MikePaterson
Cruel & Unusual?
Posted on: 11/07/2010 08:28
FROM THE GLOBE & MAIL:
--------------------------
The ombudsman for federal prisoners says the effects of harsher sentencing laws brought in by the Conservative government are being felt in overcrowded prisons, where interaction between staff and inmates is becoming increasingly rare and rehabilitation is undermined.
“We have certainly seen the impact of the increased number of mandatory minimum penalties,” Howard Sapers, the Correctional Investigator, said Friday in releasing his annual report for 2009-10.
Even though the crime rate has been dropping for many years, “we’ve seen more offenders being directed into federal penitentiaries and, for the most part, staying longer,” he said.
That has had a marked effect on the atmosphere inside the prisons, said Mr. Sapers.
“The climate is increasingly harsh, tense and stressed and it’s undermining the rehabilitation efforts,” he said.
“Current conditions inside our federal penitentiaries are undermining … rehabilitation efforts and are challenging the ability of our correctional authority to deliver a correctional service that is fair, safe and humane.”
The government said Friday it is reviewing Mr. Sapers’s report.
But a spokesman for Vic Toews, the Public Safety Minister, said the government has taken steps to help improve the lot of prisoners.
“For instance, our government has invested more than $50-million in funding to the Correctional Service of Canada for mental health over the past five years,” said Chris McClusky. “CSC has both increased access to services for inmates and training for staff so that they can recognize mental health issues. These are all resources that did not exist before.”
In addition, he said, the government has provided approximately $2-billion over five years to increase capacity within existing prisons. And there is a plan to spend $9-billion on new prisons, as estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
But, for now, Mr. Sapers’s report paints a picture of aging and crumbling correctional facilities that are required to house more people than intended.
“Offender populations today include a disturbingly large number of those with mental illness,” he said. “Correctional staff are dealing with increasingly complex offender profiles. These profiles include histories of gang membership, chronic illness and substances abuse.”
That has changed the relationship between prisoners and guards and tested accepted notions of good correctional practice, said Mr. Sapers.
Use-of-force incidents, including the use of inflammatory agents such as pepper spray, as well as situations in which firearms have been deployed, are on the rise.
Double bunking – the placing of two offenders into a cell that was designed for one – has increased by more than 50 per cent in the past five years.
And there has been declining interaction between staff and inmates, with more use of barriers, seclusion, and electronic surveillance – a shift that runs counter to the policies of the Correctional Service of Canada.
“We all have an interest in ensuring that our correctional system treats offenders fairly,” said Mr. Saper. “The vast majority of offenders will be returning to society so we all benefit from them having received adequate services and rehabilitation treatments before they return to their communities.”
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Correctional Investigator of Canada made 24 recommendations in his 2009-10 report released Friday. Here are some examples:
» The recruitment of mental-health professionals to work in prisons should be enhanced.
» New corrections officers should have the knowledge to deal with prisoners who are mentally ill.
» Prolonged segregation of patients at risk of suicide or who have a serious mental illness should be prohibited.
» There should be a new plan for dealing with prisoners who deliberately hurt themselves.
» The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) should conduct an analysis of the population of prisoners who are over 50 and devise a strategy to meet their physical and mental needs.
» The CSC should review all prisoners released directly into the community from medium-security facilities to determine why they were not first transferred to minimum-security facilities.
» The public safety minister should review all inmates in segregation-like units to ensure they are receiving the same protections and programs as the general inmate population.
Search
Recently Active...
Comments
Pinga
Posted on: 11/07/2010 14:20
Mike
I visited for a few years a woman "A" at Grand Valley Institute. She was in for having murdered her spouse. I was originally just the driver for her new partner "B", but eventually did become friends to them both. I was invited to be their family at the family day and so was also admitted further into gvi. I will say that GVI is a more holistic approach to incarceration. The chaplain and staff were good. I was welcomed into the visitation; yet, there was no question, this was prision.
Due to various circumstances, this same woman "A" broke a day pass regulation and was placed in Barton St. I visited her there with her partner. I had never experienced jail...and did on that day. I was shocked, offended, sickened, angered, offended, hurt, angry ...and many other adjectives regarding Barton St. It still upsets me.
