a) After Arbour and Closing the Prison for Women (P4W)
The ever anticipated closure of P4W and the spotlight of the
Commission of Inquiry did nothing to ameliorate conditions and
tension at the Prison for Women. Regrettably, since the release of
the Arbour Report, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC)
has continued to deny that it has engaged in any further illegal
activities.
Further attempts to cover-up legal and policy transgressions
persist, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. We continue to
see an organization focused upon maintaining an image of righteous
indignation in the face of evidence of significant wrongdoing and
blatant disregard for the law.
CAEFS continues to play a key role in the forewarning,
monitoring and exposure of procedural and policy problems
highlighted and exemplified by the manner in which the
Correctional Service of Canada chooses to address problems which
emanate from or have been visited upon P4W and the new regional
women's prisons.
In addition to wishing to assist in elucidating the particular
facts specific to incidents or events, CAEFS is also committed to
ensuring that relevant policy issues are fully examined and
addressed.
Regrettably, as the Prison for Women sits poised to close
during the summer of 1997, and as the new prisons commence
operation in earnest, CSC is reluctant to relinquish the vestiges
of models designed to deal predominantly with the men in their
prisons.
As we approach the first anniversary of the release of the
Arbour Commission report, CSC is still a very insular, insecure
yet self-righteously arrogant governmental department, where
prisoners and anyone who questions CSC's actions are similarly
relegated to the margins and classified as unimportant and
misinformed, regardless of the seriousness and implications of the
matters raised.
All energies seemed to be focused upon efforts to obfuscate the
issues, discredit any perceived detractors and continue on with
business as usual.
The manner in which the federally sentenced women's initiative
continued to unfold this year , particularly in the Prairies and
at the Edmonton Institution for Women (EIFW), where prisoners
continued to be subjected to strip searches and excessive use of
force which are clearly in violation of the provisions of the
Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms.
For example, strip searches continued to be conducted in a
routine manner and without any just, reasonable or even a
suspicion that might create some semblance of "cause".
In addition, some minimum security women who were being
escorted into the community were being handcuffed and shackled.
Other examples of inappropriate use and abuse of power at EIFW
include the use of the "cage" to transport a minimum
security woman from her private family visit at a men's prison --
this, despite the fact that she was transported to the same visit
without restraints, by one officer, with whom she shared the front
seat of a car.
Other issues related to the new federal
prisons for women in Canada pertain to the lack of national
leadership in the area of women's corrections. Although the
Correctional Service of Canada appointed a Deputy Commissioner
for Women following Madam Justice Arbour's recommendation for
same, they have unfortunately chosen to not implement the bulk
of the recommendations related to the position.
Not only does this result in significant limitations to the
authority of the position, but it also means that there continues
to be a leadership vacuum, where the wardens of the new women's
prisons and the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge report to regional
Deputy Commissioners responsible for the men's prisons and
community corrections in their respective regions.
The Deputy Commissioner for Women currently has no ability to
veto decisions made by the regional Deputy Commissioners, nor any
separate authority to decide the manner in which the federally
sentenced women's prison and community programs are implemented.
Women at the new regional prisons in
Edmonton, Alberta and Truro, Nova Scotia, were subjected to
excessive and/or illegal use of force and detention, illegal
involuntary transfers and denial of due process rights on a
number of occasions.
Moreover, the former Solicitor General sanctioned these actions
as well as the decision of the Commissioner of Corrections to
segregate women classified as maximum security prisoners, as well
as those with significant "mental health" concerns in
isolated maximum security units in men's penitentiaries.
These realities illustrate some of the reasons that we continue
to have significant concerns regarding the future for federally
sentenced women in Canada.
We are apprehensive about the willingness and ability of the
Correctional Service of Canada to institute the necessary reforms
to address the needs and challenges of federally sentenced women.
The projected image of a criminal justice system whose
personnel promote the utmost respect for the law by modelling
humane and just exercise of power is a stark contrast to the
reality that the women and CAEFS have experienced.
This sort of inconsistent and misguided
application of the "new philosophy" articulated in the
1990 Report of the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women that
has allowed problems such as those that have unfolded at the new
prisons in Edmonton, Alberta and Truro, Nova Scotia to mushroom
and explode, as well as the regression of women's imprisonment
occasioned by the decision to move women into men's prisons.
Given the existing stress and anxiety experienced by the women
who are in the midst of the uncertainty both in the new prisons or
as they await transfer to same, the myriad transitional issues
require CSC to ensure that clear policy direction, experienced and
prepared staff and supportive programming are provided for the
women prisoners.
In addition, CAEFS has experienced a
repeat of the difficulties we had in 1994-1995 trying to obtain
copies of investigative and videotape reports directly from CSC.
