Family & Corrections Network
The Fourth North American Conference on the Family & Corrections
October 10-12, 1993 Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
KEYNOTE ADDRESS/CONFERENCE THEME
Rev. Dr. Pierre Allard
Director of Chaplaincy, C.S.C.
340 Laurier Ave. West,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0P9
(613) 996-0373
Apres avoir souligne a quel point l'aspect familial de la justice est encore a decouvrir, le conferencier partage le cheminement qui au cours des 20 dernieres annees l'a conduit a une profonde conviction de l'importance de la dimension familiale dans le domaine de la justice. A l'aide de huit vignettes ancrees dans son travail d'aumonier, il nous parle de la mere, du pere, des enfants, des conjoints, de l'isolement du prisonnier, de l'importance des benevoles, du sentiment de honte et de la famille des victimes. Il conclut en exprimant sa conviction que le travail de RCBFPP\FCN redonne l'espoir de jours meilleurs dans le systeme de justice penale.
Exploring the Family Side of Justice
Thank you for the invitation to deliver the theme address and for the privilege of doing so. Allow me first to salute my colleague and associate, Chris Carr. Chris has his office next to mine and I have been able to witness over the last several months his dedication in making this conference a success. The following story will serve as a better illustration: "A pig and a chicken were walking down the street one day. As they passed the local Diner, a sign was put up in the window which read: Ham and Eggs $1.99. 'I guess we are both involved in this one', said the pig to the chicken. For you it is a contribution, but for me it means total commitment!" It has indeed been for me a contribution, but for Chris and for many of you, a total commitment.
I have to be honest with you and tell you that I have found it very hard to prepare for this conference. The family side of justice is almost a misnomer. Is there really at the moment a 'family side' of justice? I must confess that reading Nils Christie's latest book Crime Control as Industry: Towards Gulags, Western Style? did not help matters. As governments gain more and more control over people's lives in an effort to quell the chaos of crime, families run the increased risk of being squeezed out of the criminal justice system even more.
But then, I examined in details the program, the workshop titles, the list of the many practitioners gathered here and a hope emerged within me. Maybe there is not yet a family side of justice but there is, at the grass roots level, a dedicated group of people committed to a new paradigm, inspired by a clear vision and engaged in the beautiful/ difficult task of creating a true side for the family within the criminal justice system.
As the Conference seeks to promote sharing, networking, I asked myself: How did I come to be sensitized (and I still have a long way to go) to the family side/dimension in my understanding of criminal justice? I would attempt to answer my question by presenting eight (8) vignettes which have emerged in my heart and mind over the last 20 years...
Vignette I: David (not his real name) and a painting
David: I can still see him sitting in my office and seriously telling me, "Pierre, before every bank robbery, I would call home and say: 'Mom, pray for me...'" Putting aside what it said about prayer and about God, it sure pointed out to the place of 'mothers' in the life of so many offenders. How do we help mothers to be neither permissive, nor authoritarian, to offer companionship instead of extreme affection or unhealthy control?
Painting: (Show of a painting by an inmate: 'The Woman in Waiting'). This painting is a sad painting. A woman dressed in black is waiting, and waiting for a son who fails to return from a supposedly business trip to Canada. It makes the point clearly: for every offender, there is a mother out there with a broken heart.
Vignette II: The Twin Brothers
As chaplains, we are often called upon to announce the death of some family members to offenders. It is never pleasant and always difficult. I remember vividly when I was asked to tell the 'twin brothers' about their father's death. As I broke the news to them, they jumped in joy and said: "Finally, the old bugger is dead". For so many offenders, the relationship with their fathers seems to be so much more stormy than with their mothers. Come Mother's day, and chaplains are flooded with requests for mother's day cards. In twenty-one years of ministry in prison, I am yet to be asked for a father's day card. How do we help offenders to become good fathers to their children when they carry so many unresolved conflicts with their own fathers?
Vignette III: Bernie (not his real name)
Bernie is a lifer. We became good friends at Dorchester Penitentiary. Mike (not his real name), his son, was 5 years old when his father began serving time. Bernie's wife did not agree that it might have been good for Mike to visit in prison, so Bernie hardly ever saw his son. After 10 years and soon to be released, he said often: "Pierre, how do I recapture those years?" There are no easy answers. Mike as a teen-ager is having a hard time adjusting to his father's return. How do we help wives and children readjust to a father's return?
