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Police/Parole Partnerships Continue to Evolve

Safe transition of offenders into the community

BY Bill Rankin, Communications Officer, Communications and Citizen Engagement
Photos: Bill Rankin

Two Canadian cities have been chosen as the first to benefit from the new Integrated Police/Parole Initiative, announced in November 2005. The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) will join with Regina and Hamilton police departments in this innovative partnership—hiring police officers to work as community corrections liaison officers (CCLO), monitoring the activities of higher-risk and higher-needs offenders in the community. They will act as links with police departments and other law enforcement agencies, enhance information sharing and work to reduce the number of unlawfully-at-large offenders.

CSC Associate District Director for Eastern and Northern Ontario Gerry Minard says, “The CCLO position builds upon an excellent working relationship that we’ve had with the Hamilton Police for a long time. It will give our staff a little more insight into the problems that police face and the police will learn more about parole officers’ challenges.”

CCLOs will also participate on community assessment teams and provide an additional conduit of information between parole offices and police repeat offender squads. A total of 17 CCLOs will be hired across Canada by the summer of 2006 and paid for by CSC through the Interchange Canada Program. The new officers will report to CSC district directors.

Other cities to receive CCLOs include Saint John, NB, St. John’s, NFLD, Halifax, Montreal, Québec City, St. Jérome, Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Kelowna and Vancouver.

In a Rural Setting

Police/parole partnerships are certainly not a new idea and there’s no shortage of good examples in other parts of the country. Take for example Parole Officer Gerald Daigle and his one-man operation, part of the Ottawa Parole District. Daigle is responsible for 22 parolees spread out over a broad area of rural Ontario that runs east to the Quebec border, south to Akwesasne (previously known as Cornwall Island) on the St. Lawrence River and west as far as Long Sault. He says that his cellular and satellite phones, as well as dependable winter tires are what keeps him on a steady course through the winter months and gets him from farmhouse to country shack to coffee shop and all the other rendez-vous points where he meets his “clients.”

Daigle counts on a crucial working collaboration with members of numerous police forces located on this territory—Akwesasne Mohawk Police, Cornwall Community Police Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police with its six offices spread throughout the rural communities. “These collaterals are so important,” Daigle comments. “They are the parole officer’s around-the-clock eyes and ears in the community.”

The principal centre inside his jurisdiction—a sprawl of farmland, highways and rivers—is Cornwall (population 45,000), the blue-collar town that has, over recent years, fallen on hard times thanks to factory shutdowns and massive layoffs—most recently at the Domtar pulp and paper mill.

Experienced Eyes and Ears

Perhaps nobody’s eyes and ears know more about this city and its criminal element than the police department’s Detective Sergeant Bob Burnie, Criminal Investigations Division, a Cornwall native who worked his way up from beat constable over his 25-year career. Burnie and his law enforcement partners face unique challenges due to Cornwall’s location along the eastern inland seaway and its close proximity to the American border.

“Along with our law enforcement partners, we suffer the woes connected with criminals who can drop off or pick up contraband almost anywhere along this 60-mile stretch of open waterway,” Burnie comments. “Drugs are transported by boat in the warm months and by snowmobile or even trucks over the ice during winter.”

To complicate the situation even further, Akwesasne, just south of the city and home of the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve, is the convergence point for numerous provincial, national and international boundaries. It is possible for one house on the island to be in American territory while just down the road a neighbour is on Canadian soil.

Cooperation is Essential

It’s a situation that could make for a prickly interplay between forces, but fortunately this is not the case. Over the years, going back as far as the whiskey smuggling days of Prohibition, law enforcers have learned to work together and support each other rather than squabble over turf.

“Really good cooperation,” declares Sergeant Burnie. “We are part of well established units (the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit and the Integrated Border Enforcement Team) that developed strong links between several agencies over the years in order to keep on top of criminal activity in our jurisdictions. Weekly meetings with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, New York State Border Patrol, Ontario Provincial Police, Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service and Canada Border Services Agency, provide updated knowledge of criminal activity in our respective areas.”

This same type of mutual assistance has existed between the police and parole since long before Gerald Daigle took over from retiring Parole Officer Bernie Driscoll in February 2005. Partnerships were essential for this parole officer when he was previously located in rural areas of New Brunswick.

“Bernie Driscoll was extremely helpful, hard working and highly respected by the police,” says Sergeant Burnie. “Gerald is much the same on account of his previous experience. We’ve developed a good working relationship. He’s called upon us to help some of his parolees and we are glad to do it.”

Meeting a Parolee

On one typical day, Daigle agrees to meet with one of his parolees inside a Cornwall shopping centre. Daigle enters the complex and joins a procession of shoppers huffing and puffing up the stairs of a broken-down escalator. He grabs a coffee from the Tim Horton’s kiosk on the second level and settles himself at a small table next to a boisterous group of seniors who are busy chewing doughnuts and talking hockey, politics, and bingo. The parolee shows up on time, a young man in his twenties who served prison time for drug trafficking. He was no big-time dealer but the cocaine sales had been easy money that provided a hefty supplement to the $10/hour he made roofing before his conviction.

Easy Money

Daigle says it’s tempting for young people to fall into the drug trade because it’s all around them; they see friends and acquaintances driving shiny, new vehicles, buying houses, living far beyond their apparent means. And the payoff seems well worth the risk—until they get caught. Even after a stretch in prison, it’s hard for some of them to go back to an honest job because they’ve tasted what they regard as a more glamorous lifestyle.

“Hopefully they will have upgraded their competencies during the process of their sentence and will be able to secure a better job in the long term,” says Daigle. “Becoming law-abiding citizens and productive members of their communities will more than likely require a lot of perseverance from these individuals.

“Young guys especially, you have to see up to twice a week, depending on their risk to re-offend and their needs in the community,” says Daigle. Attitude and motivation are important factors in the parole officer’s month to month assessment.

“I know through experience that some guys are not going to re-offend. They may have made one big mistake that got them involved with the law, usually at a young age. They might have been in the wrong place, with the wrong friends, at the wrong time. They may have been intoxicated, so naturally their judgement was impaired.

Changing Attitudes

“It takes some time to alter their thought patterns; I encourage them to consider the people they associate with, find a steady job, apply program skills learned while inside, learn how to communicate and manage anger, and deal with drug problems. Those are the things that are going to keep them from going back to prison. These individuals will likely recognize the benefit of consulting existing community resources and I can help with the access. Ultimately, they will accept full responsibility for their behaviour and actions, past, present and future.

“Then there are the few—hard-core criminals—that are very hard to reach. Often the only things that change them is time, weariness and the desire to stay out of prison.”

This type may view their relationship with the parole officer as a cat-and-mouse game. Their attitude—purposely vague or evasive— quickly becomes apparent to an experienced officer. It’s in these situations that the police partnership is particularly valuable. They help keep a close eye on the offender and inform the parole officer of significant events or changes in behaviour.

Solid Links

Whether this takes the form of formal liaison partnerships such as the community corrections liaison officer (CCLO) role or informal working collaborations, these solid links have proven effective for supervising offenders in the community and contributing to their reintegration. The ultimate goal is public safety in every Canadian community, large or small. This is the essence of the parole/police officers’ work that they share from day to day.” ♦