Today, there are some 3,500 offenders serving life sentences in Canada, about one third of them on lifetime parole supervision in the community. Lifers make up about 16 per cent of the total number of federal inmates.
Lifers are different from other inmates.
Unlike most offenders, those receiving life sentences do not have a fixed release date. They also face much longer sentences - a minimum of 12 years, compared to the average sentence of three and a half years. When they are released, they will be on parole for the rest of their lives. All parties involved in the correctional system recognised that these inmates needed a new approach to help them through their long sentences and re-integrate them successfully into the community once they were released on parole. A grant from the Donner Foundation financed the first study of the LifeLine service, and the first in-reach worker began work in 1991.