Lift Me Up

Jamie

Working with offenders is just, it's like us talking.

These are regular people that have had some unfortunate mistakes and events that have occurred in their life, and they're just people.

JUST PEOPLE

Jamie
Teacher

My name is Jamie Gray. I'm a teacher at Collins Bay Institution at the medium and maximum (security) sites.

Working as a teacher inside Canadian prisons, is a unique experience. It's been challenging, but it's brilliant. I absolutely love it.

It's put me out of my comfort zone at times but it's a pretty cool feeling to teach guys who didn't really accept education initially. You form these relationships with these individuals and it's pretty cool to see their path and the outcomes.

I always try with new students to relate in some way. I'm a big sports guy, so sports is usually a topic of interest with a lot of individuals in here. I do have a child, so I kind of relate as a parent to some of these individuals. You find commonality and you kind of build off that. A lot of these guys that at least I meet don't have their high school (education). So, right off the hop that limits them with a variety of positions in the community. I always say to guys “education it’s more than just books.” It's your experiences, your skills that you gain, so we work with a lot of other departments here kind of building on the education side of things. We go from just upgrading math skills even English skills to high school. And in high school we teach English, math, electives. So an elective I run a physical education and health course. I put a lot of push on my students to keep continuing with their education beyond just their high school. One of the big things I do here is the Max Book Club, and it's been a huge success. It can only fit so many students into a class but I have two great volunteers that come from the community. Once a month we meet, discuss a variety of books and like I said, it's been a really good experience.

I do feel like I make a difference with some of our guys, I may not reach all of them but there is success. It's pretty cool to see a guy actually succeed while being incarcerated.

CHANGING LIVES. PROTECTING CANADIANS.

Hello, I am Todd Ring. I work at Correctional Service Canada. I’m with my dog Java.

He is a detector dog specialized in drugs and firearms.

I’ve been a dog handler for Correctional Service Canada since 2001.

What am I passionate about? Just working with my colleague here.

This is my third. I have been with him for three years.

What did we do today? We conducted a search of the institution.

After that, we came back here to the warehouse, and now we’re checking all the goods that are in the warehouse, which will be distributed to the institutions of the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines Complex.

Jav! Let’s go! Good boy!

We’ll bring him up here. We’re going to the boxes in the back. You see, dogs are real athletes.

With him, I don’t need to point, he’ll investigate, he’ll go look for himself, he is searching.

You see, his tail is going... Look at that!

He is a mature dog, he is not afraid. Look, his tail is starting to wag. That means that he found the spot.

He sits down.

The last time he stuck his nose in.

Where is it? Up there? Where is it? Search! Show me! It is right... there!

Boom! Good boy! Ah! You are a good boy!

It’s hidden in the back. A small amount of drug was hidden inside the box here in the corner.

You see how efficient the dog is. He’ll do the work himself.

I’ll try to help him if there are things missing.

Otherwise, I let him work. Good boy!

During my day, I often work with correctional officers on the frontline, who are in the cell blocks.

I’m going to make my presence known; I’m going to talk to the inmates.

Hello, everything okay? Yes. How is it going, you guys?

And I’m just going to show that I am there.

Just by doing this, I don’t need the dog and it’s a great deterrent for the inmates to say we have a specialist who can find drugs with his dog.

I’ll also check the sector while I’m there; I’ll chat with them. I’m always looking around to see if there are any signs that something is wrong.

If ever I see something, I may not necessarily react right away without the dog. If something like that were to happen, I’d head back, plan intelligence with the intelligence officers, the officers, and then we’d conduct our search for our day in the sector. This is where the handler comes in, to make sure that the dog is going to work and performs at all times, and not to push him to the point of exhaustion.

It has to be fun for the dog, the dog has to love his work and always be passionate about what he is doing.

Us, we train him. We take a scent. We introduce it to him. We let him sniff it.

Sit! He sits down.

We put the Kong where the drugs are. During training, we’ll do this with each drug, each scent. At this point, we remove it. The dog, he knows it. He points his nose exactly where the drugs are.

He’s looking at me because he wants his reward. Where are the drugs?

Then we reward the dog.

Good boy!

That’s how we introduce scents to the dog.

So that he understands these scents, I want him to point them out to me.

Focus on that. Sit right next to the source.

I’ll give you your ball and we’ll play together.

As you can see, the dog is super happy. The dog, all he wants is his ball.

That’s his pay cheque. Exactly.

Valentina
Community Parole Officer

Hi, my name is Valentina and I'm currently a community Parole Officer at Edmonton Area Parole.

I was in University, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I was getting my Bachelor of Arts major in psychology and he was actually a friend of a friend that knew that I was really interested in crime, knew that I really liked working with people, and so they said, why don't you try and get a job with corrections?

I'm just very passionate about it. I love going to work every day. I don't look at it as dealing with these like, horrible human beings every day. I'm dealing with humans and I'm trying to contribute to public safety by setting these offenders up with the best release plans possible.

I do a lot of like one-on-one with the offenders because a lot of them don't have positive support, so a lot of them just need an outlet. So, if you're like a listening ear and you care about them doing well, they share a lot with you. And that in itself is very helpful in them being successful because as soon as they can start talking about their problems in a safe environment, they're more motivated to work on it.

In an institution you’re more so like just dealing with the offender and everything that's going on with them.

Whereas in the community, once they get out, you have all of these other moving pieces, like you're now dealing with their family, whether it's their family members or their partner or their kids. You're dealing with their employer, you're dealing with all these variables that you can't control, and it's just a whole other world.

That is what I love about my job is every day is different. I don't come to work and like sit at a desk all day, every day writing the exact same reports because each case is so different, each intervention that you're trying to create is different, and so that's what keeps you motivated.

So, if I could give someone just coming into the job advice or somebody that was interested in the job, I would say the most important things are definitely self-care, having work life balance and knowing your limits because it is a hard job and being patient, like there's so much to learn in this job and it's constantly changing and just being patient with yourself and knowing that you're not going to have all the answers, and that you have a whole team to support you no matter where you are, whether it's in the institution or the community, and using that team environment.

There are offenders that genuinely want to change, and when you can put in place those interventions or the resources or the support to help them do that, that's when you really feel like you're making a difference.

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A poster with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.

The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears on the top right corner with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”

Correctional Service Canada’s federal identity is included on the bottom left.

The Canada wordmark is on the bottom right.

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.

The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears in the center with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.

The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”
In the bottom right-hand corner is the Canada wordmark.

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.

The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”
In the bottom right-hand corner is the Canada wordmark.

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A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.
The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.
The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”

A graphic with vibrant shades of blue and purple features two hands supporting each other and lifting one another up.
The campaign title “Lift Me Up” appears with CSC’s mission of “Changing Lives. Protecting Canadians.”