Transcription
I grew up in the middle of nowhere outside of Tunis in northern Ontario, uh, in a little tiny shack with no water, no electricity.
When I was 3 um to 15, I was sold in the sex trade. I go to prison and the first thing I said is I would like some uh mental health support. And they said, "You don't have mental health needs. We won't give you any." And I said, "Well, I begged to differ." And the guard that was sexually assaulting women for years and years and years in the prison. Then it happened to me. He took a plea deal for 3 years instead. So then when I went, I I wrote a victim impact statement. I said, "Now my heart hurts for you because I know you're going into a system where you will not get the help that you need to be better you." And I want you to know that I support you and I forgive you. And I hope you can learn to forgive yourself so you can start the healing journey and you can become a better you and stop harming others.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere outside of Tunis in northern Ontario, uh, in a little tiny shack with no water, no electricity. My brother, my father, my mother and my father was very abusive in every way. Um, you know, sexually assaulted me from a very young age. Um, when I was 3 um to 15, I was sold in the sex trade. Um, when I was eight, my my mother came in one morning said, "Your father shot himself. Get ready for school." My brother and I went to school and Children's Aid Society picked us up after school and took us into foster care. My father didn't die and for 2 years we bounced around seven different homes and then we were given back to my father. uh he was remarried now and had two other uh step she had two two children and so the abuse continued you know and so I tried to reach out to several people you know um I reached out to this therapist I was seeing and I said my dad's sexually abusing me and stuff and nothing happened. I told my the minister and his wife where I was going to church and they said we'll pray for him it'll get better. Nothing happened. I told my stepmother at the time, she said, "You're just trying to destroy my family." And then finally, when I was 15, I reached out to my guidance counselor and vice principal, Mr. Allen, and he he saved my life. And he notified the police and children back in foster care. Uh, they shipped me off to Subal Goma Sanatorium three different times, shipped me off to Minneapolis, even to the Fairview Deaconist program because they had no foster homes to put me in. Um, you know, I was always running away from the foster home when I would get one to go from Eric Falls to Timmans so I can see my brother uh who lived with my mother at that time. And my mother would just call the police and have them pick me up and I'd be back, you know. So, I had all these abandonment issues. I had all these maladaptive behaviors. Um, I didn't trust anybody. I couldn't trust anyone. And because so many people have hurt me, you know, my my survival mode was I will hurt you before you hurt me. I was very volatile. I had I was very impulsive. I had no emotional regulation. I go 0 to 100.3. Anything would set me off. Like these are all behaviors that stem from that unresolved childhood trauma. I learned at a very young age bouncing around from different schools and different foster homes that if I act out and I was the class clown and people laugh, they must like me, you know, which led to to my whole incarceration in the first place, trying to upstage people and be cool and have people look up to me, you know. Um, obviously I would hang out with younger people. They were more impressionable and I could be cooler around them, things like that.
