Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. If you've ever watched shows like Prison Break or Orange is the New Black, you probably have an idea of what Life Behind Bars is like, or at least a dramatized version of it.
In reality, there are different types of custody, from remand to jail to prison. I'm Nancy Hixt, a senior crime reporter for Global News. Today on Crime Beat, I take you inside the facilities that house inmates in Alberta and give you an exclusive look at what life is like through the eyes of a veteran correctional officer. This is Inside Corrections.
Patti Cole has spent most of her adult life working with the Alberta Provincial Correctional System. She started working as a correctional peace officer when she was just 19 years old in 1986, first in the southern Alberta city of Lethbridge, then in Calgary. In 1998, she took on management of high-risk offenders, primarily sex offenders, until 2009.
That's when she became the deputy director of programs at a correctional facility that currently holds the largest sentenced male population in Alberta. Since 2012, she's worked as an investigator, conducting internal audits and reviews of incidents inside provincial facilities. She retired from corrections in June of 2022.
Patty Cole is familiar with almost all of the cases I've shared on Crime Beat. Because once someone is arrested in Alberta, while they're awaiting trial, they go to remand. Patty is here to walk us through that process. I think first what we need to do is talk a little bit about what specifically matters.
It means to work in a provincial correctional services because, you know, a lot of people would watch TV or movies and they see jail as jail. Right. But, you know, obviously we have different levels, both in Canada and in the U.S., where there would be a provincial correctional.
jail system and then a federal jail system. So can you talk about the difference? You know, obviously more serious crimes are going into the federal institutions, but there's actually, you know, very specific sentence times and describe the differences and go through that for me. Sure.
So it starts with when someone comes into conflict with the law and they are arrested and they are held in custody, they're held in remand centers. And currently there is Calgary Remand Center, there's the Edmonton Remand Center, but there are remand facilities as well. There's Red Deer Remand Center as well.
And, uh, so that's where you start. And that's Alberta Correctional Services. You haven't been convicted yet. You're awaiting your court date. You're awaiting your trial and things like that. And it doesn't matter what you've done. Like this could be anything from a homicide to shoplifting. Like that's your first stop. That's right. That's your first stop. And, um, once you are sentenced, depending on your sentence, uh, that determines where you go.
If you're sentenced to two years less a day, you will be sent to a provincial correctional facility. And there's eight of them in Alberta, including two young offender centers, pardon me, and federally.
If it's over two years, you will be sent to a federal penitentiary. So locally, I think we've got Drumheller, Bowdoin is another close one, Edmonton Max. There's Edmonton Institution for Women. There's also an Indigenous penitentiary or healing lodge in Maskwacis. And...
It's interesting because, you know, people would assume, I think, that, you know, if you're accused of murder, you're going to be in a totally different facility than someone, say, for shoplifting. But everyone kind of starts off, like you said, at that first stop. So does that present some challenges? It can at times. You know, certainly that's not unexpected. But depending on the level of...
the severity of the offense, there are also classifications and categorizations within a correctional facility that speak to where they're going to be held. They're within the same building, but they will be classified as soon as they come in. Anyone that's charged with a crime comes in
and is remanded into custody, they will go through a classification process to determine the most appropriate location for them. So, you know, there's an entire process in the classification system where you will determine their risk to themselves, risk to others, severity of offense, any priors, any prior sex offenses, anything like that.
And then they will make that determination. And so the ones that are in for more serious offenses will certainly be placed in a higher security area. Sometimes gang affiliation plays a big part in it because although they may be suitable for one area, they may not be able to reside there because of incompatibilities with gangs and other gangs and things like that. And then the lower level gangs
you know, thefts, common assault and things like that will generally be in a more regular unit. If somebody was touring through a provincial, like I guess a remand facility, you know, a provincial correctional facility versus a federal correctional, like a prison facility,
And I always refer to jail as provincial and prison as federal. I don't know if that's how you refer to it, but if somebody was touring through them, what differences would they likely see? Between a provincial and a federal system?
