GUEST POST by Gail Bury: Too Many Anchors is honoured to feature a submission by Gail Bury.  Gail is a renowned advocate for criminal justice reform and prison reform. Of all the professional profiles she has held, being a mom is paramount.  Her words come from experiences gained through pain, strife, and bewilderment.  Currently, with her daughter Madeline, they are the creators, writers, and hosts of the hit podcast, Prison Family Podcast.  It is enlightening in every way possible. ~GS

What does someone you love dearly have to do….to make you stop loving them? In my
world, there is nothing that stands in the way of that love. And I learned it the hard way.

So, I’m 67 years old. My involvement with criminal justice was scant. Back in the
1970’s my father retired from the military and took on a role as a correctional officer
(then referred as guards or screws) at Kingston Penitentiary and later at Millhaven
“Supermax”. He was there in both sites for the riots at KP and for the mass escape
from the supposedly inescapable Millhaven. It made for some interesting teenage years
and stories, being in those areas during that escape. Stories for another day.

I watched my father’s involvement in the corrections system utterly destroy him. He
became an angry, frightened, mainly drunken man who never really recovered from that
experience. I tell you this because I firmly believe that the corrections system has
changed very little in the past 5 decades and is pretty much as damaging for the
keepers as it is for the kept.

Fast forward 50 years. I’m a white, well educated, middle class and slightly beyond
middle aged woman with three kids, all well adjusted, or so I thought. And I have gone
from never thinking about jail/prison/crime to never having a day that I don’t think about
jail/prison/crime.

One day in 2015, my married son, a third-year math student at Waterloo University had
a very bad, no good, awful, terrible day. And I was ultimately forced to consider the
question I started with. “What does someone you love dearly have to do to make you
stop loving them?” In the agony of the moment, obviously that question was not top of
mind for me but having been questioned by both a so-called counsellor and lawyer who
told me that they admired me for standing by my son…. in many ways I did have to
come to terms with that question.

The consequences of that decision changed my life, flipped it upside down, in so many
ways. I got radicalized. Some things just can’t be unseen.

For most of us the first response to the news of a loved one’s involvement in crime
(especially if it is the first time) is utter shock, disbelief, denial. As an aside, I only
recently recalled that I cried hysterically for a couple of days then – and apparently ran
out of my lifetime supply of tears. I have NOT shed a significant tear in the past ten
years. I find that really weird. I definitely get the feels about stuff – but can’t/don’t cry.
Nobody gets out of this kind of experience unscathed, whether you are the main
character or a bystander.

For many it is a call from the police stating that a loved one is in custody and a polite
request for you to come in and answer some questions. That’s if you are really lucky
and that first call doesn’t come from a journalist instead. The police “invitation” is

generally respectful, and they do what they can to make you believe that cooperation
and sharing as much information as you can helps your loved ones. What actually
happens is they use you to build a case against the person that you care about. They
don’t tell you that you don’t actually have to speak with them at all. They don’t EVER
indicate you might wish to avail yourself of a lawyer. And once the police are done with
you, don’t ask for guidance or help because they, at that point, toss you away pretty
much like a used Kleenex. And use everything you said against the person you love.

If someone you love has committed a crime, there are really no supports available to
you. Victims services provide no support, even when you are both a victim and family
member. Often therapists and counsellors are less than helpful. One of our members
was told “well, you have three other kids…..” You are lost and confused. You are
carrying an incredible amount of shame and embarrassment. For quite some time, I did
my groceries in the middle of the night to avoid being met with someone I knew.

And that’s all before you go through remand, court, sentencing, provincial jail and
sometimes federal jail – over the course of months and sometimes years.

You don’t know how to navigate the legal system and there are no central resources
readily available to help you. Legal aid is confusing and sometimes really difficult to
access. You can hire a lawyer. They are extremely helpful and will answer your questions for as long as you wish to ask them. But you don’t realize that every single
minute of their time is costing you a fortune – like $500.00 an hour.

Sometimes you are treated to the full court “press treatment” with press scrums outside
of your home for weeks on end. Local news relies on crime for their bread and butter. I
know here in Newfoundland the top fifteen minutes of the news often comes directly
from the day’s court docket and police blotter. I have stopped calling it news. It’s not.
It’s harmful, it’s damaging and it is not trauma informed. It feels like no one gives
thought to the impact of the reporting on the families involved, how their lives and well
being are destroyed by the scrutiny. And somehow it gives the general public a feeling
that they are safer because the boys in blue are on the case. Trauma informed
journalism is just beginning to peek over the horizon in journalism school but it’s pretty
much in infancy. All of these factors pile on – heaping out layers of shame,
embarrassment, deep isolation.

