The Atlantic provinces have the second-highest rates of incarceration across Canada (53 people per 1,000 adults, as compared to 40 for the country as a whole), and 38 people out of 1,000 adults are in community supervision, including parole (Statistics Canada). Looking at just the Penitentiary in St John’s, 82% of people are in pretrial detention, so not yet convicted of any crime. In 2024, 14% of people who were released were released into homelessness (Newfoundland and Labrador’s Justice Department).
Planning for Abolition is a research project that explores how planning practice can support forms of community safety that do not rely on policing and imprisonment, including considerations on how to best welcome people back into the community after they have been released from prison.
In this talk, we will discuss some of our general findings around the roles for planning in supporting community safety. We will also provide specific suggestions for strength-based reentry programs that emerge from the restorative and transformative justice movements. These programs would centre 1) the possible contributions of formerly incarcerated people, 2) support for community capacity, and 3) repair of social harms due to lawbreaking.
Access Teams link here.
SPEAKERS
Sheryl-Ann Simpson is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, where she teaches courses in urban and regional planning, search methods and environmental planning. She holds degrees in City and Regional Planning and Community Development, and started her career working in housing and homeless services, community food security, and youth environmental education.
Rachel Fayter is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa and a part-time lecturer in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa, where she recently completed her PhD. Rachel’s research challenges the deficit-based focus of criminology to examine strength-based practices of incarcerated people that promote coping with and healing from the trauma of incarceration, based on her own lived experiences.
Planning for Abolition: wheretohere.com/planning-for-abolition