I go to prison and the first thing I said is I would like some uh mental health support and they said you don't have mental health needs. We won't give you any. And I said well I begged to differ and uh they they wouldn't offer me any mental health support. So I remember you know I was still very volatile. I still had the same maladaptive behaviors I always did. Um, and it's not like my whole life was like that. You know, I would go to school, I would get educated, I'd travel around the world. I'd hold down really good viable jobs. But I had this cycle. It was about a 5-year cycle. And, you know, I'd do really well. And then, but I would never feel like I fit in, never fit like feel like I belonged, like I deserved anything like that. I would subconsciously self-sabotage and ruin things in my life. So, I can say, "Aha, see, I am worthless. I am stupid. I am a failure. I am nothing." all those things that were instilled in me growing up that I believed about myself. So, you know, I'm in prison now. I'm like volatile. I'm beating up people. You know, someone called me pathetic. I beat the crap out of her. And then I went down to staff and I said, "Hey, I just beat the crap out of this girl, you know, like help me." And so all they did was throw me in segregation and punish me. And so then I heard about dialectical behavior therapy being offered in the structured living environment and you had to apply through nationals. So I talked to my pearl officer inside and I said, "Can I take this? Get out of uh segregation, take this." And they said, "Yes." So I go in there and and I take I do the first three modules, mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation. I get to interpersonal effectiveness and they kicked me out of the program. I said, "Why am I getting kicked out of the program?" Well, we don't want to teach you new ways to manipulate people because they thought because I was articulate and everything, I must be manipulating the system. When really, I was just trying to change. I was just trying to get help. You know, I did I couldn't understand. I had a lot of in insight as to what I was doing. I just didn't know how to change it. So, I needed to learn this. And I was very fortunate because the behavioral counselor I had, her name was Jane. she passed away now. But she um she got this index card box with color-coded index cards. And what I did was I wrote down each and every skill from every module on the each card. And on the flip side, I would write the date that I used the skill and whether I found it effective for me, how it worked or didn't work for me so that I could focus on the ones that that I could actually use and and and practice that worked for me. I still have it at home and you know so I I just really did it on my own and I really practiced these skills day in and day out and tried really hard to to do it. It was a long long journey um to try and change those behaviors when you have behaviors for 40 years of your life. You know it doesn't just happen overnight. Uh, but I did it and um, you know I met some great people inside. Uh, the the great thing about the only great thing about it is the people that would come in from the community. So Senator Kim Pay would come in. Um, and so I started working with her on different things. Um, Elizabeth Fry Society would come in, Sevenstep Society would come in. I started going to every single thing I could. I would sign up for everything. I always joke saying we sign up for the cookies and then you just stay. But um, you know, I I did that. I really took an interest in in in what everyone was doing. And so then I was trained by the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies to be the peer legal advocate inside. So that's what I did. And so now I was helping people file a habius corpus or helping them with their paperwork or understanding their correctional plan or or helping them with release planning, things like that. And then one day, um, Emma Hellburn, who's, uh, who runs the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, she's a lawyer and was the regional advocate, and she came in and she said, you know, Sarah, you can get a law degree with with a criminal record, you know, and I said, "Really?" I said, "I want to do that then." So, she brought in some books, and I started uh studying for my for my LSAT.
I had an 8-year sentence. I was eligible for parole around 3 years and they kept me in for just over five because my sentence was long. They didn't want me out for a long period of time on supervision blah blah blah. You know, it was just all the same excuses just to keep you there for no reason. It was, you know, really no reason to keep me longer than I was eligible. And they have no right to deny you applying for parole with or without support. And but they make you think that you can't apply for parole without support. and they tell you that they won't submit it. It was released January 9th, 2020 and immediately started working with Ery and and Coverdale Justice Society um in the community. Did a lot of and wellness within. I started doing a lot of panel discussions at the university. Wrote my LSAT. I got a 174, you know, was going to go to Dalhousy Law School and I was working on the front lines, but of course when I was released, it was just in time for the pandemic. So within 2 months, now we're on lockdown and everything. Um, so I was working with a a Jack project that was formed. So it was John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, and Coverdale. And it was the largest mass decarceration in Nova Scotia history to get people out during the pandemic. We had two popup shelters and local hotels and we brought people out who were homeless and on remand, not even sentence and provide them 24-hour wraparound services, mental health, addictions, housing, employment, anything they needed. Um, and it was highly successful. There's an article that Ashley Avery and I wrote that's on my LinkedIn page um regarding the successes and and how that went. And after 3 months, the Department of Justice decided they wanted to put the money into electronic monitoring instead. So, of course, the jails filled back up because you can't wander someone without an address. So, that's where this, you know, Ashley Avery and I um when I got the job at Northpine, she was my first investment at Coverdale is because it was that