11^th United Nations Congress on Criminal Justice
and Crime Prevention
Bangkok - April 22, 2005

Prisons: Canada's Default Response to Poverty, Homelessness and Mental Illness - Especially for Women

Elizabeth Fry – The Woman; The Association

The history of Elizabeth Fry is a long and distinguished one in Canada. Indeed, although Elizabeth Fry was born and worked in England in the early 1800s, she is perhaps better known in Canada since her work was transported here and is carried on by all of us.

The first Elizabeth Fry society was formally established in Vancouver in the late 1930’s. Like so many of the other Elizabeth Fry societies, it started with a small group of women whose wealth and stations in life (something Elizabeth Fry also possessed) provided the perfect opportunities for them to undertake charitable work that permitted these women to contribute to those less fortunate than themselves. Many other Elizabeth Fry Societies were first started by similar groups of women endowed with the notion of noblesse oblige, while others started as offshoots of women’s church groups.

Later, other Elizabeth Fry Societies started as adjuncts to the burgeoning women’s movement in Canada during the 1960s and 70s. When the Elizabeth Fry Society was formed in Halifax for example, the feminists who were key in its formation initially determined that it should never have staff or receive any government resources. The women opposed any efforts to curtail the advocacy that they saw as vital and necessary to their role in working with and on behalf of criminalized women.

Today, there are 25 Elizabeth Fry Societies across the country. Their history, like the societies themselves, spans the gambit from many who are primarily interested in providing social services at the community level, to those who have a long interest in anti-oppressive work to address systemic inequalities. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the manner in which our membership works also ranges from service delivery on the basis of contracts with government - to advocacy aimed at alleviating the systemic challenges faced by women. The result is a mixture of charitable models and social development approaches, fed by a strong vein of advocacy.

Within CAEFS, as is the case in many national and international women’s and other social justice groups, we are faced with the false dichotomy between the roles of service providers and advocates. It is clear that neither can exist without the other. An excellent service provider is made so as the result of the very fact that she is an effective and experienced advocate and ally to those she works with and for. Similarly, an excellent advocate can only arrive at such excellence through her ability to walk and work with those about and for whom she presumes to advocate.

Action is advocacy – advocacy is action. Neither service delivery nor advocacy exists in isolation. In situations where those providing services are discouraged from advocacy it is almost inevitable that the services they provide will not fully meet the needs of their “target” group. Moreover, if an advocate has no appreciation of the services that are needed, advocacy may in fact be an empty process. Accordingly, the strength and value of much of what CAEFS exemplifies is evident by even a cursory examination of the role, responsibilities and array of services provided by CAEFS’ membership.

CAEFS emerged from a membership which advocated for a national office as a means of ensuring that the advocacy function could exist at the most senior levels in Canada. The provision of grants designed to increase the perspectives and democratic involvement of nongovernmental/ community-based organizations provided the resources to establish the office in the early 1980’s. In 1984, the federal government of the day implemented sustaining funding in the recognition that their own policies would be stronger and more effective if they were informed by the voices of those who would experience and therefore critique them.

The department of the Solicitor General, as it was then known, also wanted to end an earlier practice of contracting directly with community groups such as individual Elizabeth Fry and John Howard societies, recognizing that such a scheme of providing individual federal funding for service delivery did not ensure greater access of the public to services nor enhance input in matters of policy and/or law reform. They recognized that by placing resources in the hands of national organizations, whose mandate would be both the development of community based service delivery agencies in conjunction with law and policy reform, it could more readily enhance the government’s own abilities to improve the democratic production of sound law and policy.

CAEFS, as an organization, is structured to ensure that the membership defines and directs the work of the association. Every year, CAEFS utilizes its resources to bring together two representatives from every member Elizabeth Fry Society in order to ensure that the policies, priorities, and directions determined by the national body are reflective of the will of the membership. Decisions are achieved by consensus, so that the general will is adhered to and individuals holding differing opinions agree to remain silent as the rest of the membership ventures forth on an agreed upon plan of action.