Corrections in women's institutions

Ever wondered what life is really like inside a federal women’s prison in Canada?

Correctional services for women have been shaped by decades of evolution, beginning with the landmark Creating Choices report in 1990. In fact, the five principles that emerged from this report still guide our interventions with incarcerated women today.

In this episode, we will learn more about the world of correctional services for women through conversations with Denise, an Assistant Warden at Nova Institution for Women, and Vanessa, an incarcerated woman.

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Kirstan: Have you ever wondered what life is really like inside a federal women's prison in Canada? Most of us have only seen it through TV shows like Orange is the New Black, but how close is that to reality? The short answer? It's very different than what we see on TV. Correctional services for women have been shaped by decades of evolution, beginning with the landmark Creating Choices report in 1990. In fact, the five principles that emerged from this report still guide our interventions within incarcerated women today. In this episode, we'll explore that report and learn more about the world of correctional services for women through conversations with an Assistant Warden and an incarcerated woman. I'm your host, Kirstan Gagnon, and welcome to another episode of Prisons Inside / Out.

Kirstan: 35 years ago, women's federal corrections looked very different. Back then, there was only one federal institution for women in the entire country. Women from across Canada were housed there regardless of their background, security level or specific needs. But in 1990, things started to change with the release of Creating Choices, a groundbreaking report that reimagined how women in custody should be supported. A major transformation was building new prisons across the country, designed with a woman-centred approach that focuses on rehabilitation and keeping communities safe. One of those institutions is the Nova Institution for Women based in Nova Scotia. Our team recently met with Denise, the Assistant Warden of Interventions. She's been with the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) for nearly three decades, almost as long as Creating Choices has been around shaping woman's corrections in Canada. Here's her interview.

Kirstan: So welcome, Denise. And so this year marks actually, 30 years, no, 35, right?

Denise: 35 for Creating Choices and 30 for Nova, yeah. We opened October ‘95, and I was here in December ‘96.

Kirstan: How is it unique to supervise or oversee women offenders compared to men?

Denise: The biggest, probably the most unique piece, I guess, would be the infrastructure, right? If you go to a male site, I mean, each site's different, max, medium and minimum. We're multi-level so we do have secure units which would be comparable to most men's institutions, perhaps more like a men's medium, but in our general population, it would be more like a men's minimum. But we have, in general population, medium offenders as well, along with some minimum offenders that don't live outside the fence and they live in a community type setting, seven or eight offenders in a living unit and community-based feeding principles, like they would order weekly groceries and share the groceries amongst themselves. They have more, I would say, free movement about the institution. It's not completely open, everyone is not permitted to move at anytime throughout the day, there are rules and timelines in which they have to be in their houses and reasons for which they're allowed out, but there's no mechanism by which we control that movement per se. So they can exit their house, go to programs, work, school, return home for lunch, go back. So those would be some of the biggest differences, I think.

Kirstan: But it's still a federal prison, so how do we ensure safety at all times?

Denise: Yeah. So I mean, we have mechanisms in place, I mean, we do have a fence, I mean, the most obvious thing I guess would be what's in front of us, right? We have a fence; we have locked doors. We can't just walk into the institution; you can't just walk out. As you came through the institution, you would have seen different doorways and hallways where you had to have a key or swipe card to get through. So there are controlled movement points. There are telephones in different locations. There are telephones in the housing units that the offenders have for emergency calls and staff can make calls from as well when they're in the house. The security staff carry radios and other security equipment for responding to emergencies and then we have personal portable alarms, called PPAs for short, that staff can wear on their person. When they test those alarms, they're recorded on the location where the staff member is. So if there's an emergency, the staff member presses that alarm and staff would respond to that emergency. We have our Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PITS) where there's an officer monitoring cameras, so we have cameras all about the institution and we have alarms and different places that would go off in that in the in the PITS, in that office where the Primary Worker sits. And yeah, so I mean, there's all kinds of security mechanisms. Some of them are very visible and some of them you don't know about, right, that they're around you. I guess the other big change too, the other big difference, I guess that I would note would be with the creation of Creating Choices and then the women's institutions, was the creation of the Primary Worker position. The classification is the same as a Correctional Officer II (CX-02), but the work description is slightly different and the responsibilities are slightly different. And that was sort of the intention behind Creating Choices and the intention was the primary worker was really involved with the offender. Not only is the case management matrix in terms of the responsibilities of a Primary Worker versus CX-02 different, but there is still, like I said, an expectation in terms of their role with the case and the part that they play as part of the case management team. So that's a big difference as well when you talk about men’s versus women's sites.

