Opinion

When a Sex Offender Is Released

The current system is dangerous. A victim, sex offender and experts weigh in.

By Carrie-May Siggins, 2 Apr 2007, TheTyee.ca

Sex Offender

How to protect from re-offence.

Text size:

Rate this:

Login/Register

What if, one morning, you walked out of your front door to find the smiling photo, whitewashed to a lamppost, of a violent sexual offender about to move into your building? What would you do? With the highly publicized release of the Balcony Rapist into a New Westminster neighbourhood, it's a question many communities have been asking themselves lately.

Whether or not that sexual offender has adequate support services may not be the first of your concerns. But there are a growing number of advocates who believe that it should be.

Fifty to 60 per cent of the prison population released into the community is on parole and a third is on statutory release. Those offenders can access sources of help when they're released: social workers, addictions counselling, housing placement helpers, job counsellors and mental health workers.

On their own

But there are some offenders, due to the violent nature of their crime, who serve their full sentence before being released into the community. It's called "warrant expiry," and it means that prisoners walk away from the prison system as free citizens. Once released, they are no longer wards of the state.

Offenders released on warrant expiry don't have access to any of the same services as those on parole, and the only official person they have contact with is a parole officer. The transition back into a "straight" community is often extremely difficult, and those services can mean the difference between getting a job or getting reconvicted.

Studies show programs that ease an offender's transition back into the community are the best way to prevent re-offence. Laurence Motiuk, the author of one study for Corrections Canada, writes: "There is solid evidence supporting the premise that the gradual and structured release of offenders is the safest strategy for the protection of society against new offences by released offenders."

Even Jane Doe, one of the victims of the Balcony Rapist, recently wrote in Maclean's. "Surely, public safety would be better served if the Balcony Rapist, along with all who are released from prison, had prospects of housing and work."

They're out there

Every year a total of 4,500 offenders are released on warrant expiry from detention centres across Canada. The rate of re-offence for sex offenders in that group is 10 per cent. This is one of the lowest recidivism rates for re-offence for any type of criminal activity, but it still means there are around 450 re-offences by violent sexual criminals each year, a number most communities would not be happy to hear.

So whose jurisdiction is it to help offenders released on "warrant expiry"? Corrections Services Canada has "no legal recourse," says Dennis Findlay, a press officer there. "That person released on a warrant expiry is a free man. Legally, it's not our jurisdiction." What they can do is inform the police that an offender with a history of violence is moving to their community. The police can then send his information package and criminal history to media outlets. They can also apply to have something called an 810 restriction placed on him: a "long-term supervision order" that police can use to restrict the actions of a released offender. If drugs are seen as a possible trigger for criminal behaviour, for a year after release that offender will be sent back to prison if he is caught anywhere near them. Those convicted of child molestation are not allowed anywhere near the proximity of a school.

But, according to reports from Corrections Canada, 810 restrictions are not a suitable way to protect the community against violent recidivism. They are not even effective in physically removing the offender from the community: 810 restrictions often only last little more than a few months, sometimes a year. Researchers in one study from Correction Services Canada (CSC) found that "time served on detention did not reduce the likelihood of violent recidivism."

'I didn't want to change'

One person is especially familiar with the inadequate services for offenders. In 1993, John (not his real name), a bulky, bespectacled man with ice blue eyes, was charged with multiple accounts of, among other things, sexual assault and illegal confinement. He assaulted a 15-year-old girl, plus women he both knew and whose acquaintance he made briefly, in bars, before the assault. The crown wanted to give him a "dangerous offenders" designation, which could have meant an indefinite sentence, but his lawyers plea-bargained. He received 10 years, and ended up serving 11 years and two months. "It was a relief," says John, "compared to a life sentence."

Once he began his sentence at a federal correctional facility in B.C., he stopped his hard-drug habit but still smoked marijuana several times a week, and was repeatedly reprimanded for bad behaviour. "I didn't want to change," he says. "For the first four or five years, I didn't care. I was the naughty guy in the corrections centre." But then, with six years left to his sentence, he experienced a sea change. He realized that he didn't want to die in jail, and that he cared about the possibility of another chance at life on the outside enough to give reform another try.

For the following six years, he attended three intensive sex offender programs simultaneously. He took a class in "cog skills," or everyday living, and got his grade 12 diploma, or GED. He began tutoring other inmates, attending a cabinet shop course and taking care of his health, since he "wanted to give back." It wouldn't be until later that John would begin to think about his victims, to feel the weight of what he'd done. But he believes that the work within prison was clearing the path to later allow this to happen.