breaking that homelessness jail cycle. So, we, you know, partnered up. I actually funded Coverdale Justice Society, but also five organizations around them that would share in those learnings and work together. So, it was about building community, breaking down those silos, which is very common in nonprofit world, and getting everyone to collaborate, work together to to build a big system and and learnings and share those learnings. So, um, Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia bought the building 15 bed house. And so they're the they gave a 99-year master lease to Coverdale. Now they're the ones responsible for collecting the rent from the clients and and the building maintenance and stuff so Coverdale can just do what they're good at and provide services. Um North Community Health Center for their mobile outreach street health um provided the occupational therapist, nurse practitioner, prescribing physician, they took a housing first harm reduction approach. And then uh Shelter Nova Scotia, a one place hub for people um still living precariously. They can go in, you know, get a shower, get a bed, get a meal, get clothes, uh legal advice, haircut, whatever they need. Um, and then Dr. El Jones with her her prison education program and uh Stepping Stone, who focuses on sex trade workers and and people victims of sex um sex trafficking. So they got a down payment for a house to provide you know programming and and a 4 bed house. So all of these things working together and it created this transformed this community in Halifax and you know the successes there are so great that within 7 months department of community services said we will provide permanent core operational funding for this because it's a solution to our problems. And now they have two other two other houses, one for youth and two for for women gender diverse. And so I mean these are the kind of things that that you know we were able to do. Yeah. And then yeah, I gave up my law degree for this job at Northwind because I found I could have more impact doing this work. I was the first impact director hired for for this portfolio. Is there a new foundation um founded in 20 I always say I just go around Canada giving away money that belongs to someone else. But no um uh what I do is I focus on you know um nonprofits, charities, forprofits, anybody who um helps people reintegrate back into society from prisons. And that could be anything from, you know, bail houses with full wraparound supports, mental health addictions, you know, OT's, MPs, um, you know, physicians, mental health addiction, everything. We fund a a treatment center in Neighborly, Ontario for presented men out of Ottawa and surrounding area. Uh, skills trades training. So, one of the most recent skills trades college in Toronto that has eight campuses and it'll be free tuition. It's a private college for anyone formally incarcerated who wants to get their pre apprenticeship program. Um, and oh jeez, I've got like 44 investments right now. So, there's so many uh prison education programs. Uh, with Dr. El Jones, she does a prison education program, all ad hoc. uh also Vancouver Island University's inside out program um where they match someone who's incarcerated with a a university student and they do a course together and then they have alumni and they work on different projects and try and make systemic change. uh Path Legal, a law firm that um stemmed from actually a case from when I was in prison where it was um uh you know I was sexually assaulted by a guard in prison and it was happening for years and because of that this whole idea of this humanentric approach to law where we have a for-profit and marriage with a nonprofit and they work together to bring civil litigation and also systemic change through through Supreme Courts and provide free legal services for human rights, prison law, things like that for anyone incarcerated or formally. Um, yeah, it's just there's so many that I do. Tech training, cyber security training, um, you know, housing, so bail housing for for, you know, people who are sitting on remand because they're homeless. So over 70% of people sitting in provincial jails are sitting there not because they're convicted of a crime, but because they have no address to be released to on bail. And so there's this overcrowding of people who aren't even convicted of a crime. So this allows them to be out in community doing programming and dealing with these unresolved issues of trauma and maladaptive behaviors that stem from these um and getting back on their feet and reintegrating and and being successful.
I can run down like on my latest impact report that I just uh presented to Doug Ford in the Ontario government. Uh over the first four years we served 7,577 formally incarcerated individuals and out of that we reduced homelessness by 86%. We uh lowered recidivism to 4.7% across the board for those individuals. Um, we saved taxpayers over $1.13 billion of incarceration fees per year, over $68 million a year in in uh hospital stays, over $43 million in emergency responses a year. Um, you know, 62% of people taken off of social assistance. uh median income for a formally incarcerated person 14 years post incarceration is only $14,000. You know, we've raised that to between 37 and $58,000 for these individuals. Um, you know, all these these stats that I can give 72% of people in educational programs to increase their education levels. Um, you know, so these are all things that, you know, I I make these investments and we, you know, I have a set of metrics that I want to see so that I can put these impact reports together and say like we're proving out these better solutions that are building safer communities and, you know, creating taxpayers and and citizens who are now contributing to society as opposed to being, you know, a burden on society, as they say. um or draining the systems, defunding all these community resources like mental health, addictions, healthcare, all these things. Uh this this what we're seeing now with with what's going on in Canada is a trickle down effect of over 30 years of of defunding. And that's just simplifying it. But, you know, we can't just blame like the current government or whoever you're going to be mad at at the second because this has been going on for decades. And this is the result we're seeing from from what's happened.