That really depends. I mean, in a remand center, you're going to see a heightened level of security because of the nature of the inmates there and the charges and things like that. It's a higher security area. Sentenced provincial facilities can be anywhere from minimum to medium security facilities up to classified maximum security inmates. Federally, I'm
They're there to serve their sentence as they are in the provincial facilities, but there's just different privileges and different programs and things like that in those facilities, in each provincially and federally, based on funding and all that other stuff. So provincially, by virtue of it being correctional services in Alberta, that's funded by federal
The province and federal corrections is funded by feds. It would seem like the most challenging place would be the remand center where you have all of those people together. Historically, it has been a much more stressful environment, not only for the inmates, but for the staff as well, because it's a time of...
great uncertainty for anyone that comes in there, any of the inmates. They're wondering what's going to happen to them. They're wondering what's happening with their family on the outside. In some cases, who's going to look after their pets? What's going to happen to their property? And they're also trying to figure out who's going to represent them, who is going to support them through this. And
How much time are they looking at if they're found guilty? So it's very, very stressful. That uncertainty is a real, it really weighs on them. And so it's hard to manage sometimes, depending on the nature of the crime and all of that. It's hard on them. And by extension, it's hard on the officers because they have to navigate the situation.
the emotional upheavals and ups and downs that inmates will experience when they're going through this. They come back from court and they're upset or they're frustrated or upset at the sentence that they've got. And it's up to the officers to navigate that. It's not always easy. You know, it's interesting because I'm sure people who are listening are thinking, well, I don't have sympathy for what they're going through because they're accused of a crime.
Some of these crimes can be like an unpaid ticket. Like, not everybody is in there for something very severe, so this can create a lot of stress. Yeah. I mean, it does boil down to circumstance, you know, decisions that you make during those circumstances and...
The common misperception is that everyone that comes through the doors of a correctional institution or a remand center is a horrible person, and that's not the case at all. I've known people who I've gotten to know as individuals completely outside of corrections who told me years later, well, I was in jail once, I did this and I did that. It doesn't change how I feel.
think about them in any way, shape or form. I never dealt with them in our correctional facility or anything, but they're sharing with me that they had this experience and they came through it on the other side. So it's not, it doesn't by extension mean that every single person that goes through the doors of a jail are horrible people, but they have broken the law. They are required to go through the legal system to deal with it and then
deal with the consequences, whatever they may be. And I'm sure there's some very bad people also. We've had, you know, multiple, you know, mass, I wouldn't say mass murder, but multiple homicide cases where an individual is responsible for the death of a number of people. So yeah, there are some pretty awful people. And there's also those that have broken the law, you know, in terms of sex offenses and things like that.
As people go, that would be dealing with some of the worst of the very worst. And, you know, in talking about the start of your career, I'd love to go back because you said you were 19 years old. You were kind of just looking for a job and you end up in working for correctional services. Like, tell me about that. Was that a culture shock? Sure. It was an absolute culture shock because, you know, I was raised in what best can be
described as a really good family, supportive, no issues, nothing. I mean, it was as normal a childhood as you could possibly have and growing up. And all of a sudden you're in this environment where you're surrounded by individuals in jail who have broken the law and who have these circumstances where it's substance abuse or they have endured
physical or sexual or emotional abuse growing up or their family circumstances certainly weren't what mine was. They weren't as privileged as, and I use that term honestly, I feel I was very privileged in the childhood and the raising I had. But not everyone had that. Not everyone had that. And so it was a real shock to see that first person in real time and to have a better understanding. And
In a lot of respects, this career raised me into adulthood. I learned so much over the years from the work and from the experiences and things like that. Absolutely. Now, you said that you worked in different levels within the provincial correctional services.
I would love it if you could walk me through what a first day would be like for an inmate, but in those different levels. So like if you could take me through what it would be like that first day at the remand center versus maybe after they're sentenced and they go to one of those other facilities.
