I am going to throw some facts at you. The United States is home to 4.4 percent of the world’s 7.53 billion population, whereas Canada represents only .5 percent of the world’s population.
Some 22 percent of the world’s prisoners are behind bars in the U.S. In 2015, the Washington Post reported that 478/100,000 people are incarcerated in the United States, the world’s highest rate, as compared to New Zealand’s 192/100,000, Canada’s 188/100,000, Australia’s 180/100,000, and Japan’s 51/100,000.
Nine years ago, Chris Redlitz created a program called “The Last Mile, Paving The Road To Success,” working with inmates of San Quentin State Prison to help them develop entrepreneurial skills in the field of technology to facilitate success for these men once they were released from prison.
The program also successfully met the goal of dramatically reducing the rate of recidivism.
In creating this program, Redlitz also began looking at how to curb or prevent incarceration in the first place by looking at directing resources toward prevention; to spend proactively.
I listened to Redlitz and Kenyatta Leal, one of the project’s co-founders and the first graduate success story, speak on CBC Radio’s “Spark” with Nora Young. Leal had been incarcerated for 19 years. He was eloquent, obviously intelligent, and became a passionate student of this program.
There are many, many others like Leal, who find themselves in prison because of a wrong turn, because of trying to break out of the chains of poverty, and because of being human. Redlitz imagined the change in those incarceration statistics if spending tax dollars was focused on providing higher education and creating educational opportunities for those living in high-risk communities, instead of spending those same tax dollars on maintaining prisons.
And it got me thinking.
Are there similar projects in Canada? Our Canadian statistics are worrisome. Indigenous people represent roughly five percent of Canada’s population, yet in 2017 indigenous people represented 27 percent of the population in Canadian prisons, which is a significant increase from the previous decade.
What are we doing to prevent incarceration in Canada? What are we doing for high-risk youth? What are we doing for indigenous youth who do not receive the education funding and educational opportunities that white children receive–the very topic of Tanya Talaga’s 2018 Massey Lectures.
Wouldn’t the world be so much better off if our children could launch from a level playing field, with access to the same resources and opportunities.
As I sit at my desk, tempted to whine about my aching right leg and curse my incessant search for my glasses, I’m thinking it would be much better to redirect my energy toward something helpful–something that can change the life of someone, even if for only five minutes.
I can start small and build. And I’m willing to bet the pain in my right leg would go away.
I am thinking the idea for “The Last Mile” started out small, in the tiny corners of the minds of Chris Redlitz and Kenyatta Leal, long before the dream found its way into reality.
wendistewart@live.ca