The result has been that this year we sought the assistance of
the Information Commissioner to facilitate CAEFS access to
information requests for copies of CSC reports. This situation is
uncannily reminiscent of our experiences following the April 1994
incidents at the Prison for Women in Kingston.
After much delay, the Solicitor General and Commissioner of
Corrections decided to open the Ontario and Quebec regional
prisons in January of 1997. We hope that the learning from the
experiences at the Edmonton and Nova prisons will positively
influence the two new prisons.
Furthermore, we do hope that CSC decides to
try to emulate more of the practices and approaches utilized at
the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge. The success of the Healing Lodge
should inform and lead the development of correctional policy,
program design and staff training for all of women's
corrections.
The principles and approaches utilized at and by the Lodge have
universal applicability.
One year after the release of Madam Justice Arbour's
recommendations, Canada remained without an articulated national
strategy for the provision of community release or supervision
options for federally sentenced women.
With the exception of a halfway house in the
Greater Vancouver area, and the option for the CSC to purchase
beds in provincially funded houses there are no other halfway
houses for federally sentenced women west of central Ontario.
There are four in Ontario and one in Quebec and none in Eastern
Canada. CAEFS continues to urge CSC to develop a clear national
community integration strategy and standards for the FSW
initiative.
Accordingly, in addition to continuing to seek strategies for
protecting the equality interests of women prisoners, we ended
this year still calling upon
- 1) the Solicitor General, Herb Gray, and in turn, the
Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), to respond to the
recommendations of Madam Justice Arbour following the Commission
of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women at
Kingston;
2) the Commissioner of
Corrections, Ole Ingstrup, to revisit decisions:
3) since the Arbour
Commission report, rather than address the clear problems of
systemic disregard for the law and a culture of
mismanagement, the CSC has persisted in their one-sided
scapegoating of women prisoners, in at least two of the new
regional prisons for women, illegal strip searches, no
access to counsel, excessive use of force and segregation,
illegal involuntary transfers and generally oppressive
conditions have occurred within the past year;
4) the government to stop taking women's
corrections in Canada back to the turn of the century.
The experiences of women prisoners has tended to involve too
many profoundly disturbing examples of oppression and abuse of
power, as well as arbitrary decision making.
In our view, this year the Correctional Service of Canada again
exhibited callous indifference to prisoners, flagrant disregard
for its own policies, and disrespect for the very legislation
pursuant to which it operates.
It remains a concern of CAEFS that, seemingly as result of the
lack of acknowledgement by the Correctional Service of Canada of
its responsibility in the April 1994 and subsequent events at the
Prison for Women, far too much energy is being devoted to
reinforcing a notion of imprisoned women as difficult to manage
prisoners who pose significant risks to institutional security and
public safety.
CAEFS would rather see CSC developing clear plans to meet the
needs of the few women still currently imprisoned at the Prison
for Women, as well as of those who have been moved to the new
prisons, the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge and the segregated maximum
security units in men's prisons. Much more emphasis is needed on
the development of community supports for women prisoners.
[Return to top of page] [Index
to the Annual Report, 1997]
b) Replications of Old Problems in
New Prisons
We continue to fear the impact of the punitive and reactive
nature of the drug strategy.
Rather than reducing the harm caused by drug use, we believe
that current policies and practices aimed at detecting,
apprehending and punishing prisoners who use drugs are increasing
the harm to those particular prisoners in particular and all
prisoners more generally.
We are encouraging CSC to follow their own research findings
and focus upon more progressive and proactive approaches in order
to address concerns about drugs in P4W.
We have encouraged CSC to utilize more supportive and
constructive interventions aimed at encouraging those with
addiction issues to self identify and seek assistance, rather than
a continuation of what seem to be current punitive practices of
immediately removing all privileges and entitlements if and when
drug use is suspected and/or detected.
In addition to regarding this practice as potentially in
contravention of prisoners' Charter rights, we are particularly
concerned that visits with family members, especially children,
are being impacted despite the fact that there is no concern that
such visitors are in any way involved with the introduction of
contraband into the prison.
While prohibitions may assist or encourage the cessation of the
prohibited behaviour among those individuals for or to whom the
prohibited behaviour is somewhat inconsequential, it is well
recognized that rather than deterring prohibited activities,
increasingly punitive responses generally only serve to encourage
greater efforts and risk taking in attempts to avoid detection.
If we look at drug use for example, we know that the greater
the potential punishment, the greater the lengths to which those
with significant addictions, for whom cessation seems impossible,
will go to address their addictions in ways that avoid detection.
We do not want to see further increases of punitive responses,
as we only see this as leading to ever more women facing failure
and hopelessness in this area. The consequences of this have been
and would continue to be tragic.
CAEFS has suggested that CSC focus upon drug use prevention as
well as relapse prevention work, following the recommendations of
such authorities as the Expert Committee on AIDS Prevention
(ECAP), as well as the work of Dr. Diane Riley which was
commissioned by CSC.