First of all, when they come in the remand center, they are accompanied by a warrant remanding them or holding them in custody for fines or charges.
other things. And so there are people in sentence administration who will ensure that all of those warrants are valid and that they have the legal authority to hold them. Once they're there, they are put through the process where they are seen by healthcare, seen by a nurse, to ensure that their medical needs, if any, are immediately addressed, see if they're on any medications, anything like that.
They will be asked a few questions, some what we would call tombstone questions, date of birth, where are you born, what's your level of education, things like that. And then they are processed in terms of taking their personal property from them, having it itemized and placed in storage so that it's ready for them whenever they are transferred or released.
And then they are placed in inmate clothing and then they are assigned a unit. And once they're in that unit, shortly after that, a classification officer will come and see them and ask them some more questions about their background, their family history. The questions differ somewhat whether they are
a remanded inmate or whether they're a sentenced inmate once they become sentenced or if they're just in on fines or something like that. And then they are placed in the unit that they are best suited for and then they await their court date.
So by the time they get to the remand center, I know they've already gone through arrest processing with police, so they've already been photographed, fingerprinted, but does that happen again at the remand facility? Not the fingerprinting, but there's a photograph that's taken of them and all of their information is entered into the correctional database. And then they are issued, if they don't already have it, they're issued an inmate number and that's their identifying number.
Okay, and so if they're sentenced and it's first day at one of the provincial correctional facilities, what happens there? Because they've kind of already gone through that. They know what that's like, but what would first day be like at the new facility once they're serving their sentence? Once they're sentenced, they are seen again to determine the best place for them.
And then they are transferred. So all of their property, all legal documents and everything accompany them to the new correctional center. And they don't necessarily, I mean, all the information remains the same because it's already been entered in the remand center. And if it's a provincial correctional facility, that information is
It's part of a database, so it follows them everywhere, including how much money they came into the jail with, what their property was, all of that stuff. So once they're sentenced, then the focus turns from just managing their sentence to figuring out what programs they want to be in, what they're eligible to be in, what they should be in. And that's the caseworker's job in the sentenced facilities.
And so they, Provincial Corrections has a number of self-development, self-improvement and vocational programs available to them. So they can go to school, they can take anger management classes, addiction awareness classes and things like that. And they are run by incredibly dedicated people who are very passionate about the work that they do and giving them the tools, giving the inmates the tools to
to succeed once they get out. You took me through what a typical day was like for the inmates, the first day, first day in those settings. But what was a typical day like you? And I know that that changed over 36 years in your career, but, you know, like at the beginning when you're working in remand centers, like maybe take me through what that was like for you working. It was interesting for sure, because my experience working in a remand center was different
you know, you worked everywhere. Female, you know, remand centers are co-eds. So I shouldn't say they don't,
They don't live in the same units together, but there are both men and women in the correctional facilities. So there's units for women, there's units for men. So they're separated. Yes, absolutely. They are. Yeah. Yeah. And what happens if there would be, you know, somebody who's transgender or gender non-conforming? It's a case by case basis. And, you know, correctional services does have a policy surrounding that. And, um,
They rely heavily on self-identification, but also they rely on professional opinion as well in terms of where they are safest, where they would be healthiest and happiest. And, you know, that's the best answer I can give to that in terms of it's not an all-encompassing, it's either this or that.
And this isn't new. I know it's new in the news now and it's kind of a common talking point now. But I remember when I started in Lethbridge in 1986, there was a transgender male to female inmate there. Has correctional services come a long way in understanding how to deal with that?
I think with any amount of time and experience and research and more knowledge, I think that it's natural to have a little bit of a change or evolution of how you approach that, you know, scenarios such like that. Yeah.
So I would say that there's probably been a bit, yeah. I took you on a detour from my original question, just asking you to take me through that typical day in remand for the officer.