When you talk about violence in prisons and things like that, well, when you take away things like when the Harper government took away, you know, skills, trades, training, and and stuff in in prisons, well, if you go and take a population of people and you stick them in a cage with nothing to do, of course they're going to get violent. of course they're going to get bored. of course they're going to be, you know, acting out. You give them something to do, something productive that they can contribute later on. And that's going to lower those security risks. And so when you have, you know, directors of corrections saying, "Oh, well, we need to focus on security, not programming, and take away all these these programs." You're creating a more hostile environment and escalating the these u security levels. This is not just the Harper government, but he's been a a main one. I mean, bringing in mandatory minimum sentences, you know, like from my situation, you know, I was sitting there with these these two guys that were much younger than me and they talked about this armed robbery that they pulled off and got away with it. And I said, I can plan in one in 10 minutes and get away with it. And they said, yeah. And I said, watch me. So, I did. And I did it because I had all these maladaptive behaviors that I developed over time from my childhood. and and you know all these different things and acting out was a way to get people to like me things like that and so you know I did it to be cool of course you know because I was older than them it's just oh this this criminal mastermind taking these younger people and and turning them into criminals they were doing this stuff before I met them and I just wanted to upstage them so anyways my mandatory minimum sentence was eight years you know and I was sitting in there and there was a a woman and her daughter and And I I say this because this is the one that really stood out to me. They beat the uncle to death with a hammer, drug his body in the basement, lit the house on fire to hide the crime, and they only got six and a half years. And mandatory minimum sentences don't make sense, and they don't make communities safer. All they do is they take away the discretion from the judges to actually make their own decisions about what that sentence should be and taking into consideration any other factors that may be present.
These reports are done prescended reports for indigenous population and it's to demonstrate you know histories of family violence of of family substance abuse of you know the residential schools and the effects it's had on the generations and generational trauma and things like that. So they do these big reports um called gladu reports where they're supposed to demonstrate you know the high needs and and and the reasons behind you the over representation of the indigenous population in the in the incarcerable system. But really what's happening is these untrained judges and stuff are looking at these and saying oh a history of violence family violence a history of of family substance abuse. These are horrible people. Let's lock them away longer. um there's static factors and dynamic factors when it comes to um security ratings for example. So what happens is, you know, with those static factors, the intergenerational trauma from residential schools, uh, family violence, substance, things like that, those are all things in the past you can't change. They're static. And then you have your dynamic factors, you know, so the the behaviors and things that you can change over time. But because of those um higher um incidents of trauma and things like that, those static factors that are that are so common with the indigenous population due to the um colonization and and you know all those horrible things that have happened, what happens is they get higher security ratings. So not not only are they over represented, but they're over uh security classified. Now we're seeing, you know, the indigenous population be in maximum security more often than other individuals. Now I always say like when you look at the Canadian criminal justice system, it was designed initially to oppress and and and control the indigenous population and part of the whole colonization of Canada. And what you're seeing then is a a system that's rooted in in discrimination and racism and and colonization. And people want to to change this system. And know I always describe it like this. It's like a house. You have a house with a rotten foundation. It doesn't matter how many times you paint it, redo the roof, or put new shingles or windows in it. It's still going to be a rotten foundation. It's still going to be a rotten house. You know, this entire system needs to be completely deconstructed and rebuilt.
