Mennonite minister Harry Nigh, a retired community chaplain, helped lay the foundations for what would become Circles of Support and Accountability back in 1994. Supporting a sex offender may not be a popular approach, he said, "but it is an effective one."
The call came from prison can you help us find lodging for a repeat child sex offender?
Harry Nigh, a Mennonite pastor in Hamilton, knew the man from his work as a prison chaplain, so he felt obligated to help-after all, no one else would.
The moment planted a seed in Nigh's mind that soon led to a novel idea: a program to support and monitor those seen as society's most heinous, watch over them, keep tabs on them and stop them from doing it again.
Some 30 years later, the made-inOntario Circles of Support and Accountability, or CoSA, has been copied across Canada and in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and South Korea. It's widely held up as one the most successful and only-rehabilitation programs for child sex offenders after their release from prison, reducing rates of reoffending by nearly 90 per cent, according to a 2018 study.
Except now, CoSA is going away in the very communities where it was created with three locations in Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener announcing they're closing over the latest in a long series of funding challenges.
For the man who helped start the first COSA in Hamilton in 1994, the news is bleak. "I think this is a crisis," said Nigh, who is now retired.
Where will the next child sex offender go when they're released from prison in Canada's most populous area, he wonders?
"If we really cared about keeping kids safe, I would think (the government) would want to invest deeply in programs like this, amongst all the other priorities," he said.
Supporting a sex offender may not be a popular approach, he added, "but it is an effective one."
Bu hikaye Toronto Star dergisinin May 04, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Toronto Star dergisinin May 04, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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