Correctional officers have an incredibly challenging job, and it's challenging whether you're in a remand or a sentence facility. But in a remand facility, there's the additional job of making sure that they get to see their lawyers when the lawyers want to see them and making sure that they are...
taken care of medically because, and that's of course a healthcare responsibility, but sometimes they don't come in in the best shape, whether they are going through withdrawals, you know, or they're injured because of something that happened to them in the community and things like that. So there's always making sure getting them to their medical appointments or seeing the doctor inside when there's doctors rounds or seeing a psychiatrist or just ensuring that their immediate needs are met and that
And that includes things like meals. I mean, they get meal time every single day. They get three meals a day other than the weekends when they get brunch and dinner and lunch.
So the officers have to make sure that they're fed and that they get clean clothes on a regular schedule and that they get access to what is called canteens so that they can buy things from a commissary, essentially, chips, pop, things like that, so that they have some comforts and things like that.
I'm sure everyone who's listening is wondering because, you know, a lot of people, their exposure to the jail would be by watching a show like Orange is the New Black or, you know, whatever they're watching on TV. Like how close to reality are those TV shows or movies depicting time in custody? Well, I mean, shows like Prison Break and that, I mean, it's based...
Sensationalism sells. It's rarely that exciting. You often hear officers talk about it's a good job when it's nice and quiet and it's great, but when it hits the fan, that's when your training and the adrenaline and everything kicks in and you better be on because lives depend on it, including your own.
And so I've always been incredibly proud of how well the officers do in really stressful situations. But does it necessarily mirror what you see on TV? No. I mean, Orange is the New Black was funny because I used to work with female inmates as well. And sometimes some of the personalities in there and that you'd have a good giggle because you could remember someone that was like that.
But is there like a hierarchy and, you know, or do you see the person who comes in and they feel like they got to prove themselves and get in a fight to show that, you know, nobody messes with them? I think people wonder if that really happens. I think that there is, well, I know that there is hierarchy in jails. I mean, you know, inmate populations, they do know who runs the show. They figure that out fairly quickly, whether that's
someone who has a gang affiliation, whether that's someone who has a lot of experience in corrections and everyone knows them and knows not to mess with them, things like that. Sure, that exists. And it's also the job of the officers and the intelligence officers, the security intelligence officers and security managers in the jails to make sure that they know who the players are in the jail, to make sure that
The security and safety of the inmates and the facility are maintained at all times. If we know that someone has come in with a very high profile charge,
and there's no publication ban, then that person's name is going to be mentioned in the news. And so officers and classification staff and managers have to keep that in mind to go, what is the safest location for this person? What's the safest place for this person to reside and have the lowest risk? It's never a 0% risk, but it is our job, or it's the job of corrections to try and manage that risk as much as possible.
So that's where the classification process comes in and you have protective custody inmates and you have general population inmates. And sometimes you will have people that come in and say, I'm absolutely fine in general population. I'm not a sex offender. I just did this. I'm going to be fine. And
will know from intelligence we have or previous experience with this inmate that we know that they won't be fine and that we will have to find other arrangements for them to preserve their safety. Because nobody wants to be sitting in front of a fatality inquiry or a board of inquiry because someone has been severely injured or killed because
you know, we took them at their word. We're the ones responsible for them. Correctional services is responsible for them. And I think that they do a very good job. It's a difficult job. So when that does happen, it does fall on someone's shoulders. Like somebody has to give an account for, well, how did that happen? Even though the public probably sees it as, well, they've done horrible things, you know, maybe they deserved it or they have that perception. But really, that's not how it's supposed to work.
By virtue of the fact that they are in a place that they cannot leave, they would be considered a vulnerable population. So there is, like anything else, like anyone else that's in a vulnerable population, there is a responsibility to ensure that
their well-being, that their needs are being met and being managed. And regardless of public sentiment of how horrific an inmate's offense or an offender's offense has been or whatever else, it doesn't negate the fact that there's a responsibility to ensure their well-being and their safety. What about your safety? I don't know if you feel comfortable sharing some of the biggest risks that you faced over your career.
