Correctional Services Of Canada enjoys torturing Canadians

Torture, segregation — and a government in denial- less we forget

In 2007, 19-year-old Ashley Smith killed herself. Prior to her death, she spent more than 1,000 days in what’s called “administrative segregation” — the Canadian euphemism for solitary confinement.

Smith’s death was supposed to be a wake-up call — an impossible-to-ignore signal that Canadian prisons were failing their mentally-ill inmates, and that our system of solitary confinement was terribly, indisputably broken.

“ The placement of federal inmates in solitary confinement is “cruel and usual punishment” in Canada’s prisons and should be severely curtailed, says a new editorial in the nation’s leading medical journal.” National Post

Instead, the government waited until the end of last year to finally issue a response to the findings of the coroner’s inquiry on Smith’s death. That response was essentially a restatement of Corrections Services Canada’s position on solitary confinement, with a few weak gestures towards improving the system.

The real meat of the coroner’s inquiry’s findings was ignored: specifically, the federal government flatly dismissed the recommendations that indefinite administrative segregation be abolished, and that long-term segregation not exceed 15 consecutive days. Apparently, “the Government is unable to fully support (those recommendations) without causing undue risk to the safe management of the federal correctional system.”

Safe management for whom, exactly? Because since Smith’s death, suicides and self-harm by inmates in administrative segregation haven’t exactly stopped.

Edward Snowshoe spent 162 consecutive days in segregation before he killed himself in 2010. He was 24 years old.

Over an eight-month period in 2012 and 2013, three inmates in segregation were found dead at Mountain Institution near Chilliwack.

According to the Office of the Correctional Investigator’s 2011-2012 annual report, “close to one-third of reported self-injury incidents (in federal prisons) occurred in segregation units.”

The John Howard Society of Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association have decided that waiting for the federal government to update their policies on administrative segregation is a fool’s errand. Instead, they’ve filed a challenge in the B.C. Supreme Court alleging that solitary confinement, as used in Canada, violates several key provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This particular challenge isn’t exactly a surprise. As far back as 2011, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendéz named solitary confinement as a practice that can amount to torture. Mendéz told the UN General Assembly’s committee on social, humanitarian and cultural affairs that the practice of holding prisoners in isolation should be banned completely as a punishment technique.

Solitary confinement is being used to conceal the fact that our prisons – overcrowded and overburdened by the government’s tough-on-crime policies – cannot accomplish even the most basic aspects of what we expect them to do.

Corrections Services Canada has sidestepped that recommendation by claiming that administrative segregation isn’t used as punishment. Instead, in their response to the coroner’s inquiry on Ashley Smith’s death, CSC said administrative segregation is “an interim population management measure” used “to facilitate an investigation or to protect the safety and security of individuals and/or the institution.”

Sure it is. And of course, there’s no potential for abuse in a system where the final decision about keeping an inmate in isolation is left to the exclusive discretion of the prison head. Because we’ve refused to sign on to the UN’s Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, we don’t even require an independent review of decisions to keep inmates in isolation.

But how is it more humane to argue that segregation is being used as an “interim population management measure”? If it were being used as punishment, at least there would be some rational connection between behaviour and being placed in isolation.

Instead, inmates are placed in administrative segregation for reasons ranging from the ridiculous to the heartbreaking. The Toronto South Detention Centre, for instance, opened a year ago. The new mega-jail includes an infirmary and a 26-bed unit for patients with mental health problems – but neither one has been operative since the centre opened. As of this past December, 21 inmates with medical issues were instead being kept in segregation at that facility alone.

So prisoners could end up in segregation for the crime of catching the flu. At the same time, even CSC admits that prisons have become a last resort for people with mental illnesses who have come into contact with the law. In an over-taxed, under-resourced system, it’s inevitable that “problem” inmates will end up in segregation, instead of in treatment.

“Noting that there are 850 offenders in isolation on any given day — a 6.4% increase over the past five years — the editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal said the lack of stimulation and social interaction can lead to anxiety, depression and anger and increases the risk of self-harm and suicide.” National Post

This isn’t what a successful prison system looks like. For people without mental illness, too much time in solitary confinement can lead to mental health problems. For people with pre-existing mental illness, isolation can aggravate those issues. The result is a vicious cycle, in which troubled inmates are shunted to segregation, which aggravates their mental health issues, which makes them more likely to end up back in segregation in the future.

When one in four federal prisoners spends at least some time in isolation, clearly the goal of using administrative segregation as a last resort is not being met. Instead, it’s being used to conceal the fact that our prisons – overcrowded and overburdened by the government’s tough-on-crime policies – cannot accomplish even the most basic aspects of what we expect them to do.

Prison is supposed to be a punishment, yes – but it’s also supposed to be a place where inmates can be rehabilitated, where they can heal and prepare themselves to get their lives back on track. Leaving prisoners in isolation for weeks, months, even years, is punishment that rises to the level of being cruel and unusual; it’s certainly not a practice that promotes rehabilitation.

It shouldn’t take a court case to protect Canadian inmates from cruel and unusual punishment. We should be able to depend on our policy-makers to do that for us. In this case, our policy-makers clearly have abandoned that responsibility. Hopefully this court case will remind them of their obligations – to prisoners, and to the communities they’ll come home to once their prison terms are up.

Devon Black for iPolitics.ca