Dr. Riley and the ECAP have recommended harm reduction
approaches to managing drug problems in prison.
With the regionalizing of CAEFS, our advocacy efforts with and
on behalf of federally sentenced women in the new prisons
continues. Local societies closest to the new prisons visit and
provide services to women in the institutions on a weekly or daily
basis, depending upon resources.
The Executive Director of CAEFS now visits the new prisons two
to three times per year, and the CAEFS regional representatives
are responsible for monthly visits to the new prisons. Such visits
include meetings with the organized prisoners' groups, as well as
meetings with the prison administration.
The regional representatives keep both the Elizabeth Fry
societies in their region and CAEFS advised of issues, needs,
concerns, etc. arising in the regions. The Executive Director of
CAEFS continues to coordinate national policy and law reform
efforts, and assists local and regional representatives as
required.
CAEFS has obligations to federally sentenced women who look to
us to speak with and on their behalf.
Where and whenever possible, CAEFS encourages women in prison
to utilize the internal complaint and grievance procedures, as
well as the assistance of the Office of the Correctional
Investigator and legal counsel.
We also tend to coordinate efforts in order to ensure the most
effective means of intervening are utilized and to avoid
unnecessary duplicitous action.
The perennial issue of limited resources, as well as access
thereto, combined with a high need for support of the women has
also meant that at times CAEFS has assisted women with issues when
they are unable to obtain counsel or other(s) to assist them.
Humanitarian passes and national parole board matters are prime
examples of these.
Following the release of Creating Choices, the Task
Force Steering Committee and Working Groups were disbanded. They
were then replaced by a National Implementation Committee (NIC),
which, despite the recommendations of the Task Force, was devoid
of federally sentenced women, CAEFS or other community
representation.
Moreover, even since the promulgation of the Corrections and
Conditional Release Act, with its s. 77 provision of a duty to
consult with groups such as ours, the Commissioner of Corrections,
as well as members of his staff at national and regional
headquarters and the Federally Sentenced Women's Program have
resisted involving CAEFS directly in policy development work for
FSW.
In the new regional prisons, CAEFS and its membership continue
to discharge our monitoring function in efforts to ensure that
women's rights and entitlements are being provided and that CSC is
adhering to the law governing its activities.
CAEFS' preference is to not be involved in purely "operational"
matters at P4W or the new prisons.
Consequently, CAEFS continues to assert the need for regional
governance bodies for the new prisons and a national advisory body
for the area of federally sentenced women's corrections as a
whole.
Unless truly effective and representative independent mandatory
advisory bodies are constituted, CAEFS will undoubtedly continue
to be expected to intervene on behalf of the women.
[Return to top of page] [Index
to the Annual Report, 1997]
c) Repetition of CSC Mismanagement
and Scapegoating of Prisoners in New Prisons
CAEFS continues to focus on issues related to the
implementation of the recommendations of the Task Force on
Federally Sentenced Women. Our aim is to assist and support
women during the transition between the closure of the Prison for
Women (P4W) in Kingston, the moves to the new prisons, and the
Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge. To this end, CAEFS continues to average
at least one visit to the Kingston prison per month.
CAEFS has also visited women imprisoned in the new Prairie
prison, the Edmonton Institution for Women (EIFW), the national
Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge for First Nations women, located in
Maple Creek, Saskatchewan on the Nekaneet Reserve, the segregated
maximum security units at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary in Prince
Albert and the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon, the Grand
Valley Institution in Kitchener for the Ontario region, the
Joliette prison for the Quebec region and the segregated maximum
security unit in Ste. Annes des Plaines, which is also the
location of the men's maximum security Special Handling Unit, as
well as the segregated maximum security unit in Springhill
Institution in Nova Scotia, the Atlantic region's Nova Institution
for Women, and the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women, which is
designated as the prison for federally sentenced women in the
Pacific region.
Despite the objections and interventions of CAEFS and other
national women's groups, the Correctional Services of Canada
continues to classify far too many women as high security risks.
Rather than seek the input and expertise of the women
themselves and those of us who are invested in the Creating
Choices vision, principles and model for women's corrections,
the Correctional Service continues to repeat its history of
resorting primarily to static inhumane security mechanisms in the
face of its own inability to implement innovative dynamic new
correctional philosophy and approaches.
This has resulted in the addition of massive
new security measures at all of the new prisons. Yet again,
fences, razor wire, sensors, 360 degree, zoom lens, infrared
cameras and other assorted electronic devices have been
installed essentially because of the inability of the
Correctional Service to address the very real needs and issues
of the women who were moved to the Edmonton prison over the past
year.
The Elizabeth Fry societies in the regions are working to build
the links for women into their respective communities in order to
facilitate planning for community-based integration services for
the women in the regions.