Kirstan: So, what's Creating Choices?

Denise: Creating Choices was a document that came from the Arbour Report, and it was just about five principles related to women offenders that they wanted incorporated and corrections for women, is essentially the gist. It was intended to, you know, what came out of that was of course, closing Prison for Women and the creation of the five regional institutions, and Creating Choices was sort of the backbone of the creation of those institutions and it was the framework by which staff, you know, when we first came on board the early, the early staff that came on, it provided us with direction on how we were to move forward with the women offenders around those principles.

Kirstan: I want to unpack programs and interventions a little bit to better understand how we would treat different levels of risk in women offenders that could be dangerous and how to make sure that we rehabilitate them.

Denise: Absolutely. There can be misconceptions that, you know, women offenders are not violent. Certainly, I mean, when you look at the population across the country, there are far fewer female federal offenders than men, obviously, so there's a significant difference there. And if you looked at the crimes that are committed by women, often when you get into some of the most serious crimes where you're talking about, you know, life sentences being served, a lot of times there are very… women are incredibly relational, right? Everything's about relationships, the roles that they play, the relationships that they have with people, and sometimes they're crimes or relational as well. So they can be crimes committed against their intimate partner, with their intimate partner and against their children and in those circumstances, often the greatest risk factor is those relationships. So when you remove those relationships from the equation, the risk is actually quite low, right? Or the likelihood of reoffending. So, in terms of generalized type crime, I mean, women are just like male federal offenders, they're serving two years or more. So, it can be anything from a very petty first-time trafficking charge to murder, manslaughter, life sentence, right? Intake assessments are done, unlike the men's institutions that have a regional reception centre where they hold the offenders until the intake is done, most of our new intakes go to general population and from there we do the intake assessment. So, the intake assessment is a combination of staff, a lot of staff within my interventions department are involved in that process, from the intake Parole Officer, the intake Correctional Program Officer, it's a series of assessments, and from there we determine risk and need. And once that determination is made, there are different national correctional program guidelines that dictate where the offender will go in terms of interventions and what's going to be required to reduce risk to get to a place where we can support that offender for her conditional release. And so, there are targets set for areas that you want to address, whether it's associates, substance abuse, personal emotional factors, there's these seven contributing factors that we would assess and determine what interventions would be applied to reduce the risk so that we might look at community release.

Kirstan: In terms of other programming elements or education, we encourage all offenders to learn while they're incarcerated, how would a typical day look if you're trying to juggle all of these programs, interventions and education and visits or other activities?

Denise: Absolutely, yeah, it can be incredibly busy. You're right, if offenders don't have their grade 12, they are required by the Commissioner’s Directive to attend school. That is a requirement in the correctional plan. So yeah, the days can be, it's a lot, it can be a lot to do because the majority of our offenders as well are serving three years or less. So we do start interventions as quickly as possible. Correctional interventions start with the Women's Engagement Program, it's part of the Women Offender Correctional Program design. It's designed for all offenders, it’s twelve sessions, it's about living in a prison, living with people, even if you don't have addiction or gambling or anything like that, it's about living with folks that do and how you can manage in that environment. It's an introduction to what the programs will teach them, so they start that process very early in the sentence. We actually, at Nova, we run that program every six weeks. A lot of offenders are doing multiple things in a day. Correctional programs here, we typically run in the mornings, school, a lot of the offenders, if they don't have grade 12, they're in school in the afternoon. We do afford them the opportunity to attend school even if they have their grade 12. A lot of offenders do educational upgrading, some of them are in community college courses or university courses as well, we're doing a lot of that. And then we have institutional employment, which is a whole other gamut of stuff that we're trying to fill people's time. One of, you know, when you get into correctional programs, one of the high-risk situations for offenders can be unstructured leisure time, right? Having too much free time, unstructured leisure time and another big factor is being unemployed at the time of arrest, right? So there is a real importance in employment and education, absolutely, that should be focused on because it can be a huge protective factor for women when they're in the community.