For those that have never visited a jail, some day, do so. Go to visit someone, get to know the process. Listen to the families. Listen to the people incarcerated.
Early on in our getting to know each other, "B" had advised that when she was arrested for the umpteenth time for one of many drunk driving offences, she requested that she be given a sentence high enough to go into the federal system. She said it saved her life, as in GVI she was able to get treatment that the provincial system didn't give to her. She also met "A" and they became support for each other. I didn't realize until I had been to Barton street how bad the system could be.
Mike, it is cruel. It is awful
seeler
Posted on: 11/07/2010 19:13
My recommendation would be to reduce the prison population by shorter sentences, and more sentences served in the community rather than in jail;
better treatment and more rehibititation so that there wouldn't be so many repeat offenders, and, most important
better systems to give young people education, job training, purpose and hope so that they wouldn't be getting into these fixes in the first place.
Pinga
Posted on: 11/07/2010 20:12
Beshpin...take a visit to Barton Street....and then tell me it isn't cruel. There is no reason to treat people as less than human...yet, at Barton, even the visitors are treated that way.
RussP
Posted on: 11/07/2010 20:14
Pinga
Having just retired out of CSC, being responsible for security electronics, I have two observations:
1) Having visited GVI, the thing that gets to you the most is the number of under 6 year olds tagging along with mom, including babies. It was impossible to leave without feeling rather broken up inside.
2) "she requested that she be given a sentence high enough to go into the federal system" I have heard this many times. The Ontario system warehouses you for the period of your sentence, the federal system tries to make you a law abiding citizen.
Toughening sentences and putting people in for minor sentences isn't going to improve things. A kid who made a mistake will simply come out as a hardened con with the tools to commit more serious crimes.
And you are a convert, institutions, not prisons.
IT
Russ
MikePaterson
Posted on: 11/07/2010 20:47
...and will probably have contracted a life-threatening infection or two and a drug addiction...
somegirl
Posted on: 11/07/2010 21:49
One thing I don't understand is how can there be more people in remand in prison than serving sentences. My husband said that people in remand should be there but wouldn't they eventually recieve a sentence to serve? In which case there should be more people serving senctences than in remand. Maybe someone could shed some light on that for me.
When my husband was in Springhill, the only job training that he could get was janitorial. Of course you have to be bondable to do that kind of work. That never made sense to me. Kind of like a kick in the pants.
I work near the Burnside jail, which is a provincial prison. Just up the street is the composting facility for the city. If the wind is blowing just wrong we can smell it at work. It is really disgusting and turns your stomach. If they could smell that at the jail, that would be cruel and unusual punishment.
MikePaterson
Posted on: 11/13/2010 08:03
CBC:
An Ontario coroner has decided to expand the inquest into the final months of Ashley Smith's life and look into how her state of mind may have contributed to the New Brunswick teen's death at a federal prison for women.
"The expanded scope may assist the jury in making a determination about the manner of Ms. Smith's death," coroner Bonita Porter wrote in her decision released on Friday. "Her state of mind is part of the circumstances of the death and will be relevant to the issue of 'by what means' the death occurred."
Porter said the expanded inquest will include "an examination of factors that may have impacted Ms. Smith's state of mind on Oct. 19, 2007."
She said information presented to the jury "will not necessarily be restricted by her age, geography, date or nature of the institution that was tasked with her care."
The inquest was initially going to be restricted to Smith's experience in Ontario from May 12, 2007 up to her death on Oct. 19, 2007, and not her entire 11½ months and 17 transfers within federal correctional facilities.
Smith, while in isolation, choked herself to death with a piece of cloth while guards at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., looked on. They had been ordered not to intervene.
Earlier this month, Julian Falconer, a lawyer for Smith's family, argued before Porter that the inquest should be broadened to understand the 19-year-old's "barbaric" living conditions and learn fully what led to her death.
A report to the Correctional Service of Canada by independent psychologist Margo Rivera concluded that prison officials’ repeated transfers of Smith, against doctor’s orders, interfered with her mental health therapy and escalated her spiral toward her death.
Rivera also concluded that Smith believed guards would intervene and that her self-choking behaviour was not an attempt to kill herself, but rather "met her need for increasing the level of stimulation" by provoking guards, forcing them to enter her isolation cell to save her.