You know, um mandatory minimum sentences, you get people in there longer. And an example of that would be, you know, uh domestic violence, let's say. And it doesn't mean I condone domestic violence. And you know, you're going to probably get get a lot of people outraged about the examples I give, but I'm just giving these as examples of the realities of what goes on. So, if you have somebody who's beat his wife, let's say, you know, and he gets locked away in prison. So all that happens is he sits there and he stews and now he's getting angrier and angrier and angrier at his wife for putting him in prison, you know, even though it was his own actions. And so when he gets out, he's going to be more violent. He's going to be more angry. And this is why gender- based violence and and you know, people are getting murdered so often is so high because what are we doing? We're locking them away with no supports to actually get to the root causes of what caused that in the first place.
When I was first released January 2020, I was doing a volunteer placement at Nova Scotia Legal Aid Youth and my purpose was there was a moratorum that was put into place 20ome years ago at that time that prevented um youth from accessing diversion court for domestic violence. And so I thought, well, that's really the stupidest thing I ever heard because we're taking these kids who might have their first relationship. You know, they're in their teens, they get their first girlfriend or first boyfriend, and they have this breakup. They don't have any idea of what's going on. Um, you know, they have no emotional regulation, no skills to deal with with the this stress and and things like these situations. So they might grab the person's arm and like, "No, don't leave me or like go to their house and follow them around, you know." So now they're being criminalized called, you know, violent perpetrators or or stalkers and things like that. And it's like, why aren't we teaching these these children, these young these youth um dialectical behavior therapy in schools? Why isn't this part of school curriculum where we can actually teach these kids, you know, about mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, teach them the skills and the tools that they need to handle these situations when life hits them in the face, you know, and if you look at even, you know, the way the school system is now, the way, you know, this is the first, the Gen X is the first generation that underperformed the previous generation, you know, and it their IQ's are lower. They're because they're not learning those cognitive skills in school anymore. They're they're not learning them at home. There's no cognitive skills being built. So, why aren't we teaching kids before life hits them in the face? Same as when you have a perpetrator of violence or or any kind of perpetrator. You have someone with addictions. They're not committing crimes because they want to go out and have fun and commit crimes. They're trying to support their coping mechanisms, which is the substances, so that they can mask and numb the pain of the traumas that they went through that, you know, they had no form of supports to cope with because of all the cutting funds to mental health supports and and, you know, things like that. And I was in prison with somebody who was in there for a three-year sentence for 87 thefts. You know, not a violent offender, someone with an addiction problem who was stealing to feed her habit. Are these people that really need to be in prison or they need need to be out in society where they're getting the help that they need in a treatment facility and with, you know, intense trauma therapy, things like that?
I'm funding these different solutions. I'm showing that the the there's better resources I know society is programmed to believe that if people are locked away for a long time, they're safer. If we have more prisons and bigger prisons, people are safer. And that's not the reality of it. And I remember uh John Howard Victoria. I funded a new build there um part partially funded new build there. 28 bed transitional house, single living units, six accessible for four floor for a program in social enterprise, learn skills, you know, all the admin. And we did a press release and one of the one of the media said, well, what are you going to say to communities knowing to when they asked, you know, why you're bringing all these criminals to their to their community? And the reality is, and my answer was, whether you like it or not, the majority of people are going to be released from prison. So, the question you should be asking yourself is, do you want them released into your community with no supports to do better and thrive, or do you want them to be released with nothing so they're forced into this cycle of survival and they have to continue to commit crimes just to survive? You know, a healthy community isn't one that's free of addiction, free of mental illness, uh free of crime. A healthy community is one who recognizes when they're most vulnerable need support and they wrap around and support them. You know, that's a healthy community and that's what we're trying to build.
