's something you've always wondered about Canada's prison system? Let us know on Facebook or send us an email. We'll leave a link to those in the episode description. That's all for today. A big thank you again to Delilah for taking the time to join us. This has been a production of the Correctional Service of Canada, and I've been your host, Kirstan Gagnon. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.