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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: Maintaining positive relationships with family, friends, and community supports can play an important role during incarceration. Visits can be done in person, by video, or through private family visiting. They help individuals stay connected, support emotional well-being, and prepare them for safe and successful reintegration into our communities. I'm your host, Kirstan Gangon, and welcome to another episode of Prisons Inside Out.
In this episode, we'll hear from an assistant warden, a parole officer, and an offender on CSC’s approach to visits, the types of visits available, and the measures in place to ensure safety, security, and respect for everyone involved. And now here's our conversation with Andrew, an inmate at Springhill Institution, on the importance of visits and staying connected with the community during his incarceration.
Kirstan: Well, welcome to our podcast. We're doing an episode on visits in inside an institution at the Correctional Service of Canada, and I wanted to talk a bit about how visits work and what the different options are.
Andrew: So, the options are you got to book a visit. You can have a visit every six weeks. You're eligible. So, you can bring family. You could bring your parents. You know what I mean? I bring my wife and my daughters, and you stay for stay for three nights. You have your meals, watch movies as a family, stuff like that.
Kirstan: So that's for a private family visit.
Andrew: Yeah.
Kirstan: And if you want to connect with your family outside of that, what can you do?
Andrew: You're on the phone. You're on a payphone. OK. Yeah. And can your family come up and have a visit with you during the day, for example. Yeah. If you're local. I'm local, right? I live an hour from here, so my family visits.
Kirstan: OK.
Andrew: But if you're not from here, you're just stuck on the payphone.
Kirstan: And have you tried video visitation?
Andrew: No. I've done that when I was in the county jail. Yeah, but here's just easier. I have an in person visit once every couple weeks. Family visit. I got lucky with that, right? Not everybody gets them.
Kirstan: OK, so. And it allows you to cook your own meals together and just be normal, right?
Andrew: Yeah. You get a chance to watch your kids grow up while you're here, right? Because it's been a couple years since I've been back home. So I get to do the family stuff, run around the yard. You know, when you're in the visit room, you're limited. You can watch the TV with the kids. But as far as them running around and stuff, it's not, not the same as being home. Yeah.
Kirstan: And how long have you been here at Springhill Institution?
Andrew: I think I've been here almost a year and a half now. Been inside 2 1/2 years total
Kirstan: And it's going OK?
Andrew: Yeah, it's good. The, the highlight of my time here is really the PFVs.
Kirstan: Family visits.
Andrew: Yeah. Yep. Get to see your kids grow up and connect with them.
Kirstan: And why is that connection important while you're here?
Andrew: Just they miss me so much, you know what I mean? I got 2 little girls or seven and four. So they want to have a dad in their life, right. And you know, why is it so important? I mean, if you're a man, you have to take care of your kids, right? And you're in jail, you can't really do anything.
Kirstan: And as you prepare eventually for a release that connection will stay, right.
Andrew: And yeah, it's a plan, right? Everything's a plan. Like my kids are saying, oh, you're going to jump off, jump into the pool when you come home. Yeah, keep planning it, right. Something for them to look forward to. Yeah. We always talk on the phone. My, my youngest is always saying, oh, you're going to make me strawberry cheesecake when you come home because we make it here. We make strawberry cheesecake every time. Yeah, we buy our groceries. You order them in advance. I order lots of junk food for the kids and stuff. Stuff that they're not getting at home all the time. Yeah.
Kirstan: Like a treat.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, lots of treats the whole time. And you have to pay for the groceries yourself. You pay for the groceries. You have money in your account. Your family sends it in. You can order groceries. If you're on a living pod here, you can bring your own groceries.
Kirstan: And what happens if, like, I'm assuming there's specific rules around the visits? Yeah. Can you talk to me a bit about that?
Andrew: It's the same thing as here. You're going to be counted 4 times a day. 7:00, 11:00, 4:30 and 10:00 here to go to the door, come to the attention of the guards, make sure the kids are OK, everything like that. I mean, clean, heavy responsibilities. Same as being home. Yeah. It's just like being on vacation with your family, going to an Airbnb for the weekend. Right.
Kirstan: And what does the house look like?
Andrew: Just a small bungalow. It's got a kids room with bunk beds, toys. You get a master bedroom, bed, TV, another bedroom if you had like another guest with you. Bathroom. You get a real tub, you can have a real bath. You know what I mean? That's been a long time, so. And it's nice to not have to wear your shower sandals in the shower. Cooking your own food. There's a small, like kitchen. The knives aren't locked up on the wall like you'd have them here. You're free. You're free in a bungalow for the weekend. Yeah. Open the door, run around in the grass. There's a fenced in grass for the kids. Some toys or lots of kids toys. Frisbee. We're playing with the little baseball, you know, lots of stuff there.
