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Parkland program restores lives after prison time

Apr 24, 2017 | 12:00 PM

Spending the last 45 years in-and-out of prison, 79-year-old Henry Cyr said something as simple as friendship helped change his life.

Cyr, who was granted full parole late last year, is part of a program offered by Parkland Restorative Justice that works to assist long-time offenders to reintegrate into communities. 

Often times committing a crime is seen as a breaking the law, but restorative justice views it as a break in personal relationships. Volunteers conduct visits to offenders at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary, work with them to offer support during their time in prison and assit in the reintegration process.

“That can look like a job or a house or a friendship or someone to go for coffee with,” Heather Driedger, director of Parkland Restorative Justice said. “That is so important because most of these individuals have spent many years inside and maybe don’t have anyone to go back to when they are released. This helps with the journey back into the community.”

First entering the prison system at the age of 24 in 1962, Cyr said he was forever changed when his mother was killed by an impaired driver. He became an angry young man, blaming the system for his misfortune, which ultimately led to his arrest for robbery. 

Alongside this, Cyr said growing up in the residential school system impaired his ability to connect with people and his own emotions, only adding to his anger.

“If you go through and you get older, you go to your first jail and it is just like a residential school,” he said. “After a while, you keep going and you lose touch with your feelings. You don’t want to become venerable, so you don’t talk about feelings. You live in a fantasy world.”

His time in numerous prisons, penitentiaries and spending time in “the hole” or solitary confinement, only strengthened his resolve to ensure the system would not break him.

After his release in the early 1970s, Cyr was charged with second-degree murder after he hit a man for abusing a young girl. The man later died of a blood clot and Cyr was sentenced to 10 years to life. 

It was during and after this last prison sentence, Cyr began to seek help to turn his life around.

“I learned who I was, who I am as a person,” Cyr said. “I got people that are with restorative justice that are my supporters. I come here and most people know me and they ask how are you doing… it makes me become human. Before that I wasn’t thinking human, I was thinking nuts.”

 

tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr