Prisoner Advocacy & Transformational Hub (PATH)

Investment memo

Aim Statement:
Reduce recidivism by increasing access to legal services and clients served by 300% over 12 months.

Background

Currently, PATH offers justice services to women, girls, and genderdiverse persons in the Atlantic region, with a dignity-driven end-client focus and interdisciplinary approach. PATH brings diverse stakeholders together to advocate for changes in the justice system and embeds lived experience insights throughout their activities. PATH has operated core services leveraging available funding which is not enough to meet the demand for legal services in a consistent, accessible manner. With additional funding, PATH will grow its staff team and build the required organizational infrastructure to further develop their sustainable model of restorative, trauma-informed, culturally competent justice services that can be replicated and scaled nationally.

Objectives & Impact

PATH plans to expand its justice services beyond the current genderbased parameters to protect the human rights of all prisoners and criminalized persons throughout Canada, starting in the Atlantic region. PATH aims to ensure that all incarcerated persons have appropriate and consistent access to justice services that protect and advance the individual’s needs while improving and changing the prison-justice system. The expansion of these services will lead to improvements in recidivism and release rates, positive developments in public policy and the law (see baseline section), and the reduction of prison-related injustices.

Partnership

Northpine’s investment will assist PATH in scaling a justice service model that improves prisoners’ and FIP’s protection of human rights and drives transformative changes in the prison-justice system. The baseline section below demonstrates that the PATH model is successful in reducing the recidivism rate of FIPs. However, the service has been limited to women, girls and gender-diverse persons. This partnership would scale to include all genders by extending services to men who make up 85% of all incarcerated individuals and at present are not provided with the legal and supportive services comparable to PATH’s services. An investment of $1.5M, equivalent to an additional input of $224/individual is expected to reduce the recidivism rate in the Atlantic region. The project aims to serve a total of 6700 unique clients, which includes the new 1500, who through this investment will experience lower rates of recidivism than the regional rate of 50%.

Project Timeline

The project activities are based on milestones to be reviewed continuously. An initial investment of $750,000 will be required to build the infrastructure to formally operationalize PATH at a scale that can serve all of the prisoners and FIPs in the Atlantic. When PATH has served 500 new unique clients a further $500,000 will be unlocked in funding. When another 500 unique new clients have been served then the last band of funding from Northpine, $250,000, will be unlocked. At the conclusion of this project, PATH will have served a minimum total of 1500 unique new clients in addition to the regular volume of clients already receiving services from PATH. This will 3X the number of unique new clients receiving legal services from 1445 over 3 years, to 1500 in one year – the expected duration of this project. This will at the same time 7X all services (legal and other) provided to all clients; to date PATH has served 2930 clients, which is an average of 980 clients per year, as compared to the 6700 clients projected to be served by this investment.

Non-Financial Supports

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— Emma Halpern

Executive Director, Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia

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