HEALING LODGES: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
OT TAWA • Federal public safety minister Ralph Goodale announced Wednesday the federal government will review the decision to transfer TerriLynne McClintic, who pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of eightyear-old Tori Stafford in 2010, to an Aboriginal healing lodge for women offenders. Since being reported by the London Free Press earlier this week, the news has sparked outrage. Rodney Stafford, Tori’s father, told CBC News it amounted to a “free pass” for his daughter’s killer.
Here’s what you need to know about why the lodges exist and how effective they are.
Healing lodges are intended to address the high rate of Indigenous incarceration in Canada
In 1992, Canada passed new legislation to allow Aboriginal communities to provide correctional services, part of an attempt to improve the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in Canada’s correctional system.
However, non-Indigenous offenders can also go to the lodges
It’s unclear whether McClintic is Indigenous — but even if she isn’t, that doesn’t make her ineligible to live at a healing lodge. According to information on CSC’s website, nonIndigenous offenders can live at the lodges if they “choose to follow Aboriginal programming and spirituality.” CSC didn’t respond to a request for more information about eligibility criteria, but the website says that “In all cases, we thoroughly assess an offender’s risk to public safety before a decision is made to move him or her to a healing lodge.”
Some inmates have escaped from them
In 2016, the National Post reported that 18 inmates had escaped from healing lodges over the previous five years, and that Pe Sakastew, a lodge for male offenders in Alberta, had recorded 34 escapes since 1999, though many escapees were recaptured peacefully or returned on their own. Of Canada’s nine Aboriginal healing lodges, all are minimum-security facilities except for the two lodges for women offenders, which also accept medium-security inmates. On Wednesday, Goodale said McClintic had previously been held in a maximum-security prison, but was classified as a medium-security prisoner in 2014
It’s not clear how effective they are Aboriginal healing lodges are a response to the disproportionate number of Indigenous people behind bars and an attempt to address concerns that “mainstream prison programs do not work for Aboriginal offenders,” according to information from CSC’s website. They use a “holistic and spiritual” approach, including “guidance and support from Elders and Aboriginal communities.”
But research into their effectiveness has shown mixed results. A 2013 government backgrounder claims that the recidivism rate for offenders who’d completed programs at three Aboriginal healing lodges was six per cent, less than the national rate of 11 per cent.
But a 2001 government report reported a 19 per cent rate of recidivism for healing lodge residents, compared to 13 per cent for Indigenous offenders released from minimum-security facilities.
The local First Nation says it was ‘surprised’ by the decision
The Nekaneet First Nation in Saskatchewan, which houses the Okimaw Ohci healing lodge, released a statement Wednesday saying it was surprised by the decision to move McClintic to the lodge. Chief Alvin Francis said First Nation elders used to weigh in on which inmates were chosen, but their funding was cut about six years ago.
“We have no say on inmate selection, but I believe if our elders were still a part of the process maybe Ms. McClintic wouldn’t be at the healing lodge,” Francis said in the statement.
A 2012 review from the Office of the Correctional Investigator identified community acceptance as one factor preventing the expansion of healing lodges in Canada. Like the Okimaw Ohci lodge, many of the existing healing lodges are located on First Nations land. “Just as in many non-Aboriginal communities, not every Aboriginal community is willing to have offenders housed in their midst or take on the responsibility for their management,” the report found.
This isn’t the first time concerns have been raised about a serious offender getting off easy via a healing lodge
Shortly after being sentenced in 2016 to 10 years in prison for a drunk driving accident that killed a family of four in Saskatoon, Catherine McKay was transferred to Okimaw Ohci, the same lodge where McClintic now resides. The victims’ family was outraged, telling Global News that the “consequences aren’t there” for offenders sent to healing lodges.
At the time, Sen. Kim Pate, former executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, said healing lodges are still considered prisons. “It’s supposed to look at particular issues faced by Indigenous prisoners and allow an opportunity for them to deal with issues that have led to them being criminalized,” she told the CBC in February 2017.