Part 20: Choices Vol. 4, A Milestone, or an Escape?
I was delivered to my temporary group home, sometime in the early evening the day I was sentenced.... having not eaten anything all day, as well as missing the house's dinner time I was allowed to enter the kitchen and get something to eat... Something, I was not used to anymore, open access to a kitchen? felt strange for a moment, but I got used to it quickly.... And I was much hungrier than I thought...
After my intake and introductions to the house rules and staff, etc... I was given a bed in a shared room. It was a really big old house, with about 12 guys in it, that I met shortly after, many of which I had already met either inside or outside.... a few of the guys were actually from my neighbourhood and that made it easier to settle in, and I quickly forgot that I was only supposed to be there for a few weeks while a spot opened up at the so called treatment facility I had been sentenced to...
Other than actually being in custody and not being allowed to go where ever I wanted, I made the best of the situation. I would go out every chance I got just to see the sunlight again, it felt like I hadn't seen it in years... the first time we went to the corner store, I was surprised to see a huge coin that replaced the $2 bill, they called it a Toonie... I didn't even know what it was and asked for my real change...
We mostly went for walks around the neighbourhood, so the guys could smoke, I went to get out of the house, walk and get some air, REAL air... something I no longer took for granted, but knew could easily be taken away again at any moment. I knew why I was sentenced to a treatment facility, I had used a lot of drugs over the years and had met with people from a program... I found out quickly that most people that entered the program did so to get out of a secure jail sentence, and into an open custody...
I guess, in some way that may have been my original thinking too, but when it came down to it... I did have to deal with my own issues, demons, addictions... what ever they may have been at the time. I never really considered myself a drug addict, but found that when access to what I liked was available, I really felt no reason to turn it down...
There seemed to always be ample opportunity to get something or share what was already there... the guys who had visitation were bringing it in all the time.... I never really asked from where, and they were always eager to share anyway... the steam from the showers usually dulled the smell, and masked the smoke... but one night right before I was to be transfered, me and a few guys smoked a joint... I was really high, having been sober for so long.... Almost as soon as I left the washroom, I was confronted by my case worker and reminded why I was there... and made aware of where I was going, etc...
I knew he knew, he knew I knew he knew.... but he just stressed to me that it was my chance to change my life for the better, and had a really good opportunity to do so... he asked me what I wanted to do, whether I would rather stay at the house in Brampton, or go to the treatment facility.... I told him I would go, and he said to me that I made the right decision... I just thought It might be the right time to follow through...
The morning of my next transfer, I was forced to miss an outing that I enjoyed because I was supposed to pack and get ready... I don't recall exactly what happened or why, but I must have had a moment of second thought. I had grown comfortable in my new surroundings and a part of me didn't want to move again... I was left alone in my room to get my stuff ready, etc...
It was a short time later that I wanted to ask my worker a question, so I went looking for a staff member and when I came down stairs there was nobody in the house at all... The office was empty, there was an office at the back of the kitchen that the director used, he was on the phone and waved me off... Then I noticed somebody on the front porch, so I went to see who it was. One of the female staff was smoking of to the side, so I asked if I could come out there. She allowed me to join her, and I asked where everybody was...
When the director of the house came out of his office, he saw the front door open and only me standing outside, so he assumed that I was trying to run, and called the police... Moments later they arrived and dragged me inside, and now I was waiting for another transfer, not to where I was supposed to go.... but back to where I had just left a few weeks ago...
They called it a 24.2.9 transfer, for a youth going back to secure lock up from Open custody. I went back to the same jail, different area. I guess it had again been overflowing with young offenders, so the had to take over one of the female cell blocks on the upper levels. I sat there doing nothing for about four days before the new house came and picked me up.
I ran into a lot of people that I knew already though, many of those guys that were going in and out of jail on a regular basis... I talked to one, he was clearly getting tired of the lifestyle and sounded very different than the first time we met... I also ran into a childhood friend from the outside that I hadn't seen in years...
When they finally came to pick me up, I was great full once again to be leaving that place behind... It was the last time I saw it from the inside. Maybe a little over a year or so later, they closed it down for young offenders and transfered them all to a different jail in the City... By the time my sentence was up, I was almost an adult anyway.
This time, I was headed up to a small town north of Guelph, ON... completely different jurisdiction, in a little farming community. This was the treatment facility where I was supposed to spend my next 11 months now as it would be... The place was co-ed and mainly for young offenders from surrounding areas in Ontario. It also was supported by their original location in Montreal, which was a voluntary treatment facility for drug addiction mainly for adults. This place had a select few from that program, as well as some younger kids that weren't in custody but struggling with their own issues and under the care of children's aid...
Ironically, the day I arrived I wasn't the only one entering the program. One of the guys that was in the departure cell on my final day in the cage was also there. I had met him before, he was aright... I hadn't yet decided if this place was for me, a milestone to my change in life, or an escape from a longer jail sentence. I was willing to give it a shot and determine that along the way...
The place was nice, it was on a big property surrounded by farms... cornfields mostly. There was a river running through the one side of the property. They had their own school and laundry, etc.. As for the treatment aspect.... It turned out to be much different than I was expecting. The counsellors that ran the place were actually graduates of the program, nice people, with real experiences to share... That is pretty much what we did, share in groups, or one to one.... the rest of the time was spent doing chores and cleaning, with some free time for recreation here and there...
The male section was two large dorms at one end of the main building, and the girls lived in what could be describe as the original house, upstairs... we all interacted during the day, the only time we didn't was at night after lights out... This place had a very high turn over rate, and I soon found out why...
First it was one, the it was two, then they started going in groups... Once the summer started and the weather got nice, guys and girls started running, and because we were all technically still in jail, they were escaping custody. I started to believe that some of these people got transfered there just for that purpose eventually... just so they could escape. The majority of them were eventually caught and charged...
As I watched my new friends come and go, and tried to make my best effort to complete the program... They were just not letting me make progress. I was denied visitation on many occasions, I tried to work the program, but it just didn't work for me... They seemed to structure the program around the control over people cigarettes. Everybody was allowed to have 5 cigarettes per day, depending on their behaviour... I didn't smoke, so I would collect cigarettes for a friend or two, and we would then trade them for things....
When we were eventually caught, they found that with holding my cigarettes wasn't going to work as discipline for me, so they just started denying my level increases, and making life difficult in other ways...
The day I was transfered out, again a 24.2.9 transfer, back to secure custody, different jail, different county... I was making an attempt to up my level, and gain a visitation pass... in order to do this I had to take part in a group share and be open and honest... and explain myself and why I deserved this pass, etc...
I guess something triggered me, and the counsellor really pissed me off when he denied me yet again... I got mad and threw a chair across the room.... As I was waiting for the bus to take me away, approximately 8 guys took off within about a two hour time... I must have been asked about four times to go with them.. I chose to wait...and wait is what I did... it took all day. I think they were expecting me to run as well...
I went to Wellington County Detention Center, and there I sat doing a whole lot of nothing for the maximum time a 24.2.9 can, just under 2 full weeks... In this place, there was no supervision. and we spent the major portion of the day in our cells... so I slept most of the time... While I waited.... this place was a real shit whole...
I learned much later, that around the same time I was there, a young offender was killed while in custody, but I wasn't surprised, not even a little....
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