Community reintegration.

• Author: Spencer, Keith
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT--after the courtroom door closes

"Lock 'em up and throw away the key." We've all heard that prescription. It's one that makes my wallet twinge. The notion that extended incarceration is the best means of protecting society is short term thinking: the reality is that most sentences expire. Sooner or later, nearly every inmate is going to be back on the street. This is a reality that must be anticipated and planned for.

Readers will be familiar with the pain of imprisonment that inmates experience during incarceration. Less often do we consider the pain of re-entry that attends the return to society. Easy in and hard out sums up correctional system experience. Without disputing the importance of the protection of society as the goal that underlies correctional policy in this country, incarceration is but a short term solution. Indeed, the longer the incarceration, the more difficult the re-entry process and the greater the threat to society. This is frustrating for those who favour the longer imprisonment solution because it often seems to produce unintended and opposite results.

'Parole' is a program that aims to support the reintegration of offenders back into society. Many are surprised to learn that parole in Canada dates back to 1899 and the passage of the Ticket of Leave Act, which was based on the British model and was a form of parole. Canada's first parole officer, Major Archibald of the Salvation Army, commenced his appointment in 1905. (History of Parole in Canada: www.npb-cnlc.gc.ca/about/part1_e.htm)

It is a stretch to suggest that the Ticket of Leave Act was a sophisticated policy initiative, but thinking in the area evolved over time and is now reflected in Canada's 1992 Corrections and Conditional Release Act which suggests that prison can have harmful effects that make it more difficult to integrate inmates back into society.

The Corrections and Conditional Release Act reworks the purpose of federal corrections, arguing that the protection of society is best served by assisting in the rehabilitation of offenders and in their societal reintegration as law abiding citizens through programs delivered both in the institution and in the community. Reintegration itself is a broad correctional ideology stressing the acquisition of legitimate skills by offenders and supervised opportunities for testing, using and refining these skills in the community.

Nearly every federal inmate is released into the community under some form of supervision or another and parole...