Kirstan: And for their independence as well I can imagine?

Denise: And independence, and you know, that's the other biggest thing between men and women that not a lot of consideration is given to but, unlike, I mean, we know this just, well, we're sitting here, you and I'm a mom and I'm not sure if you're a mom, but you know, a lot of our offenders are moms, right? And so when they're back in the community, they have their addiction quite often, employment, income, those sorts of things to think about, but a lot of them are thrown back in with their families, where they want to be and they should be, but they have that added responsibility as well. And so if they haven't had any educational upgrading or any real trades or, you know, any skill development, it's going to be incredibly challenging for them to manage all those things on top of the responsibilities of being a mom, right? They're up against a lot of challenges when they get out of here, so our objective is to try to set them up with the strongest plan possible that will give them the greatest likelihood of success in the community despite some of the challenges that they're gonna face along the way, right?

Kirstan: Yeah, and I think I recognize that some of the offenders that come to us, while some may have done some horrible things, some may also be victims.

Denise: Absolutely.

Kirstan: How do we tackle that while we have them in our care and custody?

Denise: We have a trauma-informed approach to correctional programs that, you know, as I said, there is an overrepresentation of mental health and addiction amongst offenders in general, not just women, men as well. The two often come hand-in-hand with the trauma and the mental health and the substance abuse. And so, we don't dwell into a lot of the real roots of the trauma per se, we kind of stay on a surface with that, but we do kind of focus on strategies and protective factors that people can move forward with in their life and try to apply to… and I mean, addiction is just that it's maintenance lifelong, right? So it's how do you set somebody up for that success? A lot of them do have that trauma, like you say, they've been victims, sometimes even victims to some degree in their actual offences. You know what I mean? That was part of the picture that was created, especially if you're getting into co-accused when the co-accused is an intimate partner and stuff, so it's very complicated. It's very layered, unfortunately, in the short window, because it really is a short to know that we have a lot of these offenders in our custody and care, we can't fix all of it, right? And that's never our goal, is to fix all of it, because that's their lived experience and they don't necessarily want it all fixed either, right? So we try to respect that. It's just about how do you make different choices, right? What were the thoughts? What were the feelings? Whether we're talking about dialectical behavior therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, it's all the same thing: you change your thinking, change your feelings, change your behaviors, right? And so you identify the thoughts, the feelings, the behaviors and work on a plan to change those things.

Kirstan: So, in addition to Correctional Service Canada, what role do community supports play in that journey? Like family members, maybe it's not the partner, but maybe it is the children, the extended family, the friends, the community, and then later we'll talk a bit about employer.

Denise: Yeah, I mean, community is a big piece. Unfortunately for some women, when they come to prison, those supports don't necessarily continue during the time that they're here. We see that a lot, that those supports kind of disappear. But then we rely upon our community partners as well. We have a great working relationship with the CAEFS, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, they play a big part at Nova, they always have, and they continue to do so. So we work with them, there are other volunteers, we try to bring in volunteers a lot through our chaplaincy as well that might maintain volunteer working relationships in the community upon release. As you said, employers, and we’ll go there, I mean, that's a key one as well. We try to support, we have the Mother-Child Program in the women's institutions and the Mother-Child Program is a way in which we can keep moms connected to their kids because that's pretty important, and all those relationships can look different depending upon circumstances.

Kirstan: Great, and what about employment? We talked about it a bit earlier in terms of women getting ready to transition back into the community and how important it is to upgrade their education and skills. In terms of meaningful employment, what does that bring somebody in terms of stability in that structure that we offer here and want to see continue?

