On the first day of the CKW inquest, Malcolm Warmerdam, the son of one of the three women whose murders were under review, urged the jury not to think of the man who had killed his mother as a monster. He reminded all of us in attendance that those who cause harm to others are people like the rest of us. If we truly want to keep victims and survivors safe, he said, we need to find ways to hold them accountable that also offer the opportunity for healing and learning, because causing harm to abusers does not help victims.
Some of the recommendations made by the inquest jury speak to this plea: recommendations for increased coordination across services for those who have been harmed by intimate partner violence and those who have caused the harm, for individualized services for perpetrators, for the elimination of barriers and the creation of pathways to services for them and for public education aimed at perpetrators, along with recommendations to ensure that those who have caused harm are held accountable for what they have done.
Given these recommendations, it is especially troubling to see the closing of an important sex offender rehabilitation program in Ontario.
Some history
Those of us who work with survivors of gender-based violence know that the western criminal system really doesn’t work for anyone. The survivor often feels excluded from the process, disbelieved, silenced and ignored. Outcomes seldom reflect their need for validation and safety.
Those who have been charged, likewise, are not well served. The system – by definition – does not encourage accused people to take accountability for what they have done: from the beginning, the goal of the defence lawyer is to get an acquittal for their client, who then has no reason to acknowledge the harm they have caused. If they are found guilty, they are punished, with little, if any, opportunity to learn how not to cause harm in the future. And then they are released back into the community, with few supports to assist them or to protect past or future victims.
Restorative and transformative justice models offer an opportunity to do things in a radically different way. In Canada, the use of restorative justice (RJ) in the criminal legal system began to emerge about 50 years ago. At that time, it was generally used for minor offences, where there had been minimal or no physical harm to the victim. It was never used as a response to sexual or domestic violence cases.
RJ took a number of different forms including community justice forums, restitution, alternative sentencing plans, sentencing circles and circles of care.
No one else would help
Nigh had received a request to find accommodation for a repeat child sex offender – someone he had seen in his role as prison chaplain – who was being released from prison, and he felt obligated to help.
The call led him to develop a program to support and monitor offenders many others would have liked to see locked up forever. CoSA, initially developed to support child sex offenders, eventually became available to anyone convicted of a sex crime. Through the program, an offender is supported by a circle of volunteers who provide “emotional, moral and social support,” while also helping the person find housing and counselling. It’s not a free ride: those who participate are held accountable, with volunteers informing the authorities if the offender breaches their conditions or engages in any kind of criminal activity.
CoSA programs now exist across Canada as well as in the UK, the United States, Australia and South Korea. It is generally seen as the most successful rehabilitation program for child sex offenders, reducing recidivism by as much as 90%.
As Nigh says, supporting sex offenders may not be a popular approach, “but it is an effective one.”
“I think this is a crisis”
Despite the well-documented success of this program, CoSA is closing its programs in the three communities where it initially operated — Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener – because of ongoing funding challenges.
While CoSA began as a grassroots, volunteer-driven operation, it eventually obtained funding from the Correctional Service of Canada so it could expand, with the leadership of the Mennonite Central Committee of Ontario. Funding has come and gone over the decades and, in the past few years, some programs have had to find money on a piecemeal basis.
“If we really cared about keeping kids safe, I would think [the government} would want to invest deeply in programs like this,” said Nigh.
Ontario programs team lead Rod Friesen had this to say:
“The impact of this program over many decades has been tremendous. And I think that’s what makes it the most difficult. It’s been an effective program and, unfortunately, we’re not able to keep it going.”
CoSA services increase the safety of communities while also offering opportunities for those who have caused harm to be accountable and to start down a new path in their lives. David Byrne, a former chair of CoSA Canada, initially got involved because he wanted to protect victims, but then:
“I began to see that the reason for CoSA’s success was this commitment to the dignity of the other, especially an other who has been ostracized or marginalized in society. That’s the controversial thing, but also the reason why it works.”
While there are those who would like to see sex offenders incarcerated forever, that’s not what happens. Most are released and, just as communities deserve to be safe, offenders deserve the opportunity for a fresh start, with the supports they need to stay on the right path. CoSA works to the benefit of all of us. Providing it with adequate funding should be a no-brainer.