You know, I consider myself pretty lucky. They've been few and far between. I had some incidents when we worked. You know, we used to be responsible for the arrest processing unit.
way back when, when it was attached to the old remand center and the correctional peace officers would manage what we would call the drunk tanks and temporary holds and things like that. And you'd get some bumps and bruises in your hair pulled there and things like that, because you get people who are in, who are intoxicated or high or angry or mentally ill and things like that. So, um,
I feel I'm pretty lucky. There have been a couple of close calls that, to this day, I don't like having anyone closely behind me or in my blind spot or anything like that. And I think that if you were to ask other correctional officers who are still on the floor, there are little things that they do or don't do to make sure that
They are aware of the environment around them and to ensure their safety and things like that. So it's more of a, you know, psychologically, you have to ensure your safety and staff get trained very well. And they learn on the job as well. I mean, that's what mentorship is about. Like, would there be a specific day in your career that you remember is like, yeah, that was the worst day I had? Which one? Yeah.
I guess it depends on what you mean by a bad day. Are you talking injury? Are you talking psychological? I think either, whatever you would consider. Injury-wise, I don't think I was fortunate enough not to have a lot of those. It's tough, though, when you see fellow officers who have been injured or have become sick or things like that through injury.
you know, through their work or whatever else. And that's always tough to see. Just for me, I think, especially later on in my career, I felt pretty good for most of my career as a correctional peace officer and caseworker. You do get a sense, the officers certainly have it now, but there's this whole issue of vicarious trauma. And, yeah,
Alberta Correctional Services is very good in addressing that now with, you know, critical incident debriefings and things like that and crisis teams and things like that. But officers, as well as me, you have to be aware of when things were starting to weigh you down. So for me, you know, my job, especially in the last 10 years, was dealing with a lot of deaths and assaults and violence.
almost all of the time, these incidents are captured on video. And so my role as the Director of Professional Standards is to review that video repeatedly. And so that's probably the worst thing is, you know, there was a year where we had...
I can't even remember how many deaths, and they were almost all, you know, drug-slash-fentanyl-related, when there was a really bad time, not only in the jails, but also in the community, where there was a real influx of the drug. And, you know, you could see, it was hard for me to see...
the officers go through their responses because they were almost getting conditioned to every emergency medical code was going to be something like that. And they were going to have to do CPR and they were going to have to try and save this individual's life. And sometimes that was multiple times a day. And you knew, and you would talk to the officers, I would talk to the officers, and you knew how it was weighing on them. And so that was hard as well.
You know, I think you watch on TV, whatever, or you see on the news and you hear about drugs getting smuggled in. Because I think that people wonder how this is a jail, this is a facility. Like, how are drugs even a problem there? Because they shouldn't be getting in. But like, so how do they get in?
Not to be trite, but where there's a will, there's a way. There's all sorts of different, you know, interdiction programs that the jails, both provincially and federally, do to try and prevent, you know, drugs and other contraband from coming in. Because people are searched, right? Yes, absolutely. You know, they go through strip searches, they go through body scans, they go through a body scanner that's essentially a, for lack of a better word, an image, an x-ray image of the individual to see if they're concealing anything. But
They're not foolproof. They're never foolproof. There's always ways that inmates will learn how to conceal. And there are times, broadly speaking, where it's possible that contraband, including drugs, can be introduced by contract staff,
You hope you never have to ever see it, but sometimes, you know, officers, you see it in the news sometimes in other jurisdictions. So there are all sorts of ways that these drugs can come in that aren't related to the inmate or they are dropped in. You see in the news where people are using drones to drop drugs in exercise yards. I remember at the old remand center downtown, we had an exercise yard on the sixth floor that had...
a metal screen on top of it and people would go to the parkade which was attached to the city of Calgary and they would throw eggs that were, you know, kinder eggs or eggs that were taped together and they'd be full of pills and they would throw them and they would hit the top of the screen and then the egg would break and then everything would just fall into the exercise yard and then there they would be to pick up whatever
drugs or whatever. So there's always ways of introducing it. And so it is, it's a credit to the security intelligence officers and the security staff and the correctional officers themselves to how successful they are in intercepting the majority of it. I mean, it's, it's such a team effort. They do such a good job. And even for me as a
As the Director of Professional Standards or as a Deputy Director of Programs or any of the managers working in the jails, or the directors for that matter, they rely so heavily on the hard work that the security intelligence officers and the security departments do to make sure they're on top of it. They do outstanding work. What did you find to be the most rewarding part of your career with the correctional services in Alberta? Ooh.