Denise: I mean, meaningful employment, and that's what we try to focus on here in the institution. I mean, you can give anybody a toilet brush and have them clean a toilet, right? It's not rocket science. But we try to make the work as meaningful as possible. So any opportunity we can have like, over the years, we've done different things like taking our cleaning teams and actually run janitorial maintenance courses, which actually provides certification that they can provide to an employer in the community, right? So it's trying to elaborate upon those sorts of opportunities. Employment brings responsibility, you know, it's getting to work on time, how you get a job, how you keep a job, showing up on time, doing a good job. It's reinforcing all those things. But it's interesting because some of the same deficits that the women offenders may have around employment, you know, we can reinforce in other places besides institutional employment as well. Showing up to program every day and being to program on time and being responsible and coming back to program with your homework complete and things like that. Those are skills that you can transfer into work as well, right? And I mean, institutions have employment needs, we need cleaners, we need people to work in food services to deliver groceries, we need people to work in institutional services to issue canteen. There's all kinds of work for not only our staff, but for offenders to work with our staff, and so the other piece that comes with that is they get to work with our staff hands on as almost like coworkers or you know, as work supervisors, so they get to see role modeling from their work supervisors and they build relationships with the work supervisors that are really invaluable, right?

Kirstan: What are some of the success stories?

Denise: We had for many years Positive Directions, which was the canine program at Nova. We're sort of rebuilding the program and rethinking what we want to do with the program right now, but Positive Directions was huge because what we saw in that was, especially for long term-offenders that were here for significant period of time and it often ended up being our lifers, some of them spent years in that program and they really essentially became, you know, their skill set was almost as strong as the actual instructor, the things that they were able to accomplish in training the dogs. And some of those folks went on to, I know one in particular went on to create her own dog care business, another went on to work for a local company that provides care and training for dogs, so that was a significant one. And then the other thing is we have an MOU that's currently between CORCAN and Dalhousie University, years ago, it was an MOU between what was the Agricultural College and Nova, and it was for horticulture program and we've seen people go through that where they actually get certification from Dalhousie now and then they go out and work in the garden centres or do landscaping and some of those things. When they're really, when they get a significant period of time to study and practice, it has evolved into them having their own business, right? We do a lot of third-party certification as well through CORCAN, so I know there's women currently working in the Nova Scotia area that are working as flaggers, you know, when you go to construction sites and stuff, they're doing that type of work. So all kinds of things, yeah.

Kirstan: And in terms of your experience, would you say there's a recipe or some things that you've done over the years that you think, you know, these ingredients really lead to success in terms of somebody not coming back to our custody?

Denise: Yeah, it's interesting because we’ll often sit as staff together and talk and sometimes it seems like some people keep coming back and keep coming back and we'll have this conversation. But when we really think about it, there's way more people that never come back, but you don't think about them because they don't come back and I think sometimes we focus on the people that come back and the recidivism and stuff and recidivism is actually quite low for offenders and for women offenders.

Kirstan: These stories are really powerful to me because it's about, like you said, humans connecting with humans and trying to make them better people if you can and have an impact. And so, is there anything else that you'd like to share that we didn't touch on?

Denise: No, I don't think so. But it's interesting you just say that because I think that, for me, and I think a lot of staff feel that way, or the staff that I've known, is I feel very fortunate, number one, to have had a career that every job I've done, I've probably done about, I don't know, twelve different jobs, thirteen different jobs in my career, I've actually enjoyed every one of them. And so just like when you just made the comment about, you know, helping them and helping people change and grow, I feel gratitude for having had that career because I feel as though the experiences I've had, they've taught me as well, you know? I think it's reciprocated, I don't think it's a one-way street. I think that when I go home at the end of the day and at the end of a 30-year career, it’s changed me, absolutely, but some people, I think, automatically think that that’s for the negative. You know, yeah, there can be some trauma that can come with that, but if you take care of yourself and you have healthy practices in place and you have a circle that's outside of your work, that's very important to have a circle that doesn't know about what you do and that you don't talk about work all the time, that, I've learned over time, is really important. But I think for the offenders, I've had some really good relationships with offenders where I've walked away over time and feel like I've benefited as much as they have so I value that, I think that's important.

Kirstan: Well, thank you so much for this interview and there your insights. It's phenomenal to understand, like, to get a bit of your perspective today and learn from you as well. Thank you.