I heard someone comment yesterday that St. John’s no longer feels safe, it is truly just
crime infested. I don’t believe this to be the case. Every major city has crime – but
when the news drumbeat, night after night, is a heavy focus on crimes, small and large,
what are people left to surmise? (By the way, crime stats are falling across Canada, not
rising).

When you are served a steady diet of courts, police, justice ad nauseum, masquerading
as “news” spare a thought for the families and people being ruined for entertainment
purposes.

Once you survive the early days, fear can really find a home in your heart. I recall doing
things like googling “how many people die in prison in Canada every year”. And the
answers are not encouraging.

Once your loved one walks though the prison gates, any control you had walks through
with them. You might be waiting for months on end to find out if your loved one will
actually walk out because our remand wait times can be long. And you will definitely
wait for days on end before you actually get to find out where they are shipped and how
they are doing. And that is just the beginning of the loss of control.

Did you know this? Once someone is federally incarcerated and sent to a federal
institution, you can send them money, or they can transfer funds from their provincial
account. (These monies are critical for someone in prison to maintain a baseline level
of nutrition). The FIRST thing that Corrections Canada does is to withhold sufficient
funds to transport their body home to family. The guards have been known to call it the
“body bag” deduction. What’s the message here?

When my son went to Joyceville, I made it my life’s purpose to make sure that he stayed
more emotionally connected to his home and his family than he did to the crime he was
surrounded by. But that gets expensive, if you want to do it right. We moved across the
province to be closer for visits. We used the phone to stay in touch. My personal
record was a $900 phone bill from Bell Canada. For one month.

The system seems to be set up to make that kind of connection incredibly difficult. I can
tell you story after story of family members who have prepared and driven for hours on
end for visits with their loved ones, only to find out at the gate or just before arrival that
the visit has been cancelled.

Phones are sometimes off limits to people in the range, dominated by bigger
personalities and used as a way to control other inmates. Families are unable to send
magazines or reading materials to bring a little comfort or help someone plan for their
future. Even little comforts, like greeting cards, are severely limited. It is quite difficult to
find a birthday card that meets CSC guidelines – no glitter, no stickers or stamps.
Families have reported having crayon drawings denied and returned. While these may
not seem huge from the outside, on the inside they have huge impacts in keeping folks
in touch with their loved ones. Its truly disheartening on both sides of the fence.

Lately we have been hearing that placements in Ontario are full and that many inmates
are being shipped across the country, despite having family members close and wantingto visit. Corrections Canada attempted, after we moved from west of Toronto to the
Kingston area, to send my son to Matsqui BC. We fought hard on that and are one of
the few who were actually successful. But it’s rare and despite what CSC will try to tell
you; video visits will never come close to replacing in person connections. And yet,
statistically we know that family supports have a significant and positive impact on re-
offending after release.

And if you are able to make in-person visits, CSC makes it incredibly demeaning and
shaming to get into the prison gates. The ion scanner is capricious at best. I’ve had to
clean my car to remove the muddy prints left by a drug dog. Or had to stand in line to
be sniffed by such a dog. For many visitors this is incredibly traumatizing if you have a
fear of dogs (and lots of people do). If you are a visitor you are treated like a criminal –
there is little to no eye contact, curt conversation and an icy chill. If you are the same person, entering as a professional, you will be greeted with courtesy and a smile. The
whole thing is geared to making you feel small and ashamed – criminalized yourself –
and it is quite effective.

A bit more about the ion scanner. You know those wands they use at airports to detect
bombs? At least airport personnel are thoroughly trained to use these devices. This is
not always the case in Canada’s prisons. Even something as benign as hand cream
can cause a false positive reading. And while in itself, that seems a small thing it can
have longer term consequences. Like a change in visits from open to closed or an outright denial of visits. I witnessed an elderly woman who came to visit her son have
the sole of her shoe swabbed and of course hit positive on the machine. Aside from the
verbal abuse she endured, she was denied her visit. We stood helplessly by –
heartbroken for her. In our podcast (more on that later) we talk at some length about
the ridiculous lengths folks go to, to avoid hitting on that thing.

They absolutely do need to do a better job of keeping drugs out of prisons. I think no
sane person would question that. But visitors are demonized for being the cause of
drugs entering prisons. But let us remember. Throughout COVID, in person visits and
private family visits were completely cancelled. No outside people allowed in. But
inmate overdoses? Still happened. So perhaps the lens needs to be widened a bit.

