CANADA - Sex offender supports on a shoestring

Susan Love & Adina Ilea

Original Article

09/25/2014

By Erin McCracken

The day the doors to David’s prison cell slid open and he was free after spending five and a half years behind bars for sex crimes against children, he was given a one-way ticket to Ottawa and placed on a bus.

Armed only with expired identification, a little cash earned inside prison and two boxes and a bag containing his few possessions, David arrived in the city with limited prospects.

The challenges he faced reintegrating in society were enormous. There would be hurdles in finding a job and stable housing, securing money and proper identification and abiding by strict supervision rules that kicked in upon his release.

“It had been almost six years,” said David, speaking under a pseudonym to protect his identity. “It was overwhelming. Scary, because you’re coming out into society and it’s open, it’s freedom.”

“So it was difficult at first, but eventually you blend into it.”

The key to blending in, in part, proved to be two smiling women who met him at the bus stop as planned, – his first introduction to a surrogate network of friends and family who wanted to help him rebuild his life, and in the process, ensure he would not reoffend.

They are among more than 50 volunteers with Circles of Support and Accountability-Ottawa, one of 20 CoSA programs across Canada through which 500 volunteers are helping nearly 200 high-risk, high-needs sex offenders reintegrate in society after prison.

“At first I didn’t know what to do. I have no social life,” said David. “There was a bit of boredom, a bit of loneliness, but I was able to talk to CoSA about it.”

Each week, he met with his group of four volunteers to talk about his issues, and spent one-on-one time with each of them by going out for coffee, or watching a movie.

They provided him with friendship and support, referring him to services in the city that could help him.

Positive social supports, experts say, combined with sexual-behaviour counselling and treatment, are key to ensuring former offenders such as David do not fall back into their old patterns, leading to more victims.

After almost a year with CoSA, David seemed to be doing well. He had stable housing at a halfway house for ex-inmates and was taking part in a counselling program there. He had found work.

Rest of the story

AUSTRALIA - Support programs challenge community hatred

"It's Madness"

Original Article

This reporter posted the following question under the image on the article: "Is redemption possible for paedophiles?" Well of course it's possible! Not everybody who sexually abuses a child is a pedophile, by definition. Reporters need to stop misusing the terms "sex offender," and "pedophile" as if they mean the same thing, they do not.

03/29/2014

By Daniella Miletic

Barbara pulls a thick stack of handwritten notes from a cloth bag, places them on the table and starts talking in a voice that never rises above the softly conversational. On a warm Melbourne morning in a city cafe, she smiles comfortably but glances discreetly around, not wanting to be overheard. There are few topics, she says, that are more volatile than the one she is here to talk about.

She grips a small clump of her hair, saying it was fear that drained the pigment from these strands the day her husband told her his secret. The day she decided to leave. ''It caused instant menopause. I decided I was going to go,'' she says, and then stops. ''I love him. It's bloody hard.''

Even when pressed, she offers little more detail of that day, of that time, of the crime her husband revealed to her. ''The fact is, I knew he was in a bad place and I suppose my head didn't want to let the suspicions through. But once I knew, I told him what we had to do, and that was to hand himself in.''

Barbara convinced her husband to confess and he went to jail. She chose to stand by him because of her love and her religious faith, she says. If anything else had been wrong with him, if he were schizophrenic, an alcoholic, she knows she would have tried to help him. ''People might hate these men, but God doesn't,'' she says. ''And one of the reasons Jesus got nailed on the cross was for mixing with the wrong kind of people. Back then it was prostitutes and lepers.''

Today, it is paedophiles.

But Barbara believes in redemption. When she was growing up, her father worked in prison reform, helping criminals, mainly men, restart their lives outside prison. Often, he would take them into the family home. ''They would live with us until they got work. They were my friends,'' says Barbara. ''We wouldn't talk about their crimes, most criminals don't want to talk about that, but we often talked about their lives when their lives were good. Their memories.''

Since her husband's release several years ago, Barbara has dedicated her own life to his rehabilitation, learning about paedophilia and its treatments and watching him to make sure he never does anything like it again. She read about a Canadian program that aims to prevent child abuse by creating a friendship group around sex offenders. She felt there were similarities to Alcoholics Anonymous and believed it might work for her husband. Besides, no other treatment program was on offer except a Salvation Army course for drug addiction, which he also took on, because his was an addiction of a kind.

She has been unofficially mimicking the program since he was released, with just her and a counsellor as his support group. For years she has also been campaigning, pleading - with police, politicians, church groups - for help to start a group to make the treatment available for all child sex offenders in Australia once they get out of jail.

