Two Sundays a month, Veronica* wakes up before dawn to get ready to go visit her dad. He is incarcerated at Beaver Creek Institution, a federal medium-security prison about 200 km north of Toronto. Veronica is 17, in her final year of high school, and she and her little sister have had the same Sunday visit routine since Veronica was in grade six.
They take a bus owned and operated by FEAT, a charitable organization dedicated to empowering and advocating for children of incarcerated parents. The bus is free for Veronica and her sister. Without it, they wouldn’t be able to afford to visit their dad more than a couple of times a year. Derek Reid is the co-founder of FEAT, which he created in 2011 with his daughter Jessica. He’s also the bus driver.
*Name has been changed
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Elderly, Confused, and Under Arrest
As more and more seniors with dementia become entangled with the law, how can the justice system adapt?
Not Criminally Responsible
Were last summer’s high-profile disappearances from CAMH signs of a broken program—or a complex system working as it should?
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Letters from the Inside
For a time, I was the only openly gay man in my prison. Then I met a trans woman and we started our own LGBTQ2 support group.