Here are a few other little tidbits I have learned about prisons in Canada. You most
definitely don’t EVER want to get a toothache in prison. You might be walking around
with that tooth for months end or until you pull it yourself. Medications are not always
administered in the way they should. My son (a former dancer) broke his big toe in
prison. The doctor told him, “nothing to be done about it”. A few months later that same
doctor told him he had quite a bunion. When my son said no, it was broken, the doctor
disagreed. We spoke about this too in the podcast. One of the MOMS will tell you
about her son who was medicated all the way into a two-week coma. Lately we’ve been
hearing a lot of stories about financial blackmail in prisons, where inmates are being
required to have outside loved ones pay money to an outside bank account to protect their loved one’s physical safety in prison, to the tune of thousands of dollars in one
case. Less egregious examples include inmates having to turn over their canteen
purchases to keep themselves safe. And if you look at the paltry nutrition standards,
you will understand why canteen is life sustaining in prison.

One of the people we interviewed in the podcast we created referred to the similarities
between child welfare and the prison system (which are essentially part of the same
pipeline and the relationship of both systems to bias in our society. Her comment was
that actually both systems are functioning as intended, if the desired outcome is to
preserve whiteness. In child welfare, there are currently more indigenous children in
care than ever were in residential schools. In prison, despite being 4-5% of the general
population, around 50% of incarcerated women are indigenous. The tools used to
determine security ratings and thus, prison placements, do not take into account the
multi generational impacts of colonialization. The bars for indigenous people in prison
are much, much higher to clear if they aim for parole or to be placed in healing lodges.
It’s almost impossible.
46 people died in Ontario’s prison system alone last year. MOMS Ottawa (more later)
has had standing at two provincial inquests, resulting in 57 recommendations in the
past ten years. Note that these recommendations are not binding upon government and it is ery rare for actions to be taken to comply. Very rare. The death of Solieman Faqiri is highly notable. Solieman was beaten to death by prison guards in Ontario, about 8 years ago, while waiting in jail for a mental health bed. His brother fought for 7 years for answers, for an inquest. Ultimately the death was ruled homicide. It was straight up murder. Those guards? Charged? Nah, they all still have their jobs. The first inquest recommendation was a charge that Ontario should clearly state that jails are not the right placements for people with acute mental illness. That has not been acted on. Not even close.

One needs only to look at the attendance records of today’s corrections officers to know
that by and large, these are not jobs that fill your heart with satisfaction at the end of the
workday. One warden reported an average 33% staff vacancy rate. Many COs will report CPTSD symptoms. And many turn to capricious cruelty exacted on incarcerated people to work out their anger. The staff burn rate at the “Edwardian” HMP here in St. John’s is known to be very high. Who’d want to work there?

So, in sum, we have a ridiculously expensive system, about $3.2 billion (federal alone)
annually which doesn’t really seem to be working for anyone.

There is a terrible feeling of helplessness when you know that someone you care about
is dealing with these conditions. There is hopelessness when you feel like there is so
little you can do to keep your loved one from engaging more with that damaging
environment inside rather than the circle outside waiting for their return. You wait,
sometimes for days, in a state of fear paralysis when the phone doesn’t ring. You count
the days. Sometimes, the only family source of income walks through the prison doors with a caregiver, leaving one parent to pick up the pieces with little societal support.
Kids carry an outside burden of shame and too often come into contact with child
welfare, with higher possibility of turning to crime themselves. Often, MOMS are asked
to become the surety for their kid. So, the relationship is really flipped on its head when
you have to be prepared to breach someone you care deeply about.

I can tell you this. Prison can happen in any family, regardless of your education, your
employment, your social standing. Families dealing with this cruel system need your
support, not your judgement.

My incredible daughter and son and I created a podcast to tell these stories. We had the support and help we needed from MOMS Ottawa and Pros & Cons Prison Arts
Program. Available wherever you stream. It took us two years, a lot of courage and so
much learning.
We hope you listen. It is our hope to broaden the empathetic lens of the general public.
“Lock them up and throw away the key” loses sight of the most important thing –
incarcerated people, by and large, are our future neighbours. We want them whole, healthy, ready to be a contributing member of society. Not angry and criminalized.

My son? Flourishing. Using his god given talents to help others who got caught up on
Canada’s system of injustice. I’m so proud of him.

Maybe spare a thought to my question. What does someone you dearly love have to
do, to make you stop loving them?

If I could leave you with one message, that would be it.