Barbara says she had not prepared herself for the hatred, sometimes the violence, she would encounter. ''I am trying to make sense of the monster theory, the rock spider thing,'' she writes in a diary entry almost a decade old. ''I have discovered a wall of suspicion, and an overwhelming resistance to viewing sexual offending as anything but the worse kind of intentional evil …"

''The resistance is so great, that anyone who bears any other kind of message is viewed as naive at best, and plain evil at worst … The experts in this area stay very quiet for they also shrink from the hysterical reactions. Consequently most people do not doubt the monster model, and seem to prefer to believe that either these people are untreatable or that they don't deserve to be treated.''

This is why a treatment program like Circles of Support and Accountability, she says, one that carries the motto ''No More Victims'', can't seem to get off the ground here. ''It's madness,'' she says, shaking her head.

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WI - Circles of Support helps ex-offenders after prison

Original Article

03/22/2014

By CHARLIE MATHEWS

MANITOWOC (AP) - For convicted drug dealer _____ and child sex abuser _____, Circles of Support is a lifesaving program they believe can help prevent them from going back to prison.

"Circles is mentoring for your life guiding you in the right direction," _____, released from prison last April, said after a recent weekly meeting at the Salvation Army of Manitowoc County. It offers the program in partnership with Goodwill North Central Wisconsin.

"If it wasn't for this program and the Salvation Army, I don't know where I'd be or what I'd be doing," said _____, who works several days a week at its pantry on Ninth Street. "My best friends and family are here."

Among them is Lt. Jeff Olson. "When these folks are coming out of prison or jail, they don't have a lot of support," said the Corps officer. "We look to help the whole person ... helping them to find jobs, a place to live, the right friends, reconcile with family ... many have destroyed what should be good relationships."

_____ got teary-eyed when talking with his mentor, Jerry Schubring, that one relationship he's repairing is with one of his three children, a daughter he hadn't seen for years.

"I want to raise my kids to know what dignity and integrity are, to have self-respect and self-love, and, most importantly, to have a life that will endure all adversity," _____, 33, said.

"You can't give up on a person," said Schubring, 72, who knew _____ before he was imprisoned, introducing the ex-offender and daughter to Emanuel United Methodist Church in Two Rivers where they were baptized.

"I stuck with him all the while when he went to prison, accepted his phone calls just about every week," said Schubring, who added he's "gotten hooked" on serving as a mentor with Circles of Support.

"It gives you a lot of pleasure seeing young fellows like _____ try to make a change in their life ... prison is not doing anything for them," said Schubring, an accountant before retiring.

He said _____ is working hard on turning his life around. "It is hard for those with drug problems to stay clean the rest of their life, they re-offend so easy ...we want to keep them stay clean, out of prison," Schubring said.

"To see lives being healed is huge for a mentor," Olson said. "You put in a lot of time with an individual, mentoring them, helping them with action plans and tasks. Seeing them get back to being a viable member of society, as a mentor there is great joy to see that."

Olson said mentors need to not view it as a defeat if participants violate parole and end up back in jail. "We are going to help this person again, not give up on them," he said.

The Manitowoc Salvation Army post began a Prison After Care program seven years ago with the same goals as the Circles of Support programming developed about two years ago with Goodwill Industries, which has a grant from the state Department of Corrections.

Olson said Goodwill has given the Manitowoc group training on how to be good mentors. It can also offer practical help like paying for special work boots if needed, or paying for books if the ex-offender is back in the classroom.

The Manitowoc Circles of Support has some 20 participants with local corrections agents strong supporters, encouraging involvement by parolees. Olson said more mentors are needed to be able to provide one-on-one counseling and support to "help participants stay on the straight and narrow, get their lives back together."

Gina Jensen became a mentor in September. "I get to love people and serve them," said Jensen, a member of Lighthouse Church Family in Two Rivers. "We'd love to have more people who can love the person and overlook the crime."

"Everybody deserves many changes in life," said Kathy Strickland, who attends Faith Church in Manitowoc, and went to the Gulf Coast several times in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as part of disaster relief efforts.

"It is a special gift to serve God ... I have a heart for these people," Strickland said. "Each life has value, it is not up to me to judge."

What would she say to prospective mentors? "You would be so blessed ... you get back more than you give," Strickland said. "Your heart would melt."

Darlene Wellner, a longtime volunteer, said mentors do have to be open and non-judgmental, willing to listen, but that doesn't mean they don't call them out for inappropriate actions.

"You are there to always encourage them, stress that hope is always there and that God is part of this whole thing, too," Wellner said. For those ex-offenders who grew up without a faith life, "it helps them to feel they can have a personal relationship with God and to also understand the values that come with that."

Before retirement, Wellner worked for Lakeshore Community Action Program as youth services director. She welcomes the involvement of lay volunteers with varied backgrounds who can provide links to different resources to help the ex-offender.

Kevin Mueller is the field supervisor in the Department of Corrections office in Manitowoc and Jennifer Zick is one of his probation and parole agents.

He said the ex-offenders may pay more attention to the guidance offered by the volunteers from Circles of Support rather than his-her paid parole officer.

