I know a woman…
I know a woman whose husband hit her so hard that he broke all of the bones in her face.
I know a woman who was raped repeatedly by her own father while she was growing up.
I know a woman who lived in a town house where the wall in the living room rotted through so she could see her neighbours but the landlord wouldn’t fix it.
I know a woman who carried her baby for 9 months only to be forced to give her up not knowing if she would be deported.
I know a woman who discovered her husband was sexually abusing their daughter.
All of these women live or have lived in our community but not in a women’s shelter as one would assume after hearing their stories. All of these women have served or are currently serving time at Grand Valley Institution for Women, the federal prison for women here in our Region. Whether or not we like to admit it, we are a prison town. As residents of the Waterloo Region, we are fortunate to house one of the six federal prisons for women in Canada. I say we are fortunate because we have been provided with the unique opportunity to support women like the ones I just described as they go through their journey from being incarcerated to rejoining the community and building a life for themselves.
It is through the dedication of local agencies like Community Justice Initiatives and their Stride program that community volunteers provide much needed support for federally sentenced women. Stride brings community volunteers into the prison every week to do activities such as crafts and sports, growing friendships and showing the women that the community cares about them, even though they have committed a crime. Let me provide you with an example of how we, as residents of this amazing region, can truly make a difference in a woman’s life by doing one very simple thing: caring about her.
Missie, one of the women I just described, started drinking alcohol and doing drugs when she was 12. Her father was very abusive and her mother left them when she was 11. She hung with the wrong crowd and eventually ended up in a relationship and had two children. This relationship was extremely abusive and it got so bad that she turned to drugs. Missie became addicted to crack cocaine. She started selling, got caught for dealing and was sentenced to 3 years in a federal prison.
Missie did her time at Grand Valley Institution for Women. She followed her correctional plan and when the time came, she was released with virtually no support and guidance. She was expected to be “rehabilitated” and know how to manage on her own.
As is often the case, Missie had to spend some time in a halfway house after her prison time. It wasn’t long before she was getting high and hanging out with old friends. Missie felt very judged and alone so it was hard to reach out and make new friends and accept the fact that she needed support. For Missie, it was easier to go back to her old ways because that’s what she knew best. She had never had any positive support when she got out and it made her feel like she wasn’t worth it and nobody cared. Missie was caught for being high at the halfway house and was sent back to prison.
This time, she decided that she was going to seek out support for herself and that is where she discovered the Stride program. Through Stride, Missie cultivated some amazing relationships with volunteers who went into the prison each week to see her. Each week, these three volunteers sat with Missie in the prison and listened to her, shared with her, laughed with her, cried with her. They cared about her.
While Missie was getting ready to leave the prison, these three volunteers helped her plan and prepare. When it was time to leave the prison, Missie’s circle of friends picked her up at the prison and drove her to the halfway house. After completing her halfway house time, Missie’s circle of friends picked her up again and drove her to her apartment. They had groceries and flowers waiting as well as household items so that Missie could start working on making her apartment her home.
One of the biggest challenges Missie faced upon leaving the prison was trying to regain custody of her two children. They had visited her every week while she was in the prison and she was able to visit them on the weekend once in the halfway house. Missie’s circle members attended Children’s Aid appointments with her and held her hand throughout the very difficult and challenging process of getting her kids back. One of the most challenging barriers to overcome was that of housing – Children’s Aid required Missie to have specific housing that she couldn’t afford and when Missie tried to get financial assistance, they said she had to prove that she already had housing in order to qualify for assistance. The perfect catch 22
With the support of her circle, Missie was able to figure out how to obtain housing that met Children’s Aid’s requirements and after a very long process, Missie finally received full custody of her two children.
Missie has been out of prison for 5 years now and is completely finished her sentence. She got married, she is a homeowner and she recently had a new baby, a beautiful girl. She is also giving back to her community by volunteering at a Youth Custody Facility in order to help the young men feel connected to their community as her circle did for her. By all accounts, Missie has “reintegrated” back into our community.
However, if Missie was here tonight, she would tell you that it was not easy. She would tell you that she would not have been able to make it through those dark, hopeless moments without the support of her circle. She would tell you that while there are some nice people at the halfway house and parole they are authority figures and if you are struggling they are the last people you want to tell because they can send you back to prison. She would tell you that her circle provided her with hope and helped her believe in herself that she could do it. When she was feeling down and feeling like her world was going to collapse, she would call her circle members and they would support her through any rough patch. Without these supports, Missie would tell you, she would have landed back in prison. To this day, Missie is still in contact with her circle members. Only now, it is because they are genuine friends.
The reason I am telling you this story is because the simple act of caring for another human being can never be underestimated. People often look at those in prison as evil, or as people who deserved to be punished and ostracized from society. However, embracing these individuals and helping them to feel connected to the community is the best tool we have to prevent them from ending up in trouble with the law again.
If this “heart-tugging” story isn’t doing it for you, how about this – community approaches come with a far cheaper price tag. The cost of running a program such as Stride is a fraction of the astronomical $220,000 it costs to incarcerate one woman for one year in federal prison in Canada. There are approximately 200 women at GVI. You can do math on that one.
One of the most important learnings for me over the years is that the women at GVI could be my neighbour, my sister, my mother, my friend – it could be me. Their stories make me realize how fortunate I am to have grown up in a two parent home with enough food to eat. I was not abused as a child or as an adult. I do not have a mental health concern nor do I struggle with problematic substance use. I have obtained my Master’s degree while most of them are still trying to get their GED. On the surface I seem to be the opposite of these women. However, after getting to know these incredible women it became apparent to me that if any one of these things were different my life could have taken a drastically different direction and I could have ended up in prison just as they are. These women are not the monsters the media depict. They are ordinary, everyday women who have been dealt a bad hand in life. Their crimes are often normal responses to abnormal and desperate circumstances. I have learned that a woman in prison is so much more than her crime. Missie admits she has made mistakes in the past but her crimes do not define who she is.
I work with women in prison in order to bring some normalcy into their lives and to bring some reality into mine. As a citizen of the community in which this prison is located, I feel a moral obligation to support these women in any way I can as I have been afforded privileges in my life that they have not.
Never underestimate the difference you can make in someone’s life by simply showing them that you care.“People do not want to be fixed. They want to feel valued”. I firmly believe this and try to live it out each day.
This is the first post in the ‘things that go bump in our brains‘ staff series. More coming for the rest of December.
Author: Jessica Hutchison is Coordinator, Community Development & Research at the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council. She coordinates the community mobilization activities and initiatives of the inREACH Street Gang Prevention Project.