DAWN CANADA: DisAbled Women's Network Canada Réseau d'Action des Femmes Handicapées du Canada 200
Bay Street Suite 301, Ottawa, ON, K1R 7W8 NEWS RELEASE Date: May 14, 2003 FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION Prisons are a Failed Experiment OTTAWA - DAWN Canada: DisAbled Women's Network Canada is submitting a critical report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) alleging that the Canadian government has breached its fiduciary duties to federally sentenced women (FSW) in Canada and has disregarded the Canadian Charter of 'Rights and Freedoms and certain international human rights obligations. "Federally sentenced women (FSW) with mental and developmental disabilities are being blatantly discriminated against under Section 17 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Regulation (CCRA) which equates "mental disability" with a security risk, says Yvonne Peters, a human rights lawyer from Manitoba who authored the report. "Corrections legislation perpetuates negative stereotypes and assumptions which characterize mental disability as dangerous. The decision to assign a security level is made by treatment teams, which include correctional officers, who are not mental health professionals." The risk/needs assessment tools create an adverse impact on federally sentenced women with mental disabilities in that they translate individual needs resulting from a disability into a potential management problem. Because of these higher security classifications based on disability, women who are suicidal or have mental or cognitive disabilities, are often isolated, deprived of clothing, and placed in stripped/barren cells. |
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