When he was released in 2004, he says, "It was a very scary time. I was stepping out into nothing." He had no services at his disposal, and the police had ordered an 810 to be implemented against him, sending him back to jail if he violated any of its conditions.

Mind the gap

So who's filling the gaps left by Corrections Services for those released on warrant expiry? Currently, it's volunteer organizations that are filling the services gap. One such group is Circles of Support and Accountability, (COSA), a faith-based, community-based group of volunteers selected and trained to work with sexual offenders. COSA was specifically created to help this kind of offender -- those released on warrant expiry with no services available to them.

The offender, often while still in prison, signs a "covenant" with COSA, agreeing to be totally honest with the group and promising to sincerely attempt rehabilitation. Once out, he has a circle of between four and six volunteers. In the first month after his release, volunteers talk to the offender many times a day, and meet with him at least once a week. They help him with everything from finding a job to grocery shopping to finding housing.

Housing is one of the most important and difficult things to find, according to Otto Driedger, the founder of COSA in Regina, Saskatchewan, and one of the architects of that province's social justice system. "There is often very strong objection to that person being there, and that makes it very, very difficult to find accommodation. Getting people to settle in areas that are not high problem areas is difficult."

A study conducted by CSC found that the recidivism rate improves by 70 per cent if an offender has a COSA group waiting for him when he gets out. But despite this, the group's funding is almost non-existent. As a faith-based organization, COSA receives its financial support through the CSC chaplainry. But funding is on a contingency basis -- that means they only get it if the chaplaincy has money left over after its other spending is complete. When they do get any money, COSA receives about 27 cents a day for each offender. So, in B.C., where they are assisting between 12-15 offenders at any given time, they receive under $1,200 a year in funding.

'Leading a Jekyll and Hyde life'

In 2004, after he was released from his 11-year sentence, he was living in Chilliwack. During that year, he was sent back to a correctional facility three separate times for violating the stipulations of his release and 810. Each time, it was for using drugs, "not for anything more serious," but was "coming very close."

"I was allowing old ways to control my behaviour," he says. "I was leading a Jekyll and Hyde life, hanging out in the wrong areas." He also says he was starting to manipulate friends and COSA volunteers for money to buy drugs, and he didn't like what was happening to him.

During the third, three-month sentence, he decided he should go to the prairies at the end of his term, so he could "start again." Upon his release from the Mission facility, a correctional officer picked him up and took him straight to the airport where he boarded a WestJet flight, and his sister picked him up at the airport.

What met him when he arrived was a media storm -- his face was plastered on every lamppost and on the front page of the newspaper. The nightly news led with him for weeks.

"I was more afraid of the community than they were of me," he says. People would recognize him wherever he went, cross the street when they saw him coming, or spit in his direction. He hid in a mission home for five months. John felt close to returning to his triggers, including the crack cocaine that stoked violent urges, and so got in touch with that city's COSA. He had had a circle in B.C., but at that time was not interested in getting clean. This time, he had a parole officer, psychiatrist, family and a circle to help him. He has been clean, sober and "not doing anything bad" for 17 months.

"COSA makes me feel accountable for my actions," says John. "They helped me to learn how to take a few moments, calm down, stop from getting anxious and think clearly. By doing that, I realize that I'm accountable, and I think twice. You realize consequences. I've started to take responsibility for what I've done in the past."

Related Tyee stories:

[Tyee]

Carrie-May Siggins is a Vancouver-based writer and documentary film producer.

30 Comments:

Login or register to post comments

  • alive

    5 years ago

    same story, new name

    Ok, so this article states the problems we all face; that story been done before.
    How about concentrating on possible solutions?
    We all agree on the sad plight of the victims, repeating it again solves nothing!
    Please google on prisoners and testosterone.
    While there no doubt are many "one-off" rapists, the majority are serial offenders, and they are driven by a hormonal imbalance.
    The solution is to cure that imbalance, think about it!

  • murdock

    5 years ago

    Surveillance

    Simple solution.

    If a civic council is concerned about these individuals and really wants the problem solved, hire Private Investigators to keep them under surveillance.

    No Police, no need to 'draw down' on the law and order presence on the street.

    Contract the PI's to watch these persons of interest. Then when the reports come in that they are, or have been breaching ANY laws, have them brought in for charges...back to jail.