You know, it was, I really enjoyed dealing with all the different agencies and all the different stakeholders. And it's at different parts of my career. At one point when I was a caseworker, my portfolio was the high-risk sex offenders. So if you're familiar with when you see on the news when they go Calgary Police Service or Edmonton Police Service would like to warn you about the release of this individual.
I've probably done stories on a lot of those people.
You would have to get all that information and you would share it with the police agency, whether it's RCMP or city police or whatever else. And then that would give them the information plus their own information, of course. So you're dealing with psych assessments, police reports, victim impact statements, all of that information, risk assessments done by psychologists and psychiatrists.
All of that information is compiled, provided with the police, and then they add their information. And then if they believe it necessary, they will go and apply for a peace bond so that the person's on some sort of condition upon release, if they weren't before with probation or whatever. But peace bonds were typically the ones that...
But that's critical work because you're, I mean, the name speaks for itself. Like these are high risk offenders, like high risk to re-offend. Yes. And so that role that you were fulfilling is really huge in public safety and making sure that the public knows who's coming out and making sure police do adequate warnings. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was highly rewarding work and I really liked working with
the psychologists and the police and I
I just thought it was incredibly rewarding. I know you said that you started when you're 19 and you took a break from university, but I saw in your education that you actually have a degree in psychology. When did you do that and how helpful was that in dealing with your career? It was, I mean, it was great. It was, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I certainly wouldn't be able to do it now, but I took that year off and then I went through basic training and then I continued on with my studies. And so I
I was fortunate enough to be able to work straight night shifts while I was going to university full time during the day. So both were full time. I worked on for probably six years, I worked on next to no sleep. My education has opened doors that it wouldn't have normally made me eligible for. So things like management and moving further up, especially in programs and things like that.
Like I always say to people who are considering post-secondary, it's not so much what you learn, it's also how you learn. So university teaches you critical thinking. And it's a great thing to apply in whatever you do, whether you work at a bank, whether you work anywhere, including a jail, right? So I'm very fortunate to have had that, where you're learning life experiences as you go in the jails, and you're also learning theoretical critical thinking skills.
work in the universities. And I thought it was a really good combination. A lot of our communities in Alberta are very diverse. We have a lot of different cultural backgrounds.
Within our provincial systems, would you say we're doing enough to address those cultural differences, whether it's for Indigenous inmates, healing lodges? I know there's healing lodges in the federal institutions, but you had also mentioned that there's Indigenous programming in the provincial system as well. So has that improved, and is there enough being done? I think it's certainly improved,
It's no big secret. If you look at any reports from the Office of the Correctional Investigator or anything like that, the Indigenous population overall in Canada, and that includes Alberta, is overrepresented in jails. So there are a lot of Indigenous people in jails. And so it's imperative to ensure that there is sufficient supports in place and programs in place to ensure
help the Indigenous population spiritually, emotionally and otherwise. So in provincial system, yeah, we, you know, the larger centres have Indigenous or Native programs coordinators. They were called back then, I'm sure that's probably Indigenous program coordinators now.
Some places have sweat lodges. So one of the jails I was at, Calgary Correctional Center, did at the time, I'm not sure if they still do, I would assume that they still do, they would have sweat lodges. So they would bring an elder in and allow the Indigenous population to have their sweats. They were able to burn sweetgrass during their recreational time so that they could pray and
Elders were made available from local communities. And so those in Peace River had elders from closer to their area. Calgary had them closer to their area. Lethbridge Medicine had.
Have you ever run into one of the inmates outside of prison, a former inmate? Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. You do on occasion over the years. I certainly don't as much anymore because once I got into professional standards, most of my dealings were with incidents as opposed to people like inmates. But yeah, and I mean, I also think that they remember how you treat them. It's not...
