Sex-offender program in limbo

10-8-2009 Canada:

Minister’s office denies decision on funding made

OTTAWA-A national program that supports sex offenders after their release from prison is “in limbo” following conflicting reports about the status of a funding request made to the federal government, a co-ordinator says.

Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) is set up in 16 sites across the country and currently works with nine sex offenders in Ottawa.

Its co-ordinators had hoped federal funding of $7.5 million over five years would allow them to increase the number of offenders they work with and to conduct an evaluation of the program’s effectiveness.

On Sept. 22, co-ordinators and volunteers were stunned when an official with Public Safety Canada’s National Crime Prevention Centre told them the funding application was “dead,” said Andrew McWhinnie, CoSA’s national co-ordinator.

McWhinnie said National Crime Prevention Centre staff told them three times that the project “was done,” and a staff member also asked for the facility’s postal code in order to send a rejection letter.

McWhinnie believes the decision to deny funding came from Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan’s office, but suggested that media coverage may have caused a review of the decision.

A spokesman for Van Loan said Wednesday that no decision was ever made and that the application remained under review.

“The minister finds it odd and was surprised to hear that the organization has been contacted,” Chris McCluskey said. “The minister hasn’t made any decisions regarding the organization’s request for funding.”

McCluskey could not say when the result would be issued. McWhinnie said he hoped to have a definitive answer by the end of the week.

“Right now, we’re in limbo. We’ve got thousands of hours into this proposal, encouraged at every step of the way to continue, and we’re all sort of sucker punched at this point,” he said.

McWhinnie said CoSA programs worked with about 150 offenders across the country each year and had hoped to increase that to as many as 300.

Each offender, called a “core member,” is paired with four or five volunteers who help with emotional support and day-to-day necessities such as housing and employment.

CoSA co-ordinators speculate that the request may have been initially denied for political reasons.

“We work with high-risk sex offenders,” McWhinnie said. “The government is engaged in a process now of toughening their legislation around sex offenders and around offenders generally. I don’t know whether it’s because this is a program that is on the one hand seen to support offenders … whether that worries them.

“On the other hand, we’re a program that holds offenders accountable and responsible for their actions, which is, we thought, exactly what the government wants to do,” he said, adding that the program starts after the criminal justice system was “essentially finished with these guys.”

McWhinnie said the program drastically reduced recidivism and had been replicated in Britain and the United States.

Susan Love, who co-ordinates the Ottawa CoSA, said about 30 offenders had participated in the program during the past eight years and none had committed further sexual offences.

“When you consider the reduction of victims and the community’s feeling of safety because they know that this safety measure, this program, is in place, you can’t really measure that,” she said.

Love said the Ottawa program operated on a shoestring budget, like others across the country, and received about $15,000 each year from Correctional Service of Canada to cover the co-ordinator’s salary, expenses and travel.

Should the program receive the requested funding, Love hopes to double the number of core members in five years and to hire a research assistant and bookkeeper.

“We’re just hoping that the minister will reconsider and see that this is not only cost-effective, but (also) an effective program that reduces victimization and also engages the community,” she said. ..Source.. by Neco Cockburn, The Ottawa citizen