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| Michael Crowley |
Historically, halfway house-type accommodation has existed since at least the 1960s in North America, a period of time that saw the emergence of places other than government institutions that sought to assist both men and women who were experiencing difficulties in adjusting to normal life, away from prisons or mental health facilities. There appears to have been a notion that some people needed support outside a large structured environment, such as a hospital, in order to cope.
The first halfway house in Canada is considered to be St. Leonard’s House in Windsor, Ont., which, in 1962, started taking in men who had served time in prison. Rev. Neil Libby, an Anglican priest, was the driving force behind this concept and was considered a leader in the halfway house movement across the country.
Initially, in thinking about writing this article, I was going to go into more of the history of halfway houses and provide an overview of the legislation that applies, or provide numeric comparisons.
But instead, I’ve decided to be less technical and focus on my personal experiences with halfway houses in Canada and the United States.
In Canada, a halfway house may be found in an actual house, usually in an urban setting, that has been converted to accommodate differing numbers of residents. The term that is used by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) is community residential facility (CRF). In general, these houses are operated by nonprofit organizations, such as the Salvation Army, the St. Leonard’s Society of Canada, the John Howard Society and the Elizabeth Fry Society (for women). They are funded by CSC.
CRFs are different from community correctional centres (CCCs) primarily in that CCCs are operated by CSC. CRFs are able to accept (or not accept) potential residents while CCCs cannot.
Individuals who reside at CRFs are there on day parole for up to six months, full parole (rarely), statutory release or long-term supervision orders.
In this article, when I use the term halfway house, I am referring to a CRF, a facility funded by CSC but not operated by the government.
The Parole Board of Canada (PBC) is the releasing authority, and when it grants day parole, it has determined that the individual will not pose an undue risk to society if released but requires support, guidance and transitional support before reaching either full parole or statutory release, and can live on their own. If a person is ordered by the board to reside at a CRF on either statutory release or a long-term order, the board has determined that they pose a high enough risk for violent behaviour that they must be carefully monitored, and the available option to do so is in a CRF.
I used to be responsible for the halfway houses that the Ministry of Correctional Services (MSC) in Ontario funded for provincial offenders. There were more than 30 such houses, located throughout Ontario, some in remote areas but mostly in urban areas. But the government terminated the funding in the mid-1990s and no successive government has yet brought it back.
I said earlier that many halfway houses are found in renovated houses, but more recently other types of buildings have been renovated or specially built to accommodate offenders who are under supervision. These facilities range in size from 12 to 35 beds. While most occupants share a room with one or two others, some have apartments (single resident occupied, SROs).
Still, the numbers are relatively low, with 35 or fewer beds (and residents) in a single facility. The average size of a CRF in the Ontario and Nunavut regions is 15. I compare that to the facilities I worked with in the United States. When I worked as a consultant, the smallest halfway house I found had approximately 40 beds, and the largest had around 120. But I also trained staff in a facility near the Newark, N.J., airport that had 500 beds; the staff there expressed concern that they had heard a rumour the state was about to fund a 1,000-bed facility! This rumour was accurate, but it had nothing to do with the provision of better programming or assisting with reintegration; it was simply a way of avoiding being sued for prison overcrowding.
So, what is a halfway house? Simply, it should be seen as a transitional facility, intended to assist an individual who is reintegrating back into society.
Each CRF has its own rules about resident behaviour and requirements about curfews and sign-outs. And in addition, CSC has its own expectations about what should be taking place within a halfway house. But in its most basic description, each CRF is staffed around the clock, seven days a week. It is the expectation of CSC and the board that the staff know where each resident is during the day; at night, they are expected to be in by a curfew, unless they have had an overnight pass authorized. Residents are responsible for the cleanliness of the house, including their own rooms and the exteriors of the properties. While in the past it was normal for halfway houses to have cooks on staff, that is not the norm any longer.
In addition to the CRFs that are for female offenders, CSC also funds some facilities that have specific clientele. For instance, there are a limited number of CRFs that specialize in residential substance abuse treatment, and programs that are utilized by Indigenous or Inuit offenders. There is also one CRF that is dedicated for use by aging or infirm offenders.
When I worked for the MSC in the mid-1980s, I was the deputy director of the CRF branch of community corrections; we were responsible for the ministry’s halfway houses and my boss was a man named Art Nuttall. He was credited as being the person who created the model for halfway houses for the province and had overseen a significant growth in the number located throughout Ontario. The problem that Art had, in my view, was that he had no background in community corrections. After emigrating from England, he was employed as a librarian for the ministry and then was an assistant to the minister.
His view of halfway houses was that they should be small and located on residential streets, so the residents could observe their neighbours participating in normal, middle-class activities like cutting their lawns and taking out the trash, and that this would help the residents become prosocial and cease criminal activities.
My view was different. I believed that the halfway houses should be located where there was good public transportation, in communities where employment opportunities existed, and that the neighbourhoods should be in areas where there was less crime and drug use. I thought locating them in an industrial park actually made sense. I did not think that observing people engaging in normal social pursuits would have a significant positive impact.
I also believed that trying to open a halfway house in the kind of neighbourhood Art had described could easily lead to neighbourhood opposition — the good old “not in my backyard” syndrome. Art retired early due to health reasons and I became director, but then I left government to work in the nonprofit sector. A few years later, the provincial government closed all its halfway houses, so the argument about the best location became moot.
This is the first instalment of a two-part series.
Michael Crowley has a BA from Syracuse University. He spent more than 40 years in various positions within the criminal justice system in Canada. Before retiring, Crowley was a member of the Parole Board of Canada for 21 years. Contact him at CrowleyMichael167@gmail.com.
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