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Let's Talk

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Let's Talk

VOL. 30, NO. 3

Preparing, Supervising and Maintaining Contact

BY G. Chartier, Communications Officer, Communications and Citizen Engagement

Iqbal Sangha
Iqbal Sangha

Parole Officer Iqbal Sangha is doing a community assessment of an offender who will soon be released from Mountain Institution and supervised from the Nanaimo office. A great deal of work goes into preparing for the transfer from the institutional setting to the community and, consequently, Sangha has been in touch with the institution many times over the last few months.

Sangha currently supervises more than 20 offenders on various forms of conditional release. Community assessments — examining, confirming and evaluating where the offender will live and possibly work and the level of community and family support he/she will receive — are critical both for the offender’s success and for the safety of the community.

Sangha began working for the Correctional Service of Canada nine years ago as a correctional officer at William Head Institution. His duties included working closely with institutional parole officers on case management, and from this experience he saw that a parole officer’s job was a career he would enjoy.

He quickly discovered that there are differences between working on the inside and the outside. “In an institution, you know where your offenders are at all times,” Sangha explains. “In the community, you must work hard at maintaining personal contacts with individual offenders and their families. We have a lot of one-on-one contact.”

He knows that while most offenders will complete their sentences without re-offending, some will not be able to make the transition from institution to normal life. And if they fail, it is hard for Sangha to not feel responsible, despite all his efforts.

“You build relationships with the offenders, and it’s tough not to take it personally,” says Sangha. “But if the community is placed at risk, we have no choice but to return them to the institution while their risk is being re-evaluated.” ♦

 

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