    The PI costs then are not going to stretch against the police budgets and when a major repeat offender is caught 2-3 times after release, take the Parole Board to court (or the Federal Government, since they write the rules) for recovery of the Investigation costs. The pocketbook is where the sting will be felt, like so much else in our society.

  • flattax

    5 years ago

    Solution to deal with sex offendors

    There is a solution. It can also cure the hormonal imbalance [someone mentioned earlier]. Also, don't waste my tax dollars in surveillence as another fool suggested.

    Just kill the scumbags so the rest of us can sleep soundly.

  • SayBlade

    5 years ago

    Solutions are in front of our noses

    The solutions to preventing people released from prison from reoffending is in our faces. Circles of Support and Accountability is already proving that it is highly effective, but receives so little in terms of funding.

    One can't expect someone who has spent years in prison to suddenly function like a person who has been free all their lives. From what we know of the prison system, it is not a healthy place for teaching offenders how to function free in society where everyone, including the released prisoner needs to feel safe. It requires patience, time and money to get someone back into society and it will not be nice and neat and may in fact be quite messy.

    Sorry, flattax, but you cannot just kill people who have already served their time. This would be like forcing someone to pay for the rest of her/his life after a fine is already paid for speeding, a highly dangerous activity. Who will watch that person to prevent reoffence?

  • flattax

    5 years ago

    Clarification

    When I said to kill the scumbags, I meant upon conviction. Then we would not have to worry about them anymore.

    They have definately forsaken any right to live, the monsters they are.

    After they serve their time? Perhaps a lynch mob could take care of them.

    At least give them a capusle of cyanide and a dozen beer and leave them alone in a room for an hour or so the day before they are supposed to leave prison. Give them the choice to do society a favour and off themselves. It would probably be their only positive contribution to society in their entire lives.

  • SayBlade

    5 years ago

    flattax: "..upon conviction..."?

    So, if we off everyone who is convicted, we would have done away with the Steven Truscotts, Donald Marshalls, Guy Paul Morins, David Milgards, Nelson Harts, Rubin Carters ... the list goes on, then we would have been guilty of murder ourselves.

  • murdock

    5 years ago

    flattax ... about conviction

    Quote:
    Just kill the scumbags so the rest of us can sleep soundly.

    Tell me fattax, were such a thing to be done:

    What would you do if suddenly you were declared a scumbag?

    What would you do if a member of your family or circle of immediate friends were declared a scumbag?

    What would you do if your neighborhood, because so many scumbags were coming from there was slated for liquidation?

    You release the power to kill too lightly.

  • flattax

    5 years ago

    Scumbags

    chill out murdock, you may not like the word scumbag, but you know what i am talking about.

    The use of the word scumbag in this context is meant to describe extremely violent offendors of rape and murder.

    All this talk about reforming them is silly.

  • ov

    5 years ago

    Kill those that offend??

    If applied equally across the board it might work. Let's start with executing any corporate CEO scumbag whose company is responsible for a death or two. The hypocrisy of the limited liability crowd never fails to amaze me.

  • SayBlade

    5 years ago

    Forgetting voices

    We should listen to what Jane Doe has to say.

    http://sketchythoughts.blogspot.com/2007/03/jane-doe-on-rape.html

    If her statistics on unreported rapes are correct, then there are huge numbers of -- as flattax would label them -- "scumbags" out there who lurk in our communities, stand in line with us at bank machines, drive buses, like fishing, work in road construction and even go to church with us.

    Frankly, I would think women might feel safe even if Paul Callow lived next door since at least he is being watched.

  • alive

    5 years ago

    why kill if we can cure?

    According to Mr. Flat-Earth one has to be a complete idiot in order to care if there might be a possible “cure” for a rapist!

    While the flatulent one feels it is OK to kill outright, it appears to be stupid to consider whatever, less violent solution, it takes to stop their hormonal problems.

    Castration would stop the urges for good, that has been documented enough.

    The question is why we are so queasy about admitting that many males to a large extent are programmed by their genitals?

    Could it be that admitting humans still have some traits from the animal world is hard to accept?

    Is it OK to kill “the scum bags” but not OK to castrate them?

  • murdock

    5 years ago

    cure ... for flattax

    ok alive,

    I volunteer flattax as the first for your solution.

  • reality_check

    5 years ago

    Brain research

    While not supporting or excusing abusers/rapists,... it would help if one was to understand that human beings might not have as much control over their behaviour as we think they have. Brain research seems to show that we are not all born with similar abilities to cope, to think, to empathize, which makes sense because --after all-- we are not all born with the same abilities to do a lot of things: (www. cbc.ca/thecurrent/media/200703/20070321thecurrent_sec2.ram )(the URL does not show properly, delete a space before the dot to make it work) In fact, judging how some people react about these rapists, we can see that we do not all have the same level of sympathy.

