CAEFS' Response to the Canadian Human Rights Commission's Consultation Paper for the Special Report On the Situation of Federally Sentenced Women

First of all, we want to thank the Canadian Human Rights Commission for this initial discussion document. It has provided significant material and impetus to prompt discussion on the human rights complaint. The paper does however cause several significant concerns.

It is vitally important that the Canadian Human Rights Commission understand that the information CAEFS has gleaned with respect to the discrimination faced by federally sentenced women, comes to CAEFS after a long history of working with and on behalf of women prisoners who face the discrimination on the basis of sex, race and disability. Primarily, we are concerned that the systemic nature of the discrimination faced by women prisoners is not well articulated in or by the paper. The fact that seven issues are being examined by a human rights perspective underscores and exemplifies this problem of not conducting the review in a manner that identifies and analyzes the intersection and inter-connection of the different grounds of discrimination in a manner that identifies the clear systemic roots and nature of the human rights violations experienced by federally sentenced women at the hands of the Government of Canada.

The complaint launched by CAEFS and other national equality seeking groups, focused upon the systemic discrimination experienced by federally sentenced women. The named party responsible for the discrimination was the Government of Canada, and not merely the Correctional Service of Canada. The facts associated with the sheer numbers of women serving federal sentences, their demographics, particularly those with respect to race and disability; present a prima facie case of discrimination. Accordingly, it is the contention of CAEFS and other organizations that the onus falls on the Government of Canada, including the Correctional Service of Canada, to establish how they will address the discriminatory patterns evidenced by their own data and research.

More particularly, we have comments regarding the nature of the issues raised, and these follow below. On page 5 of the discussion paper, some statistics with respect to the representation of federally sentenced women by race are included. While this is a very useful breakdown, it would be even more useful if the breakdown provided specifics with respect to the number of Aboriginal, Caucasian, Black, Asian, et cetera women by security classification. This information will likely only underscore the over-representation and discriminatory application and effect of classification processes et cetera in women's prisons. Regarding the questions raised with respect to assessment of women prisoners, our comments follow.