Strength In SISterhood (SIS) Society
PO Box 18596
Delta BC V4K 4V7

NEWS RELEASE
May 14, 2003

SIS was incorporated in 1995 –a networking avenue for federally sentenced women (FSW). Encouraged and supported by many, in particular by Dr. Karlene Faith, SFU, by Kim Pate, LLB, MA Ed., Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS), by June Callwood, author and humanitarian and by Des Turner, MA Eng., the SIS membership includes national representation from many women’s organizations alongside formerly incarcerated FSW.

Though the stories and the history of the brutalization of FSW throughout the years since the 1938 opening of Kingston’s Prison for Women (P4W) in Ontario are too numerous to recount here, we ask that you revisit this context from time-to-time, while considering the current Canadian Human Rights complaint filed by CAEFS with regard to the systemic discrimination suffered by FSW. You might then be better able to understand why SIS calls each new facility a P4W, albeit the Edmonton P4W (EP4W), etc.

“Most importantly, the risks that they [women] pose to the public, as a group, is minimal, and at that, considerably different from the security risk posed by men (Arbour.1996:228).”

In February, 1995, most of you will recall those black eyes crammed with horror and the piercing, defenseless pleas of our SISters inside P4W as their naked bodies were exposed by helmeted, baton-wielding, male members of the emergency response team (ERT) from the men’s Kingston Penitentiary - as they ripped or cut away the few, thin pieces of clothing from these young women - on the concrete floors of segregation cells, April 27, 1994.

The Correctional Service of Canada’s (CSCs) video tapes, nationally televised by the CBC’s FIFTH Estate in Feb.1995 provided eye witness to these egregious sexual assaults, claims that otherwise might be doubtful since the conduct was touted by the CSC as “professional.” The resulting public outcry forced the then Solicitor General, Herb Gray, to call an immediate Commission of Inquiry. The resulting April, 1996 Report by the Honourable Justice Louise Arbour prompted the resignation of the then, Commissioner of Corrections, John Edwards (since promoted).

While CAEFS and other national women’s organizations supported Justice Arbour’s 14 recommendations, the Government of Canada (Canada) and the CSC did not (with the exception of parts of those recommendations that could enlarge the correctional budget and enable other self-serving interests).