| The last thing middle-aged, middle-class Calgary mother Glenda Maloney ever thought she’d experience was prison. But after an ugly divorce, when she was in what she describes as a particularly fragile emotional state, Maloney embezzled money from her employer and the next thing she knew she had been sentenced to six months in prison.
While in prison, Maloney had her first contact with the Elizabeth Fry Society, an organization that helps women who have been incarcerated turn their lives around. As a result, she says she discovered another world and a new life mission.
"One of the things I can say about Elizabeth Fry is that in prison, trust is almost nonexistent, and when (employees) come in, they’re trusted. We had an Elizabeth Fry person come in once a week and she was the one person you could talk to without any guardedness. You could talk to her honestly and say this is what I need," says Maloney.
She credits the society with helping her navigate the criminal justice system, and after she got out of jail she decided to volunteer at the Calgary branch as a way of re-entering mainstream society, but also in the hopes of helping other women.
Because of what she saw in prison, Maloney is now a passionate advocate for women who have got into trouble with the law.
"I saw a side of society that I didn’t even know existed. That’s what touched me the most," she says.
While in prison, Maloney worked as a tutor – one of her students only had a Grade 2 education. She also saw that many of the incarcerated women had serious drug addictions. And most shockingly, one of Maloney’s roommates told her that her mother had put her out on the street to work as a prostitute at age 12, after which she got hooked on cocaine.
"It just really touched me and I thought, I’m 56, so it’s getting to the point where I don’t know if I want to go back to school and become a social worker, but to help people in some way seemed really important," says Maloney."It’s very difficult for people getting out of prison. It’s amazing the feeling you have where you’re sure there’s an X on your forehead."
This year the Elizabeth Fry Society is celebrating 40 years of trying to help women remove that X from their foreheads.
Diane Altwasser, one of the agency co-ordinators, says she’s particularly proud of two accomplishments – the establishment of one of the only halfway houses for women in Canada, Berkana House, and the Bridges Program, which helps women with criminal records re-enter the workforce. The society has been successful at recruiting a growing network of businesses that will give women with criminal records a second chance. The society also offers an outreach program to help women living in poverty access safe housing, food, clothing, treatment and medical needs. There’s also a healing circle offered for aboriginal women and a theft and loss counselling program, which helps women understand the underlying causes behind why they’re committing theft, fraud or shoplifting. And Elizabeth Fry staff and volunteers visit women in prison and support them through the court process.
Despite success in some areas, co-agency co-ordinator Juliana West says there’s still no shortage of work to be done on behalf of women who are or have been involved in the criminal justice system.
West says statistics show that the number of women ending up in prison is increasing, and says most of the women are there due to poverty-related crimes or drug offences. For example, a poverty offence could involve a woman given a fine for not paying a C-train ticket, but she can’t pay the fine so she ends up in jail. Many women also end up working as prostitutes in order to survive, and can end up with a long criminal record because of it.
Aboriginal women make up a disproportionate percentage of incarcerated women – at 29 per cent of the prison population and 46 per cent of the female population in maximum security prisons. The number of aboriginal women in the prison system is increasing, and both Altwasser and West say society needs to take action on this issue.
"Aboriginal women, due to discrimination and poverty, don’t have access to the same resources. They don’t have access to high-priced legal counsel. They don’t have access to bail or other things that can make a different person’s experience in the justice system turn out more favourably," says Altwasser.
West says there should be more counselling geared towards women, and aboriginal women in particular, in order to help them rehabilitate. Right now, much of the counselling offered in prison is geared towards men.
She argues that fewer women would end up in jail if there were more support for them and their families earlier on.
"I think, certainly, access to a living wage is huge. In order for women to be able to provide for themselves and to provide for their children, to be able to give them hope and the peace of mind to be able to cover their basic needs, is huge. I think there are other countries in the world where we have seen if the issues of poverty are alleviated, there also tends to be much lower incarceration, so when people are not struggling to survive there’s less use of the criminal justice system," she says.
Inadequate mental health services and addiction treatment also lead to women ending up in jail, says Altwasser.
"There’s a shortage of mental health services, so often those people end up in jail. If they have a psychotic event and they’re picked up and put in jail, that’s not the best place for them to be, not the most appropriate," she says.
Altwasser also thinks Calgary needs to be more open to a variety of strategies to help people with their addictions.
"I think Calgary’s a bit farther behind some of the other major centres because I think the focus here is on abstinence – treatment equals abstinence. In other centres I don’t think there’s one-solution-fits-all. Some of the other centres are experimenting with different harm-reduction kind of programs, which I think we need to fit in the whole scheme of things in terms of addictions and remedies because I think abstinence doesn’t fit with everybody," says Altwasser.
She points out that Vancouver has started offering safe injection sites for heroin users, and Vancouver is also home to North America’s first heroin prescription trial, where addicts will be given heroin and researchers will study how the free heroin impacts their lives. She says a drug court, where drug-related offences would be diverted out of the criminal system if addicts agreed to get clean, would also make a difference.
Elizabeth Fry Societies across Canada are also in favour of decriminalizing prostitution in order to help sex trade workers. West says with decriminalization, prostitutes would no longer have criminal records and it would be easier for them to get employed in other fields.
"There’s also the issue of safety for women in terms of not forcing it underground and when women are forced to go underground, it always increases risk and safety issues," she says.
The Elizabeth Fry Society is holding a fundraiser on October 27 at the Westin Hotel. Guest speakers include former Calgary police chief Christine Silverberg and Yvonne Johnson, co-author of Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman. For ticket information, phone 294-0737. |
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