#Mytime csc free#

Basically the attitude inside the prison is, “There’s the door if you’re stupid enough to want to leave.“A few months after starting the CORCAN job, in the spring things started to turn around. The vans didn’t patrol Frontenac, because two-thirds of the perimeter is surrounded by marshlands and a river, and the front door to the prison is always open. This roadway was the patrol route for the CSC security vans at the Bay. So I figured, “Why the hell would I work for some for-profit government corporation?” But there were no other jobs available and I needed to work to stay at Frontenac, so I had no choice.Įvery day I left the prison, and walked along a narrow roadway parallel to the perimeter wall of Collins Bay. And they helped keep me grounded when I just felt like saying, “fuck it.”īut just as I arrived at Frontenac, every single federal inmate across Canada received a mandatory 30 percent pay reduction, under the guise of covering “Food and Accommodation” (which we technically already pay for) and the “Inmate Telephone Service (ITS) Administration Fee.” I have no idea what the hell that last one meant, because the phones were just broken more frequently, and for longer periods after that was put in place. I guess you could say CORCAN kept me focused on my goals because I could afford to keep in contact with my family. I used to even joke that I could literally say that to my grandkids now.

I used to be grateful that I was making $1.50/hr (overtime was $2.75). Now, some parole officers were forcing inmates under their supervision to work for CORCAN just as they stopped giving the “incentive” hourly pay.

They used to pay me enough that I could live decently inside and still save enough to start over, and all I had to do was work a little harder and longer.

Granted, working for CORCAN was a trusted position to CSC, but there was just no reason to care anymore. This was the first time in over two years that I had set foot near a civilian car, and as such I was compelled to look over my shoulder, expecting a guard to chase after me and tackle me to the ground.īack in Fenbrook I told myself I would never work for Correctional Service Canada’s work program CORCAN again. The programs building was outside of the actual prison building, on the other side of the parking lot. Later that day I was ordered to go to the programs building to speak with the work board (a group of staff supervisors that employ inmates around the institution). It almost felt like I was here by choice. So when I wasn’t working out, watching TV, or writing my novel in the library I was down there practising eight-ball. They also had a small billiards room in the basement. The “out of bounds” zone was marked by thick walls of tall grass. The next day I explored the institution and saw full-grown trees in the yard, and no perimeter fence, both of which I had never seen before in prison. At EMDC we were locked up for the night at 7:30 PM, at Fenbrook it was 10PM, and at Millhaven we were on constant lockdown. I found out the institution’s lockup time wasn’t until midnight, which blew my mind. My first night at Frontenac I realized that “camp,” or minimum security, was nothing like what I had experienced so far. I was tired of the long drives across the province but I had to make one more trip in the prison van to Frontenac Institution in Kingston. I’d already been to Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC) in London, Ontario, Millhaven Assessment Unit (MAU) in Bath, and Fenbrook in Gravenhurst. Months earlier, I was making another trip, headed to my fourth prison facility. I felt I’d really gotten out just in time-I was only slightly institutionalized.

Except now I was afraid to cross the street in a pleasant Canadian city. I remembered how uncomfortable I felt my first week at the last prison I was in and how I felt nervous in the open exercise yard there. On layover in Toronto, I left the bus station to buy a pack of cigarettes and I felt like a fugitive. Everybody here had tablets and smartphones in front of their faces except me. I wondered if anybody on this bus could tell if I had been in prison.

#Mytime csc free#

You’re not a free man just because you are out of jail.Īs I travelled down the highway in a Greyhound bus to London, Ontario I started to feel uneasy.