    We also do not all react the same way to horrific events in our lives. It is easy to react emotionally, but does anyone know how one would react if one had been abused? It is so easy to judge others. Let's have more compassion. Are all of those people naturally born-rapists?

  • BLONDE PITBULL

    5 years ago

    Naturally born rapists....

    My understanding is that rape is more of a power/pain inflicting "rush" than it is about the sex. So it is a complex question on whether removing the rapists ability to have sex would prevent him from inflicting it in other ways. Would counselling, therapy, whatever be able to re program them?

  • alive

    5 years ago

    Rapist are aggressive!

    Quote:
    So it is a complex question on whether removing the rapists ability to have sex would prevent him from inflicting it in other ways. Would counselling, therapy, whatever be able to re program them?

    Indeed rapist are on a powertrip, and that is fueled by aggression!

    Aggression is produced primarily by testosterone, (in both sexes.)

    Hence treating hormonal imbalance would stop that individual from being a burden to society.

    The attitude by some posters here indicates they would have been appreciated by the Nazi's as they solved any such problems with death!

  • BLONDE PITBULL

    5 years ago

    Alive...

    You know, I don't necessarily disagree with you in some cases it might work. I have a long standing joke where I say most men think with their little head not their big head ...but lots of men and women have high levels of hormones that they don't release in such behaviours.
    So what causes these people to do such acts? Lifes' cruelties? Genetic mistakes by nature? And if genetic when do you start looking for and treating it?
    Who here would want to believe that a infant at 3 days old could have a test done that could make some conclude that the infant would better serve society in it's early demise? You know, "nip it in the bud".
    Who would truly believe that when they held a newborn infant in their arms that they were holding the Devil's spawn?
    I guess what I'm saying is I don't believe there is a neat and tidy one size fits all answer to this....

  • alive

    5 years ago

    BLONDE PITBULL

    Quite right!

    My comments were meant to find a solution to the problems of what to do with actual offenders.

    I doubt that anyone could predetermine on a baby, who might be an offender later on in life. But once a person has raped, the question arises what to do with him?

    Indeed there are lots of people with high hormone levels who manage their lives just fine, and I guess, some who never get caugth?

    Treating hormonal imbalancee could well be done in less drastic ways, whatever works.

  • BLONDE PITBULL

    5 years ago

    Alive ....

    Okay, so you physically or chemically castrate a man has been convicted and he finds a different way to inflict pain on someone else. Then what?

  • reality_check

    5 years ago

    just a powertrip?

    I don't think so. There is defintely a sexual component to this. After all, they do not target old, ugly women, for one thing. Very few guys (unless they are homosexuals) get raped. It might be a power-trip issue in the sense that the rapist self-esteem is very low. I bet my bottom dollar that guys who rape are not the tall, dark, and handsome type that women "choose", but I also bet that they have not had positive connections with women too, as a result of them not being attractive? As a result of women humiating them by not ackowledging them? Probably. As a result of suffering low self-esteem? Probably. As having processing issues? Probably. As a result of some kind of medical/brain issue? Probably. As a result that men have to ask for love and get rejected? Probably. As a result of some women's attitude in general or specifically. Probably. As a combination of many factors. Probably. Anyway, these men have issues. It is a health issue. Perhaps we need better school programs, better counsellors/more counsellors in schools,... tp prevent these problems from festering in the first place. Interestingly enough, 3 women researchers have found that girls bully boys more than boys bully girls in dating (http://www. canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=6dbbe1e0-7583-4c26-8729-7fab9f7e38ba) if one takes into account psychological abuse (which is almost never taken into account). So, it is a little bit of both: sexual and power-tripping, I think.

  • alive

    5 years ago

    . Then what?

    From what I have seen, once the aggressive tendencies are removed, (castration) you basically have a pussycat!
    I have personally experienced how a man was changed that way.

    Read up on it!
    Way back merchants hired castrated men for their trusted positions, because they knew these men would not be corrupted (by sex) and were very easy going to boot.

    Obviously there can be many reasons why a man commits a rape, and it is quite possible that rejection could be a trigger!

  • Yammer

    5 years ago

    Causation

    Let's spare a thought for that, as well.

