Suspended sentence: Cree Justice partners with YMCA and others to help troubled youth

The public conversation around the appalling over-representation of Aboriginals in Canada’s prisons invariably starts at the end result.

How, despite comprising less than 4% of the population, Aboriginals now account for more than 23% of Canada’s inmates – 3,500 at any given time. How their numbers increased overall by 37% during the years of the Harper government – and for Aboriginal women, by 109%.

Exacerbating these numbers are the reality that Aboriginal inmates are sentenced to longer terms, and spend more time in segregation and maximum security. They are less likely to be granted parole and are more likely to have parole revoked for minor problems.

Maclean’s magazine reports that criminologists have begun referring to Canada’s prisons as the “new residential schools.” The Office of Canada’s Correctional Investigator calls it “systemic discrimination.”

On the face of it, the remarks are justified. But the handwringing, while producing headlines, never has any tangible effect. First Nations and Inuit people – from impoverished, underserviced communities torn by substance abuse and violence, suffering from the long cultural hangover of the original residential schools – continue to fill Canada’s provincial prisons and federal penitentiaries.

Donald Nicholls is starting at the other end of the equation: the beginning. The Justice Director for the Cree Nation Government is trying any program that might help the troubled and at-risk youth of Eeyou Istchee avoid ending up behind bars.

Looking for organizations with heart

On a mild late March evening in downtown Montreal, Nicholls is about to address the annual general meeting of the Quebec YMCA network in an auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts. He waits patiently as normal housekeeping is conducted, and gifts are handed out to board members who are resigning.

Then, the president of the organization, Stéphane Vaillancourt, takes the stage. Among other remarks, he talks about a YMCA program for kids expelled from school, called “Alternative Suspension.”

In it, the YMCA provides space and activities for children during their suspensions, to ensure they don’t simply waste their time, continue to allow parents to work, and above all, don’t get into more trouble.

“The idea was imported by France,” Vallaincourt noted, adding that the YMCA was originally inspired by a program called Plus One Mentoring for at-risk youth, “that we imported from Scotland.”

His point is that good ideas can be adapted to work in any culture. And that’s what Nicholls and the CNG is doing with the Alternative Suspension program in Eeyou Istchee. A pilot project in partnership with the YMCA is already up and running in Mistissini and Waskaganish, taking in 60 students temporarily suspended from their classes. Eventually, the goal is to set up programs in all the Cree communities.

Opening his remarks after Vaillancourt’s introduction, Nicholls talked about how often programs for Cree youth lack effectiveness because they were designed for a different reality. Teaching kids in the north how to safely navigate a subway system, for example, doesn’t really apply. Ensuring the program can be taught in the Cree language is another necessity.

“When we started, we decided we need to build on our people, we are the ones who will make a difference in our communities. We looked for guidance-based programs that are adaptable to Eeyou Istchee,” he said.

“So when we set out to form partnerships, we do so with organizations with heart and an understanding of community and interconnectedness; of being there for each other. It’s not always about the bottom line, but the people who are in them. We know we’re not alone – organizations such as yours are making a difference in the lives of children.”

Noting half of all Aboriginal children live in poverty, have suicide rates five to six times that of the general population and are twice as likely to drop out of school, Nicholls observed dryly that, “those of the realities we are faced with.”

The parenting skills can be addressed, Nicholls emphasized. In one case involving a 12-year-old experiencing behavioural problems in school, Nicholls recounted how counsellors discovered he rarely went into the bush, despite the fact his father was one of the best hunters in the community.

They discussed the boy’s problems with the father, asking him if he would take his son out hunting with him. The father agreed and began taking his son with him on weekends. “That boy was never in trouble again,” Nicholls said.

Working with Andrew Borelli, the YMCA’s Coordinator of Development and Training, Nicholls chose Mistissini, Waskaganish and Chisasibi for the initial Alternative Suspension programs because they faced the most pressing needs.

He said the principal of the Waskaganish school “jumped over her desk and hugged me when we met with her – she had so many suspensions to deal with – she showed me a binder full of cases. Sometimes she had 22 in a week.”

And already, principals are seeing the difference in children who enroll in the program. “And that’s what we like to hear!”

How can we change the life of a child?

The program is one of several that the Crees hope will make a difference for children showing signs of trouble.

Nicholls recounts how the opening of a Tim Hortons franchise in Mistissini created an opportunity for Cree children to attend one of the coffee chain’s camps. He told the company that he didn’t want the opportunity to go to the best children. “We want you to take those who will gain the most from it,” he told them.

Many of the children who participated last summer called it the “best day of their lives,” Nicholls proudly relayed.

 

The attention to youth comes directly from his experiences at the creation of the Justice Department, when he and colleagues interviewed about 150 Native inmates serving time for various offences. “We asked them, ‘What do you want to be doing?’ And, ‘Why are you here?’”

The answers he received are helping shape the Alternative Suspension program, he said. “We’re helping the make healthier choices.”

It’s a healthy choice for society as a whole to start early, Nicholls emphasized. For every dollar invested in a prevention program, $7 to $10 are saved later on in incarceration and health costs.

Staff at the Justice Department, he explained, take Human Identity Needs training to help them serve as conciliators and mediators, and to get at the root causes of destructive behaviour.

“Children who come to the program usually don’t want to graduate because they’ve finally found people who listen to them, who are there to help guide them,” Nicholls observed. “That’s why we are working on adding a parenting component.”

The last residential school in Quebec closed only in 1987, meaning most of today’s parents are still affected by the lack of parenting they themselves received. With the attention focused on the children of the Cree baby boom – 28% are under 14 – Nicholls is betting that fewer will end up in the “new residential schools” of the Canadian prison system.