I'm going to tell you what needs to change first and that's definitely society's perception and society's attitude. And it's really really aligned with whatever political side they want to >> right >> lean on. And the problem with that is that they're so being duped because political parties really don't care about what the people want. They're using that as their platform to get what they want, >> you know? So, of course, you're going to have one side saying, "We need more prisons. You're not safe. We need tougher bail. Tougher this." But they're using numbers that aren't even real to try and showcase that. Like right now, you know, they say, you know, people are people are in in an uproar because oh my god, crime is up. Crime is everywhere. Crime is bad. Look at Stats Canada's page. Nonviolent crime and violent crime across the board is lower than it was. You know, so you one side is telling you crime's higher because it's in your face. the other and their own their own resources is telling you it's not it's actually lower than its peak in 98 and but what the issue is we have this housing crisis. So all these things that were happening behind closed doors is now in your face. So it gives you this you know this perception that crime is higher that violence is higher and things like that. Addiction is a big problem now. Addiction was always a problem. Just people were doing it behind closed doors. Now there's no space for them to do that because they're forced out on the streets. So society is what really needs to change um first and foremost and stop allowing these political entities to sway your your perceptions and actually focus on what the reality of the of of it is. Society is like oh we need to be bring back the death penalty. We need to lock these people away forever. We need to poke them with a stick. And the thing is, you know, the majority of people, there's very few people in the prison system that are actually truly evil. You know, they talk about the Bernardos, the Clifton, things like that. There are few people like that that are actually purely evil. The rest are victims. And I'll tell you, they're victims because over 83% of women who are incarcerated are victims of some form of sexual abuse or violence in their lives that has gone unresolved. Whose failure is that? Society's failure. It's society's failure. We didn't help these people when they needed help. We didn't help our most vulnerable. So instead, we're going to allow them to suffer and, you know, be forced to survive in ways that they would never even fathom for themselves. And we're locking them into a system where, you know, for example, I was in and I was raped by a guard who was raping women for about seven years. And I put a stop to it. He went to prison. Um, you know, and people think, "Oh, well, they they deserve what they get. Don't do the crime then if you can't do the time." I'm sick and tired of hearing that, you know, because I can tell you there's not one person I can guarantee you there's not a single person in Canada that has never broken the law. I can tell you that right now. >> It's just some of us get caught and some of us don't. Mhm. >> So, don't be throwing your your stones at the glass house, okay? Because you're no better. It's just a fine line between who goes and who doesn't. So, get off your high horse. And just because someone had a privileged life and didn't experience all these traumas that someone else did, doesn't mean that they're more deserving of more horrific things.
Prison is not a place that reforms people. It's not a place that rehabilitates people and it's not a place that supports people. It's a place that harms per people. You know, when you look at statistics like 83% of women are victims of some form of sexual violence or abuse in their lives. What's the very first thing that happens when someone walks through the door of a prison? They get strip searched. It's nonconsentual. That is a form of sexual violence. That is retraumatizing. you know, how are we allowing this entity to sexually assault people as they enter? Same as men, you know, it's just not as out in the open. It's not as much self-reported as the women. high numbers of sexual violence, mental illness, you know, the overwhelming number of people in prisons who are, you know, undiagnosed on the spectrum, you know, and so all these things. One of the victims of this guard, Brian Wilson, that was sexually assaulting the women, she was in her late 50s and she had the cognitive abilities of a seven-year-old. She was very vulnerable, very childlike. Are you telling me that this person deserves the stuff that she got and deserved to be in prison because she was so damaged and so harmed prior to going to prison that she behaved like a seven-year-old and had the abilities and capabilities of a seven-year-old? Is that what somebody deserves? You know, like why is it they play those commercials where they blast the Sarah McLaclin music in the background and they show all these sad dogs and cages and stuff and everyone pulls out their wallets and wants to donate for these poor suffering animals, but yet you can throw humans in a cage that are being abused and mistreated and all you want to do is get out your pitchforks and start stabbing at them because they deserve it. You know, like where's the humanity? Where's the empathy? Society is fail failing because there's no empathy and humanity, you know, and that is because we have this government system that that brainwashes people into thinking that this is needed. You know, you're not safe. And they instill fear. I work very closely with government against government. I'm not anti-government. There's a lot of good people in government, but we have to see it like it is. They have one goal and one goal alone. Sway people to their side so that they can be elected.