CAEFS continues to work to help counter the decision to isolate
federally sentenced women classified as maximum security prisoners
in the segregated units established in men's prisons.
CAEFS also continues to try to determine what exactly occurred
at Nova and Edmonton over the past year and a half.
With the exception of the involvement of men in the strip
searching and shackling, we are led to understand that the events
parallel those of three years ago at P4W.
Indeed, we likely have a repeat, probably twice over, of the
P4W problems -- all of it despite and post Arbour.
[Return to top of page] [Index
to the Annual Report, 1997]
d) Criminalization of Women
Labelled as Having Mental Health Concerns
CAEFS will continue to focus upon an examination of the mental
health needs of federally sentenced women, as well as the
increasing tendency to criminalize women who have traditionally
been pathologized and labelled with some psychological or
psychiatric "illness" as well as those who have been
identified as having mental disabilities. The need in this area
was first felt most acutely in the Atlantic provinces.
Women have historically been over-represented in psychiatric
settings, as opposed to their under-representation in the prison
systems. With the closure of psychiatric hospital wards and
termination of community-based services, however, Canada is
witnessing a marked increase in the number of women who are being
criminalized within a very short period of their release from or
rejection by increasingly overtaxed and under-resourced mental
health services.
CSC has now developed a mental health strategy which is being
piloted at the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon. CAEFS
critiqued the first draft of the strategy this year and awaits the
re-draft and/or CSC update on this project. What we have observed
at the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon is not reflective
of the sort of healing environment CSC has indicated will exist
there.
It is our view that any mental health
strategy for federally sentenced women must start with a clear
recognition and acknowledgement of the manner in which the
prison environment as a whole, particularly staff interactions
and prisoner isolation, creates and exacerbates women's mental
health concerns.
CSC has failed to focus upon the contribution of the prison
culture to the generation of personal difficulties among
prisoners. We feel that the mental health strategy must commence
with an examination of these issues in the context of the overall
prison climate.
CSC's model places great emphasis on the responsibility of the
women to change and little upon the provision of opportunities for
them to be encouraged and empowered to make choices in a
supportive environment.
It has an overall emphasis on control and upon a cognitive
skills style of approach --even within the context of individual
therapy. CAEFS is concerned with the apparent contingency of the
provision of therapy on demonstrated change on the part of the
women.
We also have particular concerns about the
overall focus of the strategy on the women's behaviour. For
example, the stress seems to be on immediately observable
behaviour and qualitative assessment thereof without including a
contextual analysis, assessment or discussion of the factors
that have contributed to presenting behaviours or events.
We feel that a corresponding strategy paper and plan must be
developed relating to the role of staff, their selection,
training, ongoing professional development and working practices.
CAEFS would also like CSC to articulate
the parameters of the use of medication, given the history of
excessive reliance upon medication as means of controlling the
behaviour of women, both in the community and prison settings.
In addition, CAEFS envisions a model that is much more focused
upon meeting the needs of the women rather than the needs of the
institution, staff or program and which could benefit from the
experiences of the models utilized at the Okimaw Ohci Healing
Lodge.
We would especially like to see greater emphasis on
women-directed approaches and less focus upon program and
institution driven strategies. The goals pursued by the women
should be those that they have identified for themselves and the
overall strategy needs to be developed around the creation of
incentives for women to "heal".
We also feel that within the context of the program strategy,
multi-disciplinary external supports need to be encouraged, both
therapeutic and personal.
In order to facilitate a continuum of care for federally
sentenced women, externally-located counselling, therapeutic and
spiritual supports must also be respected and regarded as integral
to the overall strategy by institutional partners.
Rather than see CSC isolate the women in segregated maximum
security units, CAEFS would prefer the notion of small centres
within the regional prisons. We would like to see women who are
engaged in "treatment" being able to maintain their
relationships with their personal community supports and to assist
them in building and maintaining bridges to their communities of
origin and/or support.
We also remain concerned about the ability of the regional
prisons as they are currently managed to accommodate a therapeutic
milieu, whereby women-centred, holistic and intensive therapy or
treatment would be the focus and opportunities would be provided
to inspire women to create choices in a manner that does not
infantilize or scapegoat them.
We continue to encourage CSC to focus upon the development of
institutional atmosphere where staff model, support and reinforce
positive attitudes and relationships and where trust is earned. In
short, CSC management and staff must move away from power and
control models and work on instilling hope and encouraging women.
Furthermore, they must recognize that the responsibility for
healing and growth does not rest solely with the women and that
they must be able to model behaviours and be mentors to the women.
We have also urged CSC not to treat women with mental health
needs as though they are a homogenous group. The characteristics
of the "treatment population" outlined by CSC are
incredibly diverse and therefore the focus must be individualized.
In addition, CSC has mixed issues of mental health and violence
in a manner that could promote and|or perpetuate the pathologizing
of some women.