It's a great pleasure to be before the committee and to share John Howard's views about Bill C-228.
John Howard Society, as many of you know, is a charity that serves more than 60 communities across Canada. It's committed to just, effective and humane responses to the causes and consequences of crime, but our roots are really in supporting the reintegration of prisoners and looking at prison reform.
We enthusiastically support Bill C-228. While there may be differing opinions about the appropriate quantum of sentences and the best way to discharge people's debt to society, I believe there is broad agreement that we want those leaving prisons and returning to communities to be law-abiding, contributing members. Not only does this help the individual rejoining the community, but it prevents further victimization, saves state resources and benefits us all.
The road back for former prisoners is a tough one. It's as tough in Canada, in many ways, as it is in Texas. Many face loneliness, stigma, grinding poverty, discrimination in employment and housing, barriers due to race, religion and gender, inadequate identification, gaps in the continuity of mental and physical health care, challenges reuniting with families, inadequate skills, serious marginalization and fear and hostility from community members. For some, drugs and alcohol are a temptation to blunt the discomfort they feel, and post-release drug overdoses are high. Suicide rates in the first year after release are significantly higher than they are for the average person.
Given the hardships they encounter, it is a testament to their enormous resilience and willpower that the majority of those released do not return to prison. However, far too many do return to prison. Much more can be done and should be done to facilitate a successful transition.
The Department of Public Safety gave the John Howard Society of Canada a small grant to do a series of podcasts involving peers and interviewing former prisoners about the challenges they faced reintegrating into the community, with a view to providing advice to others. For those interested, those podcasts are called Voices Inside and Out and can be found on your podcast providers.
While there were many individual differences in the challenges faced, there were many key elements that were similar, including housing, employment and health care. Many felt that correctional authorities had not adequately prepared them for release, not even provided acceptable identification, and with only a two-week supply of prescription medication.
Solutions to the challenges were often creative. Those who had help valued it enormously, and the help came from peers, organizations active in criminal justice, family, good Samaritans and others, who assisted them in navigating a slew of municipal, provincial and federal requirements and resources.
The framework proposed in Bill C-228 would be enormously helpful in ensuring that the key elements for successful transition are identified through a collaborative effort, which I hope would involve those with lived experience as well as those from organizations that provide reintegration services, and representatives from municipal, provincial and federal governments and communities, including indigenous, Black and faith communities.
The provisions of the bill that would require the Minister of Public Safety to report back on progress on the implementation of the framework would be an important impetus to having the framework as something more than words on paper. We could actually see progress being made.
Collaboration here is key. We identified an absence of housing post-custody as a serious impediment to successful reintegration, and received funding from CMHC for solution labs to tackle complex housing as a complex problem: post-custody homelessness. We've been partnering with Public Safety, Correctional Services, Employment and Social Development Canada, the National Associations Active in Criminal Justice, former prisoners with lived experience, a number of John Howard societies, Lansdowne Consulting, community organizations and housing experts on this project. What was emphasized to us is that it's not just the housing. We need the whole supportive community pulling together to aid the successful reintegration of these prisoners.
In conclusion, I would urge you to support the passage of Bill C-228. The tragic death of Kimberly Squirrel, who died on the street exposed to freezing temperatures just three days after being released from a provincial prison in Saskatchewan, should be a wake-up call to us all that we must do better. The framework is a tool to make progress towards reducing crime and making our communities safer.
Thank you.