If you\u2019ve ever wondered what life is like inside the walls of the Dorchester prison, you\u2019ll have a chance next week to see inside the institution and hear from people involved with it. The Citizens Advisory Committee attached to the Dorchester Penitentiary is hosting an Awareness Day event next Wednesday, November 8.<\/p>\n
CHMA called up committee member and Sackville barber Jerry Hicks to find out more.<\/p>\n
Citizens Advisory Committees (CACs) are attached to every prison in the country, says Hicks, on mandate from Correctional Services Canada. \u201cWe work with the inmates, we work with staff, we sometimes do mediation, and we find out what\u2019s going on within the system,\u201d says Hicks. \u201cWe\u2019re just there almost as an advisory body or a watchdog,\u201d says Hicks. \u201cTo be that sort of community voice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hicks says the different members of the CAC are on different subcommittees tasked with keeping in touch with various aspects of the prison. \u201cPart of my subcommittee work is to work directly with the inmate committee,\u201d says Hicks, \u201cso I meet with them regularly. I meet with the chaplain, I meet with the school, the teachers\u2026 Others would meet with the seniors at the prison, some would be with the Aboriginal group, the Black group.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea behind the Awareness Day is to simply inform more people about what goes on at Dorchester Penitentiary. \u201cI think what we\u2019d like to see is for the public to have a better view of what what a prison looks like,\u201d says Hicks. \u201cIt\u2019s something that is very mysterious for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dorchester Prison was first built in 1880 as a maximum security prison, but now operates medium and minimum security units. It\u2019s also home to the Shepody Healing Centre, which serves male offenders with serious mental health conditions.<\/p>\n
The day will involve morning tours of \u201calmost every aspect of the prison,\u201d says Hicks, and then in the afternoon, \u201ca talk time where various folks speak to us about their role within the prison system.\u201d He expects to hear from an inmate, security staff, the warden and a psychologist.<\/p>\n
There are 30 spots in the open house with some still available. Hicks says the committee is inviting a cross section of people and will accept registrations until Monday. People can email Jerry Hicks at jerryezrahicks@gmail.com for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019ve ever wondered what life is like inside the walls of the Dorchester prison, you\u2019ll have a chance next week to see inside the institution and hear from people involved with it. The Citizens Advisory Committee attached to the Dorchester Penitentiary is hosting an Awareness Day event next Wednesday, November 8. CHMA called up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":191984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,3265],"tags":[32342,16929,32340,32341,32443],"radio":[227],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191982"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192274,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191982\/revisions\/192274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191982"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=191982"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=191982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}