For the past 20 years I have worked with St. Leonard’s LifeLine and Peer Life Transition. I have helped prepare Lifers to successfully transition from a correctional environment to life on parole. I provide individual counseling, release planning, parole hearing assistance and in many cases follow up with clients in the community. I have assisted at over 400 parole hearings in my twenty years with St. Leonard’s Society. I have provided workshops for both the Parole Board of Canada and Corrections. I have developed and ran a variety of institutional self-help groups within the prison system. Over the past three years I developed and have been providing The Break Away Program which I have delivered at Collins Bay, Warkworth and Beaver Creak Institutions. This program was designed for prisoners whose crimes involved gang culture. I educated myself in prison completing high school and university degrees in Psychology and Criminology. I have been active in prison issues including successfully challenging and winning Prisoners Right to Vote cases twice in the Supreme Court of Canada. I have been called to testify in a number of court cases over the years for youth sentencing issues as well as Faint Hope cases. I have testified at Parliamentary and Senate Justice committee hearings on criminal legislative Bills.
I have spoken to community groups, high schools, universities and youth at risk as well as numerous media presentations. I have written articles for a number of publications and Journals including chapters for Criminology texts. In 2017 I was awarded the Ed McIsaac Award for Human Rights in Corrections.
For leisure I enjoy spending time working on my home and gardens in the country as well as designing and building custom cabinetry in my workshop and riding my motorcycle.