Brian Lang, district director for Corrections Canada gave a presentation on a new halfway house and the time line he expected before such a house was actually up and running. He gave a brief history of the circumstances that caused the previous halfway house to be closed down and the agreement that was signed by Corrections Canada, the John Howard House and former Mayor Harvey on behalf of the City of Vernon on Aug. 20, 2004. He then spoke of the Community Advisory Board that had been set up to visit other facilities in B.C. and produce a report on the 'The Future of a Community Residential Facility (Halfway House for Federal Parolees) '. (This report was produced Oct. 5, 2005) (See a copy of report at COW AGENDA BACKUP (p.100-110) How the Council handled report can be found at Oct.24/05 Council Minutes & Oct 11/05 Council Minutes
He told the Council that Corrections Canada accepted 24 of the 25 recommendations of the report but were not sure about 1 of the financial recommendations. Mr Lang also indicated that he would endeavor to get a redacted copy of the comprehensive report of Corrections Canada into the hands of the council as soon as it could be legally released. This was in response to a question of Coun. Beardsell. Other questions re the number of parolees in the area and the number of Vernon residents in the number were partially answered and clarifications of residency etc will be sent back to council shortly. (There are 42 active parole cases handled by the 3 Vernon Parole officers including clients from remote locations like Salmon Arm etc who are assigned Vernon located Parole officers.)
Coun. Cunningham expressed concerns about a halfway house and mused that 'not having one was perhaps a greater risk for the community'. "We are creating a false sense of security in the community because we don't have a building called a halfway house. (Parolees) are still out there."
Outside at the media scrum, Lang in response to a question confirmed that there are 42 parolees already in Vernon, but none of them would be eligible for the halfway house. Residents of the new house would be new to Vernon. He also said that if this increased the caseload of the 3 parole officers then adjustments in funding for increased resources would have to be made.
The news Media will be publishing stories today (Vernon Courier) and Wednesday (Morningstar) and they should be elaborating on this important subject. The headline of the Courier's report is ' Corrections vows to work with city' with a quote from Mr Lang; "We would not think of imposing a halfway house on Vernon."
DON QUIXOTE NOTES:
If you take the time to read this report and its 25 recommendations you will be able to judge whether the recommendations were followed yet or are acceptable to you for the future running of a halfway house. The one that states "A hard Copy of the report be made available to Citizens at the City of Vernon offices and posted on the City website." stands out as one that has not been truly complied with yet.
I welcome a community discussion and a council decision on whether Vernon is prepared to host a halfway house again and only hope that the history provided is correct and decisions made on valid undistorted information. To further this end I leave you with my response to the Corrections Canada inhouse investigative report that the council may yet get in a redacted version. Our former Mayor best expressed what was required by the community in an article you can read at http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/09/23/vernon_parole040923.html on Sept 23/05 (a month after signing the Aug 20 agreement).
Please read the full report COW AGENDA BACKUP (p.100-110) and feel free to leave constructive comments!
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