They're not mad that they're in jail and you're supervising them. They just want to be treated with respect like any other human being does. And of course, you get what you give. So sometimes these guys are not, and ladies, are not very respectful. And it's the officer's job to always be professional and manage that conflict. I mean, I don't want you to give names, obviously, but like, was there, is there any one inmate that you've dealt with over the years that really stands out as like, it was a bad experience?
I think one of the only really bad experiences I had with an inmate is that there was one that was a really high-risk sex offender. He had some mental health concerns as well and substance abuse concerns, and they only got worse the older he got because the substance abuse got worse. But at some point...
Something clicked with him and I, and he no longer, there was something that it was just all of a sudden turned into an instant hate for me. And so he would go out of his way to threaten me and threaten violence. And sometimes he would do it in front of other officers. Inmates would tell him, you know, man, that's not cool. Why are you doing this?
And then it got to the point where the threats were serious enough that he was criminally charged. And really, what are you going to give him? I mean, this is an individual that had no money, had no... So it's not like you can fine him. So I think he got extra probation. He might have gotten an extra 30 days consecutive to his sentence, which is really... But that's the thing is...
Typically, inmates don't get a lot if they assault or assault an officer or threaten them or anything else. It seems to be, it's gotten a bit better in years, in more recent years, but it's kind of been the view that it's like, that's your job. So that's an occupational hazard. And certainly, conflict within correctional centers is not unusual. But I don't agree that...
Just because you're in a job that there is some violence that happens at times means that it's okay that you shouldn't hold those people accountable for it. Dealing with a lot of very stressful situations, you know, inmates who are dealing with very stressful situations, traumatic situations...
How did you take care of yourself all those years? Like, did you have a way to kind of unwind, de-stress? I mean, you obviously weren't doing that when you were going to university because you were working like 24 hours a day. But throughout your later years, did that become important? Every person's different. Every person has to find a way, an outlet of some sort that is healthy, safe, sustainable.
good for you, good for others. So for me it was always have a really good home life, have great relationship. And we're in similar fields so we could really kind of not necessarily bounce things off of each other but we would understand what the other is going through which was a huge help. I was always very active in sports so sports was a big part of it.
So in the summer I would golf and play ball, softball and that. And in the winter times, you know, you would play other sports, broomball, indoor sports, gym, things like that. Just something to keep you sane and keep your body well, because stress is not good for a body. It really isn't. And
I certainly have experienced it over my career where there have been physical manifestations with stress, like not being able to keep food down, trying to figure out why that is. And quite literally, I was under so much stress at one point in my career where they ran through all these tests trying to figure out why I couldn't eat breakfast in the mornings. And it turns out it was just simply stress.
I was on some meds to calm my stomach down and my partner and I took a five-week trip to Hawaii and within the first week I didn't need anything. And it just provided that good reset. And so it was a really good reminder for me to make sure that I found those ways to manage the stress in better ways.
This has been an incredible conversation. I appreciate your time so much. Thank you so much for giving us this inside look inside the correctional services of Alberta and a career spanning almost four decades. So thank you. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure. And thank you for listening. I'll be taking some time off in the next little while. So this concludes Season 6 of Crime Beat.
I'm looking forward to coming back next season with many new and important stories. Until then, be sure to check out other great podcasts from CuriousCast and Global News.
Crime Beat is written and produced by me, Nancy Hixt, with producer Dila Velasquez. Audio editing and sound design is by Rob Johnston. Special thanks to photographer-editor Danny Lantella for his work on this episode. Thank you to Jesse Wisner, our Crime Beat production assistant. And thanks to Chris Bassett, the VP of Network Content Production and Distribution and Editorial Standards for Global News.
I would love to have you tell a friend about this podcast. And if you can please consider rating and reviewing Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. You can find me on Facebook at Nancy Hickst Crime Beat and on Instagram at Nancy.Hickst. That's H-I-X-T. Thanks again for listening. Please join me next time.