Kirstan: Is there anything else like here while you're spending your time that you're appreciating in terms of service or programs?
Andrew: I think just I was working in a kitchen job for a year. I was there over a year, and I thought that I was going to be getting out. My parole got pushed off, so I quit the job. I mean, the only thing here is jobs. If you get a good job, you're happy, found the time went by a lot quicker. When you're working especially kitchen job is one of the best jobs you can have.
Kirstan: So what's next? Are you making your plans now for potential release?
Andrew: Yeah, so I have everything written down, I guess my small speech that I prepared about going home. Yeah. So that's in August. Hopefully everything goes good. Just keep visiting with my family every six weeks. And now that it's sunny outside, I'll be outside every day.
Kirstan: Keeping those connections active and keeping yourself active as well.
Andrew: Alright, fresh air. And yeah, I'm on the phone 3 to 4 times a day. Yeah, that adds up. Yep, that helps.
Kirstan: Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today and talking a bit more about how the the visits work. And I wish you luck in in the next steps of your journey. Thank you very much.
Andrew: Thank you.
Kirstan: Next, we'll hear from Alex, an institutional parole officer at Springhill Institution, on the types of visits that are available.
Kirstan: Yeah, so welcome.
Alex: Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
Kirstan: I wanted to ask you a bit about visits for inmates. And do you think those are important?
Alex: Absolutely. I mean, keeping in touch with their community support is an integral part of even when they get, you know, granted their conditional release, right. So make sure to maintaining those contacts within the institution will facilitate once they get out to make sure they have those peer supports once they get out.
Kirstan: So what are the options if someone wants to have visits in the institution? This is medium security at Springhill.
Alex: Yes, I mean there's several ways. I mean the, there's like just the face-to-face visit in like our visitors and correspondence area. There are also our private family visits. I believe we have 3. They're almost like many home styles. So, and I think the well they apply for that and there's a whole process obviously. And the security there's, they look at the security side of things, make sure it's can be approved and then it's approved by the institutional head. PFVs are actually a great opportunity for offenders to obviously get out of their unit and their cell and live cohesively with their peer supports here to prepare for when they get out.
Kirstan: And when you as a parole officer in here in the institution, you meet with offenders, do you see a difference when they're maintaining those relationships with family or, or, or even friends that come and visit?
Alex: Oh, absolutely. Like as I mentioned at the beginning, it's maintaining those supports, their core part of their rehabilitation process and assuring that they have those supports once they get out. You know, it doesn't start once they get out, it starts when they're here, right? So obviously making sure that they maintain the support that they had in the community even before coming here, then facilitate there we do our do we do what we can, right? We try to warn them if we know certain peers are not prosocial or whatever, we try to talk to them and maybe try to distance himself does not associate from them.
But I mean typically as I mentioned, if we're aware that a certain person that wants to come visit, we have concerns or security concerns, then that's taken into consideration come the decision-making process, right.
Kirstan: So, they can be revoked or refused?
Alex: Yes, of course. Yeah, great. Right. Well, thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate you sharing your views on parole officer and visits.
Kirstan: Thank you very much for having and thank you.
Here's our conversation with Ian, an Assistant Warden with the Correctional Service of Canada.
So I just wanted to learn a bit more about visits because I wanted to know more about the different visit options available to inmates. I know we spoke earlier about being able to call family and friends on the phone. The barrier visits, the non barrier visits where somebody can come into the institution and see their loved ones or friends. So are those once a week, every day? How does that one work for the visits?
Ian: They can just book up at the VNC department and schedule a visit. We have our visits here most days throughout the week. But in terms of a normal regular visit, if you want to call it up the VNC area, an assessment would be completed by the case management team. Usually, it's the correctional officer too. that will look at the case and just ensuring that there's no con, you know, no contact order in place or if they're victims or anything like that. And then they would be scheduled for a open visit happened. So, if we think…
Kirstan: And VNC is visitors and correspondence?
Ian: That's correct, yes. And if ever we think that it's not such a good idea that the visit take place because it may set the inmate back, for example.
Kirstan: What happens if we feel that the if there's a risk?
Ian: Everything we do here is basically assess through risk. So, if there's a risk to having the family members come in, then we just don't have the visit and there's an assessment process that's completed. And then we have a VRB visit review board that's held every Thursday. But the correctional manager that oversees the visits and correspondence area, that's kind of the delegate to the warden and they would review the case to determine what risk error, what's the concerns.
And then they could have not have the visit at all. But in terms of visits, it's got to be pretty significant in order for a visit not to happen.