Vignette IV: Judy's experience
We had moved as a family to a new area to accommodate my transfer to a different penitentiary. One day, Judy called the penitentiary on behalf of an inmate's wife to enquire about visiting hours and regulations. People thought that she was an inmate's wife. They were rude to her, non cooperative and made her feel cheap. (Now, this was many years ago. I know that these things do not happen any more !!!) They did not know my wife. It drove her to regroup some inmates' wives and to work with them. It led to cooking and budgetting classes, transportation, hospitality home and to the creation of a group called: W.I.T.S. (Women in the Shadow). How do we help wives to regroup positively and the system to truly respect them?
Vignette V: Dr Joyce Boillat
One day, I invited a medical friend of ours to come and meet a group of offenders. Dr. Joyce Boillat was then in charge of a department of gerontology. I had never expected her to speak to them about gerontology, but was I ever in for a surprise. As she described what happens in the gerontology department, a silence fell on the place. The parallels were too clear and too strong: less and less visits, fewer Christmas cards, hardly any letters, progressive and unmistaken isolation: not only physically, but socially, psychologically and spiritually. How to break the terrible sense of isolation within our penitentiaries?
Vignette VI: Our dear Olive
I wish you could have met Olive. She was an incredible lady. She never married and I heard her say one day to a 300-men audience: "I stand in your presence as a monument to men's stupidity". After 30+ years as a missionary (China, Indonesia), she supposedly retired. At age 70, she became involved as a volunteer within the walls. You should have seen her sitting in the midst of 25 tough guys who were simply like small children listening to her as to a grandmother. Our penitentiaries need the likes of Olive, Agnes, Howard, Elsie, Gerry etc... These people/volunteers are substituting for the lack of family contacts... They are helping many offenders recapture what they have been simply denied. What a need we have for solid, mature substitutes! How do we open doors for the needed Olives?
Vignette VII: My brother Andre
I come from a large family of 11 children: 6 boys, 5 girls. In 1980, we received a call that my brother Andre had been brutally murdered. It sure shook me up. It allowed me to discover first hand the agony and the pain of victimization. I have shared often publicly about my brother's murder and how it led me to become sensitized to the plight of victims. What I have never shared publicly until tonight is that my brother Andre had been a prisoner, had served provincial time on a number of occasions. Why did I share so freely about our victimization and not about his imprisonnement? There can only be one answer. The victimization and what followed put me in a positive light. My bother's imprisonnement carried a shame which I had not - up until tonight - exorcised properly. There is indeed a shame attached to incarceration. How do we help families deal with the shame issue?
Vignette VIII: My daughters Sophia and Amy
In our family, we have been victims of break and enter several times. Once when our daughters were still little, the thieves had left quite a mess behind. When we returned home after a few days holidays, it was not a nice sight to behold. The girls were traumatized and had a number of nightmares for several weeks. When I shared their trauma with the offenders who knew them well and considered them like their 'little sisters', you should have heard the apologies by the men on behalf of the perpetrators. A typical apology went: "Pierre, I have done break and enter all my life, but I have never stopped once to think about the human dimension. I never thought that I might have hurt children. I will never do it again..." How do we help offenders become aware of how deeply victims' families are also affected?
Those eight (8) vignettes - there could be so many more - are an invitation to discover and develop the family side of justice: mothers, fathers, children, wives, isolation, needed substitutes, shame, victims' families. The challenge amounts to putting a human face on an otherwise cold process. Both victims and offenders are part of smaller community units. They are all part of families. Too often, it is forgotten or badly neglected. I dream of a restorative justice where offenders, victims and affected communities are all being taken care of. It may represent an incredible challenge, but it is not impossible. We must begin where we can impact significantly. We must break down the destructive isolation by introducing one significant other for each and every offender. As C.K. Chesterton said: "There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one..." This Conference is attempting to fill the abyss ... and it will succeed.
Listen also to this inscription found on a church in Essex, England and dating back to the mid-18th century:
"A vision without a task is but a dream;
A task without a vision is drudgery;
A vision with a task is the hope of the world."
FCN and CFCN have both a vision and a task and this is why they are a sign of hope for the criminal justice system.
One final word: If I had to recommend a verse for FCN/CFCN from the Hebrew Scripture, it would be this:
"God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing." (Ps.68:6).
May FCN/CFCN break down the loneliness/isolation and give a new song to prisoners and their families!