Voices Inside and Out

Rick Sauvé: Part 2: Helping Others Return to Communities and Endure Prison

Episode Summary

Rick Sauvé truly deserved to be honoured with the Ed McIsaac Human Rights in Corrections Award. Not only did he win voting rights for prisoners in the Supreme Court, we learn in this episode of his commitment to helping prisoners. Among other contributions, Rick has provided peer support through LifeLine, assisted at more than 400 parole board hearings and helped prisoners leave gangs. As a person who has been behind bars and successfully lives under sentence in the community, Rick has terrific insights into the challenges fellow prisoners face and significant credibility with them. He shares information about the prison programs he has delivered and the other efforts he has made to help those still behind bars find their way.

Episode Notes

This episode touches upon some issues relating to effective programs to support people returning to communities:

1. Why would effective programs like Lifeline be defunded by the government?
2. Is there a bias against peer-support programs?  Some prisoners who are resistant to prison programs or who are not being offered programs would benefit enormously from getting advice and support from those who have experienced prison and have succeeded in leaving crime behind.
3. Shouldn't there be more research on the effectiveness of peer-support programs with a view to supporting evidence-based corrections?
4. Rick raises the importance of volunteers bringing community into the prisons:  How do we encourage this?