Kirstan: Why is that?
Ian: Because the family is, is a key point in terms of building that family network, the support system for the offender only. It not only helps them here in the institution, managing their time and doing better time to have something to look forward to, but it also assists with their reintegration back to the community. Having that support network to help them assist them when they get back out is a major part.
Kirstan: And do you ever see families that travel a long distance to visit?
Ian: We have some people, offenders here that have family across the country, in particular Ontario. So usually they come here, they're here for four days with the offender and their family. So, and so there's another type of visit that an inmate can apply for a private family visit PFV.
Kirstan: And I know that there's a few houses here, three of them that we accommodate those visits in. What's the process for those?
Ian: So the offender would apply to the correctional officer too, who would do a review of the case. A community assessment would be required to determine the support from the individual that looks at that's looking to come in to ensure that this is a positive relationship and that they're willing to do so under their own accord. And if the and in that case, that assessment is completed, it's overseen by the correctional manager of that officer and then it's presented to the warden for final decision.
So, so you'd look at things like if it's a domestic violence situation or something that could be dangerous for those people attending, like the kids, for example. Again, we always look at the safety and security of the visitors and the family coming in. And we looked at the background, what the offender serving time for and their criminal history to see if there's any issues with family violence, domestic abuse or anything like that that would cause concern putting the offender in a situation in a private family visit with people from the community.
Kirstan: So, let's see, it gets approved and it takes place. What happens there?
Ian: So, once it's approved, then there's some paperwork that's completed because the offender provides the food for the family for the days that they're out in PFV for themselves. So, they have money through either going through school programs or work here at the institution so they can build up their account to purchase food for the number of days they'll be there.
And then once that happens, then the visitors would come through the front entrance of the institution, and they would be processed at the front scanner and they'll be go through the scanner ion scanner. They would swab for any type of drug contact that they may have had contraband. And they would also use the dog handler up there as well to run through and check to see if they have any hits on the visitors that would draw concern to assess any further.
And then once they are processed, they would officers that work in visits and corresponding would bring them to the PFV with the offender. They would bring them up and it would get them situated in the PFV house. And then the counts and all that would be similar to what we do with the general population offenders. They would still account for the offenders. And then at 10:00 when we lock up, then there's an alarm system that sound out there. So, if they were trying to get out open the door, then you alarm would sound up at our MCP.
So they're doing when they do the counts, they have to have a visual and speak to the inmate. OK, just to check make sure everybody's doing well. There's no concerns. Because if say for an example of the spouse said, you know, I don't want to stay any longer, then they we don't we would pull them out of there. We would, we would talk to them and see if they had any information that we wanted to share as to what the concerns were. And then we would send them on our way.
And then so they can cook food together, watch movies with their family. There's a little yard there. So, security measures are maintained and in place. And if ever you need to end the visit, that would happen. That would happen. And then when the PFV is completed, then the officer would go out. We would do a search. We would make sure everything is clear and cleaned up prior to the next visit coming in.
Kirstan: Can an inmates writes to visits be revoked?
Ian: Yeah, if they involve their family or any of their visitors coming in to bring contraband in the institution, then we can assess that they would be referred. Usually, we put them through the VRB, but also the drug strategy program. And then we would they would be assessed by the case management team. And a recommendation would be made to the deputy warden. Would then make a final decision as to whether we would revoke.
Those visits are not OK, but they really have to tie it into the visitor being involved and bringing in contraband.
Kirstan: And to you, what does, what does success look like?
Ian: Success is, you know, an offender coming into the institution and getting involved in making a change for the better, preparing themselves for a life back in the community that's crime free and having a second chance to go out and not return. So, some offenders, we do see that they go out, they come in, get mixed up in a little bit of trouble, they come in and they're gone and you never hear from them again.
Other guys, not so much. They've been around a couple of times, 3 or 4 times. And those individuals, if you look at the type of crimes and sentenced they're serving, it's majority the drug related to subculture.
You know, they're friends. The people they hang with are involved in that same type of behavior. If they are released and go back to the community into that same environment, there's a good chance you're going to get wrapped up in that same activity which will bring them back to us.
Kirstan: Say like for corrections, it takes a village even beyond Correctional Service Canada. It takes communities and partners in those communities and outside organizations that help when offenders are out with that adjustment back in the community and services right, to keep that rehabilitation on course. Well, Ian, thank you so much for your time today and for your insights. Appreciate it.
Ian: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Kirstan: That's all for today's episode. Thanks to Ian, Alex and Andrew for taking the time to talk to us about visits. This has been a production of the Correctional Service of Canada, and I've been your host, Kirstan Gangon. Thanks for listening.