A HOME OF THEIR OWN

Province Needs Halfway House For Women, Former Offender Says

Had it not been for her life-long addiction to drugs, Cathy Ryan
says, she'd never have ended up in a maximum-security federal
penitentiary rubbing shoulders with the likes of Karla Homolka.

"Eighty-five per cent of the prison population has addiction
problems. That leaves the remaining 15 per cent the baby killers, the
twisted," Ryan says.

"It doesn't do much for your self-esteem having to see these people
day after day. It was hard not to be judgmental."

The disease of addiction "tore through her family like a tornado," Ryan says.

Once the third-youngest of eight children, she is now the youngest of
her siblings still alive.

She lost one brother when he overdosed on OxyContin. Another
drug-addicted brother searched for solace through suicide.

Ryan grew up in a shame-based family where drugs were as common as a
tea cup on the table. By age 13, she was on her way to addiction.

"We were too young to articulate what we were feeling. I sit back now
in my late 40s and I see that's what I was carrying. But at the time,
I had no idea what was happening to me. But when I used drugs, it went away."

Once she was old enough to leave home, she was off to other cities,
feeding her own addiction.

By the time she hit her mid-20s, Ryan was a hard-core intravenous drug user.

However, she managed to stay out of jail until her 30s.

"In order to be loyal to the addiction, I started doing frauds and
forgeries -- always, always in pursuit or while high."

Over time, she used alcohol, valium, marijuana, acid, heroin and
anything else she could get her hands on.

"Addiction doesn't care where you grew up," Ryan says. "It doesn't
care who raised you. It doesn't care how much money you have or if
you don't have a penny to your name. It's a disease and if you do
have anything, it will take it from you."

For years, Ryan was out of jail only long enough to rack up more charges.

"The judges got sick and tired of me being in front of them. And I
realize that every time I was in jail, I did the crime. Nobody else did it."

After spending the majority of her 30s behind bars, Ryan eventually
ended up in Joliette maximum-security prison in Quebec.

Prison kept her alive many times, she says.

At one point, her crack cocaine addiction took her body weight to 82 pounds.

"There came a time when I was told I was being arrested, but I knew I
was being rescued. Because I would have died had I not been taken
into custody," she says.

Ryan's conditions of release from Joliette in 2001 were to attend a
long-term rehabilitation program in Montreal, followed by a year in a
halfway house for women in the same city.

A mother as well as a grandmother, the time soon came, a few years
ago, when Ryan wanted desperately to return to Newfoundland and her
family and extended family.

Doing so meant paying the reaper for crimes she'd committed while on
the run in Newfoundland in the 1990s.

"I called the RCMP from Montreal and told them I was coming out. I
didn't want to look over my shoulder anymore. I ended up doing four
months out of six in Clarenville," she says.

Ryan credits Susan Melendy-Stark, the classification officer at the
Clarenville corrections facility, for helping her get on her feet
once she served her time.

"Susan and Sister Margie, they were two people who really believed in
me," she says.

Ryan works hard to help herself as well as others. She spends her
time with family, and volunteers at the Women Offender Resource
Centre. The project to assist female offenders falls under the
umbrella of Stella Burry Community Services.

"It's not mandatory for women to go there when they get out," Ryan
says of the Women Offender Resource Centre.

"So when I see a woman coming in, I see that they want the help."

While she feels the services offered by Stella Burry are a godsend to
those who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law, Ryan
says what's really needed in this province is a halfway house for
female offenders.

This is the only province that doesn't have such a facility, she says.

Marvin McNutt is director of corrections and community services with
the province's Department of Justice.

He says there isn't such a facility exclusively for female offenders
because the number of women who are sentenced to custody in this
province is so low, both in real terms and when compared on a per
capital basis to other jurisdictions.

For example, he says, only four of the 70 women at the federal
women's institution in Truro, N.S., are from this province.

And, on any given day, McNutt says, there are typically only five
women serving sentences at the Clarenville Correctional Centre for Women.

McNutt says that the low population of women offenders in sentenced
custody in this province is a function of several factors. The two
primary factors are that a disproportionate number of women offenders
receive conditional sentences (home arrest) rather than prison, and
"the remarkable success of the Stella Burry Corporation in providing
a range of community-based services for women offenders in St. John's."

While there aren't any centres specifically designed for women, there
are facilities in this province that do accept women offenders,
"albeit they also serve as residential facilities for men," McNutt says.

Ryan sees things differently than McNutt.

Her experience since moving back to Newfoundland tells her that a
halfway house for female offenders is definitely needed.

"This is not going away," she says. "I see the addiction problem in
our city and it's an epidemic. In order to feed your habit, you will
do crime. And the crimes are getting more violent. If these women
continue to come out of these institutions with nothing, they will re-offend."