"It is nice to have a group that helps me in my job," Zick said. "They take my people to the Job Center, get a library card."

"I can talk with the mentors, tell them what this guy could benefit from, 'can you help me out,'" Zick said. "We have the same goals, holding that person accountable ... giving them a positive place to go during the week instead of hanging out with friends" who may have been part of a destructive group of acquaintances."

"We need the community's help to do our job," Mueller said. "This program is a perfect example of that collaboration ... has certainly had a positive impact on the community. Manitowoc is a better place because of what Circles of Support has done."

_____, 38, said Circles of Support is helping him feel better about himself. He is trying to find work to help support his son that he said he has custody of, created through the relationship with the underage female that resulted in two years prison time. He was released in October and joined Circles.

"I'm not proud of what I did ... people have to understand that sometimes just because you are a sex offender ... doesn't mean you are the worst of the worst," said _____, who earned a one-year technical diploma in fundamentals of building maintenance and construction while housed at Oshkosh Correctional Institution.

_____ said he is a "great worker," had a couple long-term factory jobs and now just needs a chance to demonstrate his worth.

"When you're not working, you have time on your hands, there is the possibility of re-offending," _____ said.

He said Circles of Support is a critical component of re-entering society. "The mentors provide you with ideas for jobs, ways to talk with employers," _____ said. "They point out your good qualities, are willing to give their time to do that."

_____ has been in out of prison three times for drug offenses and arson. He believes with help from Circles of Support there won't be a fourth time. "This is the best thing that ever happened to me," he said.

CANADA - Offender re-integration program losing funding

Original Article

03/03/2014

By Galen Eagle

UPDATE: Prison service reverses funding cut to sex-offender program

Those who keep a tight watch on sex offenders in Peterborough while providing supports to ensure they don’t re-offend say they’ll no longer be equipped to do their jobs come September.

Dan Haley has been overseeing Peterborough’s Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) for 20 years. It’s a program in which regular citizens, supported by local professionals, volunteer their time to accompany high-risk sex offenders as they re-integrate from prison life back into the community.

Public Safety Canada has been funding the programs in 18 communities across Canada as part of a five-year project, but that funding is set to expire in September.

In Peterborough, that will leave some 17 sex offenders without the supports they have come to depend upon, Haley said.

“This program works and for the federal government to just pull the plug, our communities aren’t safe,” he said. “This means we are going to have sex offenders that have no support. Can you imagine if they had absolutely nobody working with them, no supports, no accountability whatsoever?”

The program in Peterborough has a near perfect record. Haley could only recall a single client who committed a crime while under his watch and no client has ever re-offended sexually in the past 20 years, he said.

It requires a fleet of nearly 100 volunteers, an average of five volunteers per offender, to keep the circles functioning locally. The Parole Board of Canada holds many high-risk sexual offenders beyond their statutory release date to the very last date of their sentence. That means such offenders are typically released back into society without access to follow-up services or support and without the need to abide by any parole conditions.

“We have a 20-year history in working in this field. Our numbers are really good. Nobody has re-offended sexually,” he said.

Combined, the programs across Canada have proven to be highly effective at reducing recidivism rates of high-risk sexual offenders, Haley said.

“It’ll be devastating across the country. This is about keeping our communities safe. As long as we are going to be releasing people into the community, there needs to be checks and balances,” he said.

Haley’s group receives about $91,000 annually in federal funding to run the program, he said.

Public Safety Canada did not respond to a request for an interview but did provide some background information in an email.

The National Crime Prevention Strategy, which funded the Circles of Support and Accountability project, offers programs that are time-limited designed to determine what programs are effective and cost-efficient interventions, Public Safety Canada said.

From the outset, all partners are made aware that funding is time limited, and in order to continue, alternative funding sources would need to be found, Public Safety Canada said.

The Circles of Support and Accountability project began in fall 2009 and is scheduled to end on Sept. 30. Public Safety Canada contributed a total of $7,412,971 to the project which “demonstrates the government’s commitment to preventing crime and making Canadian streets safe,” it stated in the email.

The expiration of the COSA funding comes as the Conservative government promises to get tougher on sexual offenders before the courts.

Justice Minister Peter MacKay tabled a bill in the House of Commons on Wednesday that would toughen mandatory minimum and maximum jail sentences for a range of sexual offences against children, toughen penalties for repeat offenders who breach probation or court orders and require offenders who harm multiple victims to serve prison terms consecutively.

City police Staff Sgt. Lynne Buehler said the loss of Peterborough’s Circles of Support and Accountability would be a huge blow to the community.

“It’s a pretty major loss to our community. They provide an excellent service helping offenders reintegrate into our community and provide them with support that isn’t offered anywhere else,” she said. “They work very closely with us and provide that supervision that is just going to be lost without the funding.”

See Also:

• Community circles help sex offenders break cycle of abuse