Institutionalization is a real thing. You know, when you're sitting inside, that becomes your world. The outside world no longer exists. and you get desensitized to the outside world and you become accustomed to just being in this little bubble. I remember when I was first released, Emma came and picked me up from the prison and uh you know just going into a corner store was so overwhelming, you know, and now it's like I have difficult time being in a room where there's a few people talking in the background. It's it's, you know, really overwhelming and I get high anxiety. So I have to use my grounding techniques a lot in those situations you know those sensory overload stuff like that you know like the effects that it has is you know a lot of people that have been in for a long time they come out and it's so overwhelming they do something just to go back in just to get away from from the world that they no longer know or or feel comfortable in.
I really want society to understand um a lot of of what goes on and and and the realities of how harmful prisons are and stuff back in the day, you know, had the resources been there in community for me to get the proper support. Like why did I reach out to so many people that turned their back on me when I was, you know, going through what I did as a child? Had those resources been in place for me to get the help I needed, I probably wouldn't have went to prison. You know, and that's why it's so important for me to fund the things I do to prove that, you know, if you look at the stuff I do in community, outside of prison, in community with the same people that everyone says should be locked away forever, recidivism rates 4.7%. Now, the national average, depending on, you know, who you want to talk to or or get it from, could be anywhere from like 50 to 68%. You know, why is it so much less with the things that that I fund through North Point? Because we're actually funding things that work. You know, we're helping people get from point from from ones to fours and fives. And a prime example like when I came out, you know, you have to realize also like how can you support someone to do better like everyone says, "Oh, once a criminal, always a criminal." Well, yeah, because you're making it that way. >> You know, if I I had an 8-year sentence, but guess what? Because of the way Harper changed things, I'm not eligible for pardon ever. So, I have a criminal record for the rest of my life. So really, I got a life sentence because now that criminal record prevents me from doing a lot of things, getting certain jobs, getting, you know, certain housing, getting, you know, so many different things, um, traveling places, whatever. And so here we are as a society saying, you know, these people need to to go do their time, get punished, but yet we're not going to let them out and do something good. But people say, "Well, they just get a job then." Okay. Are you going to hire them? And people saying, "Well, no, I wouldn't hire them." Oh, so how are they going to get a job then? You know, we need to break down those barriers.
I started funding forprofits, charities that were working to get people from those acute high needs places to where they could be employable, you know, but then I realized, hey, I need to be funding some for profits that are actually can become second chance hirers so that, you know, it's great to get people to point from point from point A to point B, but we need to have somebody take them on from there and give them that chance to thrive. You can't go and say that, you know, you expect these people to go to prison and come out and get on with their lives and do better for themselves and then prevent them from doing that and then blame them for it. >> You know, when I came out, my credit score was probably 200 at best. I had stuff in the credit bureau because when you go to prison, they don't let you out to go deal with all your finances and stuff. >> So, all these things in the credit bureau, you know, I got out. The first thing I did within a month of being out is I got a secured credit card from Capital 1 just so I could start rebuilding my credit. I was on parole for just over 3 years when I got out. The my warrant expiry date, which is the end of my sentence, was February 4th of 2023. Well, from January 9th till February 3rd of 2023, I rebuilt my credit, saved up, put a down payment, and bought a house. Closing date on my house was the day before my sentence ended. You know, why did I do that? Cuz I wanted to prove to people that despite all this the barriers and stigma out there, you can't accomplish it with the right supports. Could I have done that had I not had the right supports in place? Probably not. Who knows? I probably could have went back to prison. I don't know. Because I was fortunate enough to build those relationships. And it wasn't through family. It wasn't through, you know, friends. It was through the people I met that came in to the prisons. The people that were kind enough to come in and support those in there. You know, the people that support the most vulnerable are the ones that are the heroes. you know, they're the ones that see that, you know, with the proper support and and resources and things in place, people can become better versions of themselves.
