Communitas

me in the community and the punishment which follows from it. This initial survey work was carried out in 1999, mainly in the Southwest part of Montreal from which the largest number of our focus group came. An ad hoc Steering Committee came together from concerned community members at the end of 1999, and Communitas as we were then called, was launched. Our work started then, and developed in welcoming prisoners back into the community and accompanying them in their transition. Within a year we had recruited a significant number of volunteers, provided appropriate training for them and in 2000 had formed a first Circle of Support and Accountability (CoSA). On 11 September, 2001, the first Open Door community meeting was held at the downtown YMCA. These most important elements of our ongoing and developing work were established in those first two years of operation. Now we report each month on the work of some 50 or more volunteers; we can count more than 40 CoSA’s provided by Communitas of which 18 are still in operation, and Open Door, where between 25 and 50 people gather each week, has just celebrated 10 years of community-making.