Denise: You're welcome.

Kirstan: Next, we hear from Vanessa, an incarcerated woman who has been at Nova Institution for Women for more than seven years. During our conversation, Vanessa shared how she reconnected with her Indigenous culture while incarcerated. She also spoke about the value of women-specific programs, including work opportunities, that helped her prepare for life after prison.

Kirstan: Welcome Vanessa and thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Please tell me a bit about yourself.

Vanessa: I was raised up in Manitoba and my reserve is called Jackhead but in my language it's Kinonjeoshtegon and my traditional name is (traditional name) , in my language. In English, it means “wind woman.”

Kirstan: How long have you been here at Nova Institution for Women?

Vanessa: I've been here for seven and a half years now. So yeah, I'm close to my date, so I'll be out next summer. So yeah, I'm excited.

Kirstan: Yes, so tell me a bit about your journey.

Vanessa: My journey has been going good. I learned a lot, because I lost my cultural growing up right because of my Indian day school I've been in. I couldn't speak my language, couldn't teach my culture, my tradition. So, when I came to Nova, I learned a lot and this is where I started my journey and it really means a lot to me with them being my big support as well. So yeah, it's been going good.

Kirstan: Did you say you were in a residential school?

Vanessa: Indian day school, part of residential, yeah. So it's similar to it, yeah.

Kirstan: Okay, and there was some trauma from that, yes?

Vanessa: Yes, yes.

Kirstan: That contributed to you being here?

Vanessa: Yes, some, yeah.

Kirstan: Well, thanks for sharing that. In terms of, since your incarceration started, and you you've been here for seven years, are there some programs, some interventions that really resonated with you apart from the work with the elder and your spiritual advisors?

Vanessa: Yes, I did Indigenous Women's Moderate Intensity Program, Women's Module Intervention and Woman's Engagement Program. I did those and it really helped me a lot because I didn't know what boundaries were, triggers, warning signs, because I've been in abusive relationships. So, I kind of thought that that was natural because I seen my aunts and my family go through that, so that's why I said it really helped me and my ceremonies and my culture kind of helped me cope with all this and yeah, so I've been healing a lot.

Kirstan: And so have you worked through a plan for yourself over the course of the last years?

Vanessa: Yes, I got so much like especially with my beadwork too and I'm planning upon my release, and that's what I'm planning right now, I'm wanting to buy my own home and I got a lot of working skills cause being incarcerated, I kind of built those skills. I drywall, I paint, I've been fixing up the institutions so they give me a little stuff here and there and I do grounds crew as well, I clean for them, like landscaping and, yeah, so that's what keeps me busy, I kind of grow like, you know, looking after like all the working skills that I have and I want to take that out with for me, for out there.

Kirstan: So tell me a bit about your support system, you talked a bit about that in your in your poem there and your story, but I know that you were talking about release being really close on the horizon there next year and I wanted to talk a bit about support and how and what that looks like you have support here and how are you going to weave that into your plan moving forward?

Vanessa: Well, I got my families, my big support. My daughters and my grandchildren, cause I had eight children, I had seven girls, one boy, I lost a daughter, and I have nine grandchildren, so I got seven grandsons and two granddaughters. So I’m very grateful and gifted, yeah

Kirstan: So are they all far away?

Vanessa: Yeah, they all live in Manitoba.

Kirstan: So how do you stay in contact?

Vanessa: Phone calls. I call them almost every day or every weekend cause they're busy too, right? So I keep in touch with them, yeah. So we have plans, they're excited that I'm close to my release and, yeah, they're my biggest supports. Especially the institution. I have so many big supports here, especially with my elders in the Indigenous Liaison Officer (ILO) and staff and my team.

Kirstan: Well I wish you the best of luck with your release and on the rest of your journey and thanks for sharing a bit about yourself today.

Vanessa: Thank you.

Kirstan: That's all for today's episode. Thanks again to Denise and the Nova Institution for Women staff for helping with these interviews. This has been a production of the Correctional Service of Canada and I've been your host, Kirstan Gagnon. Thanks for listening.