The one thing and and I I'll tell you this because it's so vitally important to understand where I get my my my values from and and why I get this. You know, I have this I align with Northpine so well because they have a core value of kindness and I truly believe in that myself. And so Brian Wilson, the guard that was sexually assaulting women for years and years and years in the prison. While, keep in mind, the prison would get reports, hide them, and even when it before it happened to me, I found out it was happening to that very vulnerable woman I talked about. I went to the warden at the time and I said, "Here's evidence. Here's dates and times. Here's proof. This man's sexually assaulting this woman." And I was told, "Sarah, you know what our staffing issues like right now? I'd prefer not to investigate this, but rather confront him on the fact that if someone chooses to blackmail him with this information, it could cost him his career and hopefully that will stop the behavior." And I was appalled. Then it happened to me. So in my mind, I had to collect serious hardcore evidence. I needed to get proof that this was happening. Um, so of course I was stuck in this cycle of being abused. all this PTSD came back, you know, things like that, I was a total wreck. I was really set back a lot from the progress I had made, but in my mind, if I didn't get the proof I needed to just continue to do this, I was actually able to finally get it. And um so he goes and of course his wife was also a guard there and they were both in the media and she's in there. Oh, Google search these women. They're all just liars. They're pieces of crap. they're worthless, blah blah blah. And unfortunately, she became a victim of his. And so she showed up with evidence and stuff that he was actually doing these things. So anyways, he pleads not guilty and um Northpine I said we need to support these women. We gave $10,000 to Elizabeth Fry Society to provide hotel rooms and one-on-one mental health supports to each and every victim going to court. There's about a dozen PE victims. And um as soon as everyone showed up after jury selection, he took a plea deal for three years instead. So then when I went I I wrote a victim impact statement and I I was the only one. I went to court for a sentencing and I read it and what's important to know is what I said. I said, 'You know, these are all the ways that your actions harmed me. It triggered my existing PTSD from my past traumas with my father and and the other men and stuff. I said, "But now my heart hurts for you because I know you're going into a system where you will not get the help that you need to be better you. And I want you to know that I support you and I forgive you and I hope you can learn to forgive yourself so you could start the healing journey and you can become a better you and stop harming others." And he broke down crying and he told the judge, "I can't believe she would say such nice things to me after I've harmed her so much." And um so then I applied to have the publication ban lifted as it pertained to me so I could freely tell my story. And uh Thomas Kater, the crown attorney, helped me with that. I remember he called me and he said, "We won that. We won it in the Supreme Court." But furthermore, it set a precedence and now it's being written into law for victims moving forward that they can have it removed without going through this big tedious pro process. He said, "But the most important thing I'm going to tell you, victims, don't ever get to hear this is that I called Brian Wilson in Spring Hill because that's where he was incarcerated." And he said, I told him he had a right to be at the hearing and he'd get out of jail for a day, get a free meal, all this stuff. And his response was, "I can't. I have programming that day and I think it's working. And after what Sarah said, I truly believe that it, you know, I can change and it'll be better." For me, showing that kindness during his sentencing, um, that was so important because I remember even when I was incarcerated and stuff, you know, my brother turned his back on me, wanted nothing to do with me. I'm removing everything negative from my life, you know, every single person just turns their back on you. Even through my childhood, everyone turned their back on me when I was going through the things I was going through. And it wasn't until people started believing in me and supporting me, even though I didn't believe in myself, even though I couldn't find that in myself. It took years of people, you know, not turning their back on me for me to be able to say, "Wow, like someone actually does care. I am worth something." To be able to start changing. I think it's really important showing kindness especially to those that harm you, you know, could be that turning point. Society needs to learn how to be better and get back to humanity.