Again

Just browsing around this morning and I checked a site I had not read in a while. On it I found some comments about Derik's case that I had not read before. I was especially intrigued by the new posts by Derik's fiancee, Jasminda. I know she could write, but was suprised by her eloquence in this one! Way to go Jasminda! Here is the blog if you would like to read what she says:

http://closer-look.blogspot.com/2007/01/derik-lords-long-wait-jan.html

It is extremely hard in Canada to get a wrongful convicton overturned. We may never be able to do that.

My biggest issue with the system of incarceration we have here is the lack of parole availability. Our Parole Board states over and over that he will not see the outside of a prison without confessing to the crime. That volates the Criminal Code of Canada, is against the National Parole Board's own policies, flies in the face of the agreements Canada has signed with other countries under the United Nations umbrella, and is just not fair.

Derik, because he has family and friends who support him, has been able to stay away from the bad things that happen in our prisons on a regular basis. For example, he has not started using drugs, which are so readily available inside our prisons. Other prisoners have told me drugs are not only more avalable, they are cheaper than on the street. Drugs are the biggest problem inside our prisons. Management tries many things to solve the issue, but the roadblocks set up by the Guard's Union keep the measures from being more effective. Sure searching visitors catches some of the drugs being brought in, but not searching the gym bags and other containers brought in by guards gives a large avenue of importation that is not being closed off.

The only way to stop that door is to remove guards from the front entrances and replace them with a different security force such as the Commissionaires. That way, union members are not searching other union members. It would close a very large portal for getting contraband into the prisons.

The lack of family support becomes more apparent when we attend social events in the prisons. I have been approached by many prisoners who have not seen any family members or friends since being incarcerated. There are many reasons for this, but from what I have seen, visiting is not encouraged by the system. Although they give mouth to a great policy and openness for visiting, in actual practice, it does not happen easily. My husband has not seen his son for nearly 3 years now because they do not like his words. He writes letters to upper anagement noting obvious, glaring errors in the functioning of the visitng process. Because he embarrasses them, he is not allowed to visit. Derik has even been told to shut his father up and he might get parole! What a farce!

I can't help everyone, but I have supported some men who finally were able to gain parole. All except one have stayed out because they had someone to talk to outside of the prison environment. Someone who could give advice, support ( not with money) and just be friendly. These men are doing fine now. workng, supporting themselves and in some cases, their families, participating in outreach activties in the prisons, and more. Many more helpful people are needed in order to reduce Canada's growing prison population. Our Federal Government and its policies make it a very hard place to be.

http://www.canadianinjustice.com

Please write our Prime Minister
Stephen HARPER
Office of the Prime Minister of Canada,
Parliament Buildings,
Ottawa,
Ontario,
Canada

Coach Elouise
604-794-3218
Skype coach_elouise
Email: lordelouise@gmail.com
rascal60@shaw.ca
http://coachelouise.com

The trouble with Snow

I should have known it was going to be a bad day when I left the house I had spent the night at, late for meeting up with prison staff, and with a new route to follow that I had not tried before, and discovered it was snowing!!
So far, every time it has snowed this winter, something has gone awry. This time I was concerned about my son’s parole hearing. That is where I was headed. Following the new route Steven had given me, I actually made it to the appointment with 30 seconds to spare. Despite the blowing snow and the winding twisty road I drove.
Made it safely, so now we wait. The prison staff put us upstairs in the main office building, in the board room, to wait. About a half hour later, Derik's IPO (internal parole officer) Marion Higgins, brought him upstairs to sit with us. We just had a general conversation in which Marion told us a bit of the history behind the place. William Head Institution had first been built as a quarantine area for new immigrants from the Orient. Many Chinese and Japanese immigrants did not make it out of there. Those who were or became ill and died are buried in a corner of the property that is maintained as a Canadian Heritage site by the Federal Government. I felt it would be very interesting to take a walk around there, but this was not the day.
The prison began as a minimum security camp with no fences, then became medium security wit a three roll barbed wire fence cutting it off from the rest of the penninsula. Now, it is a minimum again, but the fence is still there. Parole hearings are a regular occurrence as prisoners serving long sentences, like Derik, has the right to have one every 2 years once they reach a minimum length of time served. For Derik, that time was 10 years. He has now been in prison for 17 years, but has not gained any release yet. We were hoping for something this time, but not really expecting anything like full parole.
Because the prison is located on the tip of a penninsula, we walked down to the visiting room, where the hearing was being held, in the rain, not snow. The 3 members of the board were already seated. The assistant got the IPO from Derik's previous institution on the phone and then the members of the press (6) and the relatives of the victims (8) were brought in and seated behind us. We had to face the board, his current IPO sitting with us, and were not permitted to turn around to see the people being seated behind us. There was a significant distance between the groups to prevent any possibility of interaction. Derik had pointed out to the prison staff that one of the relatives had physically assaulted me at one of our many court appearances, so that was one reason for the caution, and the larger room than was normally used.
The hearing started as it usually did with the board members wanting to discuss his crime. That part was naturally short as Derik still maintains that he is innocent. Even after such a long time in prison, he will not make up a confession. He is maintaining his innocence while assuring his continued incarceration. The next part was longer. Going back to his childhood, they wanted to know if his father was controlling. One statement they questioned is that I have to call him before I leave the house. I explained later, when I had a chance to speak, that we both did that. In our opinion, it made sense that someone know where you are in case something happened. At the very least, it gives a starting point for a search should someone not make it home. We kept in close touch with each other and with our children for that reason. I am sure some people might call us controlling, but we always knew where our children were and when to expect them home.
The chairperson also appeared to fixate on the fact that, as a boy, he carried a pocket knife. Derik explained that based on his rural upbringing for the first 13 years of his life. Nearly every boy carried a pocket knife in a rural area. You never knew when you might want to whittle a sling shot fork, or cut some binder twine to save an animal's life, or any other emergency fix. I don't think that the city people really understood that.
Once they were done questioning Derik, then it was my turn to speak on his behalf. I tried to give an eloquent testimonial on his progress since going to prison, expecially in the past few years. Derik had ended the questioning telling them about the programs he took, the effort he made to understand his behaviour, the self help books he read and worked through, the issues he had identified on his own and worked through, and the relationship he had been building with his fiancee over the past 9 years. I did an overview of the incarceration as a ping pong type of relationship building. They would tease him with a program and then say he did not fit the profile and yank it away. This happened 14 times. Most times he was screened out because he already had the skills they were trying to teach. For a couple of them, he was screened out as not being violent enough, and not willing to confess to the crime for which he is innocent. Finally, they had to give him one. Ottawa had to override the requirements to get him in there, but Derik worked very hard at getting the most benefit from the program as he could. However, the Parole Board did not believe that it was enough. Following my input, 2 of the relatives read impact statements. One was a very emotional short statement about the love lost when one sister died. The other one was a rant. He told the board that Derik should get out only after he received training to get a job and had the conditions put on him to repay the costs of his imprisonment.
Then Derik had the last word.
We were all ushered out in the reverse order than being ushered in, once again to avoid any contact between the 2 groups of people. The waiting began again. Suddenly, the phone rang and we were once again being summoned to the meeting room. There we got the decision. Day parole denied. Full parole denied.
I requested direction from the board members, and the only response was to continue with making improvements like he had been most recently. Once again, we left, ushered out in groups. We had another half hour visit with Derik and his IPO while the relatives were leaving the grounds. It was a good unwinding session. Both of us were on the verge of tears, relief that it was over and release of the tension.
Stopping just past the prison property, we gane an interview to CBC and GlobalTV news, once again standing in the rain as it changed back into snow. Arriving at the climic where my daughter works, it was now hailing ferociously. And again, following a great dinner with my daughter and granddaughter, I was driving in a near blinding snow storm.
A 30 minute drive, a 60 minute wait, an hour and a half ferry ride, and I was on the highway home. Surprise! Another snow storm on this side too! Two hours of that messy highway driving and I was finally back home. Snow and ice the entire way!
It is now April 2. No longer April Fools Day. At 2 am the snow is stopping and turning again to rain. Thank God that Day is over!

