My name is Karlee Thomas and I am currently interning for the Support Services Coordinator at Desta Black Youth Network. Beginning this September, I will be attending my final year for my degree in International Development Studies with a minor in Political Science at McGill University. As a human rights and youth advocate with experience in assisting socio-economically marginalized communities, I worked to investigate the causes, patterns, trends, and consequences of inequality in the globe. Moreover, my interest in human development has largely focused on analyzing how the effects of colonialism on the international political economy and trade still have impacts today in the global south. I applied to work for Desta for its core values that centred on assisting Black youth in reaching their educational, employability, and entrepreneurial goals. I wanted to work in an organization that welcomed the opportunity to curate research for the Little Burgundy community to decolonize forms of oppression that have been systematically perpetuated within our communities and education system. Furthermore, it provided an opportunity to make a difference in a community that has long been branded as “unsafe”, “violent,” or “poor”. These perspectives undermined the youth in the community. It provided an avenue to assist with the ongoing issues of gentrification and lack of opportunity that affects Black youth and working-class families within Little Burgundy.
As an organization, Desta aims to assist the anglophone Black community in Montreal that faces barriers to employment, education, housing, and legal support. It offers programs in education, employability, entrepreneurship as well as a re-entry program. Throughout the pandemic, Desta has developed a food delivery program for the community and secured funding to support black-owned restaurants to assist with social and economic needs. Since May 3rd, 2021, my duties as an intern under the social justice department of Desta have centred on providing information, legal resources, and human rights advocacy through individualized support services. It has been a part of our re-entry program targeting currently and formerly incarcerated individuals who are preparing for release, in transitional houses, or who have had a history with criminal justice involvement. My duties ranged from providing support phone calls to monitor our participants mental, physical, and psychological well-being. When necessary, I also wrote support letters on our participant’s behalf. Additionally, I curated individual service plans for assigned participants with short and long-term objectives. Ensuring that we give the best assistance possible required outsourcing different resources such as lawyers, academics, and the Correctional Services of Canada (CSC) staff to help guide inmates who have raised a complaint that warrants the writing of a grievance letter against CSC.
One of my favourite parts of the internship was attending the second annual “Know Your Rights” panel discussion that occurred on May 19th with the greater Black community of Montreal. During this meeting, we discussed the importance of disseminating and equipping the public with general legal knowledge in the fight against instances of racial profiling. This conversation highlighted the challenges Canada’s “rehabilitative” incarceration system faces as Black and Indigenous men and women have borne the brunt of its perpetuation of racial and systemic discrimination. Another highlight of the internship has been working on project development. We have been working closely with other organizations to create a pen-palling program that would be the first to collect race-based data, unlike other prisoner correspondence programs. Lastly, I enjoyed working closely with a carceral lawyer as she provided great advice for my possible future studies and taught me about the injustices within the CSC.
Some challenges I faced along the internship was the fact that it was largely unstructured without formalized training. I felt that if I do not go out of my way to keep in contact with my supervisor, I would not have any tasks to complete. To overcome this, I began contacting my supervisor every morning to propose new ideas that Desta can bring to improve the re-entry program. She would then follow up with tasks to complete. On another note, this encouraged greater productivity on my part because it made me want to develop new ideas to bring to the team. Additionally, I found it very challenging at first to write grievance letters. Part of the issue was that there was no formalized training on how to write a grievance letter. Despite feeling anxious about the quality of my work, I asked my supervisor to review my work. At the end, she found my work brilliant. For future interns, it would be best if the organization could provide a list of colleagues, lawyers, or academics the intern can refer to; For the first month, I did not know whom I can contact for further support besides my supervisor. Lastly, another challenge I experienced was missing the phone calls of our participants. To make sure I would not miss any phone calls, I would assign days and time slots that I made sure to be available.
I have received academic credit for the internship and the topic of my research paper aims to analyze the importance of non-governmental organizations in applying pressure to Canada’s Correctional Services to uphold international human rights standards. Visible minorities are often further disadvantaged when accounting for in-take assessment tools that only account for an individual’s past to determine their future. This omits external factors like historical colonialism or persistent surveillance of communities and puts all the blame for deviancy on the individual and ignores the responsibility that the state has in responding to the causes of criminality. As a result, Canada has lagged largely in its rehabilitation of Indigenous and Black peoples for methods of punishment. It is time to emphasize rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders in the society. The academic supervisor who will be supervising my research in the upcoming fall semester will be Professor Kazue Takamura.
This internship has opened my eyes to the hidden injustices the Correctional Services of Canada has perpetuated against marginalized inmates. It is alarming how much of the injustices go unreported as inmates lack proper access to advocacy support. In addition, it has also made me question how effective our criminal justice system is in truly providing the means for “rehabilitation.” One point to highlight in my research so far has been the disadvantage of using actuarial methods of predictability when assessing an individual’s likelihood to re-offend because it creates data based on group characteristics. However, this has led to the infiltration of incorrect stereotypes and erroneous predictions as it produces a disproportionate rate of correctional contacts among members of profiled groups. As a result, this internship has helped me discover my passion for advocacy work and afforded me the opportunity to discover what it takes to address problems or grievances in our communities within Montreal.
