The CSC Human Rights Working Group stated that the instruments:
…outline provisions that are crucial to maintaining prisoner’s inherent
dignity as human beings, and to ensuring that they retain all rights and
freedoms except those that are necessarily restricted by incarceration.102
In spite of this acknowledgment, CSC has violated both of these instruments in
its treatment of FSW. In particular, section 2 of the Basic Principles:
There shall be no discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status.
The administrative practices of CSC perpetuate discrimination against FSW on
the basis of sex, race, mental or cognitive disability and social history (etc.); the
discriminatory results of CSC’s maximum security classification based upon their
means of risk assessment is a particularly powerful example of CSC’s
discrimination against FSW.
CSC has not applied
the principles enshrined in the Body of Principles to FSW.
For example, CSC’s maximum security risk assessment contravenes the
following principles:
Principle 1: All persons under any form of detention or imprisonment shall
be treated in a humane manner and with respect for the inherent dignity of
the human person (emphasis added).
Principle 3: There shall be no restriction upon or derogation from any of
the human rights of persons under any form of detention or imprisonment
recognized or existing in any State pursuant to law, conventions,
regulations or custom on the pretext that this Body of Principles does not
recognize such rights or that it recognizes them to a lesser extent
(emphasis added).
CSC’s lack of adequate, gender-specific and culturally appropriate programming
is in violation of principle 28 of the Body of Principles:
Principle 28: A detained or imprisoned person shall have the right to
obtain within the limits of available resources, if from public sources,
reasonable quantities of educational, cultural and informational material, subject to reasonable conditions to ensure security and good order in the
place of detention or imprisonment.
102. |
CSC, supra, note 55. |
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