    I've worked in the justice system and in family courts, meeting victims of crime.
    From what I know, the prison population has a huge majority of people who have fetal alcohol syndrome.

    They're aggressive? Yes. You'd be aggressive too if you had just about no capacity for rational thought. You couldn't get a good job, keep a healthy relationship, understand the consequences of your actions, appreciate the difference between a premise and a fact, remember to keep your temper.

    The punishment model makes a lot of sense when applied to people who have made a conscious, cost-benefit analysis and then did a crime. Punishing someone who is fundamentally braindamaged for life is going to have a lesser benefit.

    I'm with Sayblade in terms of helping FAS people to cope with living. Since that is expensive and intrusive, much more needs to be done in terms of prevention.

    But what? How do we prevent child abuse and fetal poisoning without infringing on basic human rights?

    Should government, for example, sterilize a woman who has had six FAS kids, all seized by the government, and is FAS herself? I can't give a glib answer either way.

  • alive

    5 years ago

    FAS

    Quote:
    But what? How do we prevent child abuse and fetal poisoning without infringing on basic human rights?

    Flattax would no doubt kill them all!

    Unfortunately there are no "right way" to handle FAS people; our society prides itself on being socially conscious, but fails miserably to provide funds for any project that is not high on the latest polls.

    We are stuck with welfare mothers who are nothing more than "babymachines" for instance, and somehow that is the price we pay for being so humane.

    This is straying a bit from the subject of what to do with released rapist; we can soon agree that there are many causes but the question remains: what are we to do when they are released and not capable of fitting into our society?

    It is not without cause that residents are upset when a convicted felon moves into the neighbourhood.

    Once again: it is possible to make a devil into a gentle lamb!
    Suppose a judge gave a rapist the choice of 25 years in jail or a lesser sentence if he volunteered to get castrated?

    Would we not be better off to have him castrated and re-educated to become a useful citizen?
    Or are we only out for revenge?

  • anarcho

    5 years ago

    Flatax would kill the child

    Flatax would kill the child molestors. Gee, if you did that you would kill off half the right wing politicians and corporate big-wigs. For once I can agrre, at least in part with Flatax.

    But seriously folks, the problem is to trear sexual predators as criminals and not as mentally ill people. As criminals they get out when their punishment is up - and there they are out and about ready to do it again. Treated not as a crime to be punished, but as anti-social behaviour to be stopped, they would be placed in mental institutions until they were guaranteed safe, or for life, if we could not guarantee public safety. The central problem is the idiotic, authoritarian and brutal idea that we can prevent anti-social behavior by punishing people. It doesn't work and some people are just to dangerous to be running aqbout, but that does not mean we should punish them, but keep them away from society.

  • BLONDE PITBULL

    5 years ago

    Anarcho...

    Intrguing,practical and...well, humane idea.

  • Yammer

    5 years ago

    At the pleasure of Her Majesty

    Yes, I have heard that treatment suggestion too, but the problem there is that it results in indefinite custodial sentences. A jail is a jail even if it is a hospital.

    I keep coming back to the prevention angle myself. I think people are pretty much incorrigible, the amount of times people stop their bad habits is not something that comforts me at night.

  • BLONDE PITBULL

    5 years ago

    What's the difference

    What's the difference between indefinite custodial sentences for anti social mental illness or the dangerous offender act sentences?

  • alive

    5 years ago

    The world turns slowly

    Quote:
    What's the difference between indefinite custodial sentences for anti social mental illness or the dangerous offender act sentences?

    Different environment is about all!

    The idea that some of these people might be cured is obviously escaping everyone?

    At least we are now agreeing that it is not right to kill the offenders, maybe in the next century it will be recognized that hormonal imbalance is not a mental illness or FAS?

  • Yammer

    5 years ago

    Alive, the Castrator

    You've really got a fixation on that. It is like a panacea or something.

    Does it not occur to you that fear of emasculation is perhaps the very root, so to speak, of hypermasculinity?

    Some humane choice.

  • alive

    5 years ago

    Yammer

    Quote:
    Does it not occur to you that fear of emasculation is perhaps the very root, so to speak, of hypermasculinity?

    And so?
    Then the punishment would fit the crime, no?

  • alive

    5 years ago

    Yammer

    Quote:
    Does it not occur to you that fear of emasculation is perhaps the very root, so to speak, of hypermasculinity?

    And so?
    Then the punishment would fit the crime, no?

    • No best comments selected by an editor for this story yet. To see all comments, click the All Comments tab, above.
    • The discussion for this story is closed. No more comments can be added.