Elouise Lord,
mother, teacher, paralegal, writer, speaker, driver, facilitator, etc.

PS, next time it snows, I am not going anywhere!

Coach Elouise
604-794-3218
Skype elouise.lord
Email: lordelouise@gmail.com
rascal60@shaw.ca

http://tinyurl.com/b5op9q

updates

Since August, the wheels have rumbled! Staff at Matsqui finally completed the paperwork for the transfer to lower security. William Head Institution put pressure on them to get the transfer done before this week so he could take part in the framing course that is starting tomorrow. It is a lead in to the carpentry apprenticeship that he is transferring there to take.

He is there now for a week. Of course, his clothes and personal effects will take another month to arrive. He is happy to be near the ocean once more. It has been 17 years since he could listen to the waves crash and break.

I went to Victoria by ferry to visit him a couple of days after his transfer. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to see him as my visiting status had expired in October. That was something that does happen every two years, but I had put new forms in to Matsqui Institution in September after receiving a warning that it was about to expire. They lost the forms, but neglected to tell me. Now I have to re-apply and wait for approval. I filled in the forms while at William Head and turned them in. They lost those ones too. Go figure!

Since then, the framing course has started and Derik is not in it. They chose to put it available to only those who are to be released within the next 4 months. Since he does not have a date for his parole hearing yet, he has no release date. The system had to put off his parole hearing once again because the officer at Matsqui again refused to do any of the paperwork required.

He is learning to cook for himself and quite liking the freedom that entails. Once again, he is sitting and waiting. None of his personal effects have arrived yet. Likely will take another month to get them. He is surviving with the change of clothes and limited hygiene items he brought with him.

He is much happier despite all this as he is not under the same bullying constraints he had at Matsqui. The wheels of change roll so slowly that they appear to stand still.

http://www.canadianinjustice.com
http://www.hintsfromelouise.com

Remembrance and prisons

November 11 is always a soft and quiet day around our family gatherings. We remember the two uncles who fought in the first world war, one of them especially as he died in the trenches of France. His name was Ismael Boivin. the second world war brought more sad memories. Both my father and my husband's father were overseas. They were both in battles. My father was so severely wounded that the army reported him as missing in action and likely dead to his family. He was speaking German, his first language, while in the coma, so they thought he was a prisoner. Once that was cleared up, he worked in intelligence for a year until the end of the war.

Every year we all wear our poppies with pride. This year, however, was different.

My son is in one of Canada's prisons. There, he lives a lifestyle not unlike that of a prisoner of the Nazis. In years past, he was able to organize poppy sales and all the inmates wore their poppies on November 11. This year, the powers that be cited unstated security concerns regarding the wearing of poppies by prisoners. No one was permitted to purchase one, or get one brought in, or have a staff member provide one. It changed the atmosphere completely inside those stone walls. Pride of country diminished again.

Please write to the Royal Canadian Legion near you or to their headquarters to voice your concern about this terrible decision. This was the first November 11 in 30 years that my son was not permitted to wear a poppy to remember his grandfathers and their sacrifices during World War II

http://www.legion.ca/Home/SiteHome_e.cfm

Thank you for reading.

Coach Elouise
http://coachelouise.com