SOMETIMES, JAIL CAN PROVE TO BE SOMEONE'S SALVATION

Many years ago I spent several days hanging out with a heroin
addict/prostitute in a notorious neighbourhood of Toronto.

The newspaper I was working for at the time was doing a multi-day
series on various drugs plaguing the city and I was assigned to cover
heroin -- how its increasing potency and decreasing price was leading
to a spike in not just new users, but also overdose deaths.

That's how I came to know Sam, whom I renamed Jackie for the articles.
Like most of the other prostitutes I have interviewed over the years,
Sam was extremely open and she and her "man" Danny gave me total
access to their lives. Every morning I would climb up the fire escape
of the brick walkup they lived in, crawl through their living room
window and wait for them to wake up to observe their heroin-ruled existence.

Sam's life was horrific -- a total waste and a terrible worry for me.
When possible from my obscured vantage point, I would write down
licence plate numbers of the cars she would jump into and always felt
an intense sense of relief when she would return to her corner,
something she would do time and again until she raised enough money to
feed her and Danny's $600-a-day heroin habit. Her life, as she said,
was a vicious circle of turning tricks to get a fix and needing a fix
to turn the tricks.

As shown by the eloquent victim-impact statements delivered earlier
this week by family members of the six women who were murdered and
butchered by Abbotsford, B.C., pig farmer Robert Willie Pickton -- who
was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday with no eligibility of parole
for 25 years -- Sam was so much more than "just a junkie/prostitute."
She was a funny, clever, exceedingly generous and beautiful woman.

We shared many laughs, some tears, our life stories and our dreams.
She spoke of "one day" kicking the habit, going back to school,
finding a good job and getting her then five-year-old daughter back
from her brother and sister-in-law who were raising her. While I
enthusiastically encouraged her dreams I never really believed them
possible.

After that, any time I was in that neighbourhood I would either pop by
Sam's corner or her apartment. But people like Sam aren't easy to keep
in touch with, so when I moved from Toronto to Calgary in 1993 we lost
contact.

Some nine years later, however, I got a voicemail that was so
uplifting I recorded it and have kept the tape ever since.

"I'm doing great," said Sam on the message. "I just graduated from
college, I've had my daughter for five years, been clean for six years
and I would just love to talk to you . . . " I called her back
immediately.

So, what was it that helped her straighten out her life. Sam says it
was jail. After years of being arrested and released time and again,
Sam was arrested and bail was set at a price she couldn't meet, so she
ended up being held in jail until her trial.

Sam said her first days in jail were "hell on Earth." She was forced
to go through withdrawal from her years of daily heroin use with
nothing to help her except Gravol.

"I'd never wish that kind of pain on anyone," she said "but I have to
admit jail was a blessing in disguise."

So, what lessons does Sam's story of redemption hold for society on
the whole and the government and the justice system in particular?

It's really rather obvious. Many of the seemingly enlightened programs
society has established to deal with addicts simply enables
dysfunction and the destruction of lives.

The transformation of Sam's life is an example of how sometimes when
we think we are being kind, we are actually being cruel and when we
think we are being cruel by sending someone to jail, we are actually
loving the person by recognizing they are much more than "just a
junkie" or "just a prostitute" and that they need time to get away
from their destructive life.

In Alberta, a law that came into effect on July 1, 2006, proves the
point. It allows parents to apply for a court order to confine their
non-adult child with severe drug abuse issues for as much as five days
in a protective safe house "for detoxification, assessment and
development of a discharge treatment plan."

According to a report released recently by the Alberta Alcohol and
Drug Abuse Commission, entitled: "Evaluation of the Services Provided
Under the Protection of Children Abusing Drugs Act," 49 per cent of
youth forced into the program ended up voluntarily seeking treatment
after being discharged."

Fully 58 per cent indicated "an improvement in their quality of life
one month after discharge" and a whopping 85 per cent said they would
recommend the service to friends or relatives in need.

Virtually every one of those kids went into the program kicking and
screaming. Most ended up grateful for the ability to pull out of the
vicious circle their addictions had become.

Sam is now a tax-paying, law-abiding, devoted mother working in an
accounting office. She was never "just" a junkie prostitute to those
who knew her. Thanks to a stint in jail she was able to prove that to
society. Which leaves us to wonder, how many of those women murdered
by Pickton might be alive today if society had displayed the will to
be cruel in order to be kind?