Soon after the Report of the 1990 Task Force, conditions at Prison for Women became increasingly oppressive for maximum security women, who were confined to a single range within the prison for long periods of time. In 1994, an incident occurred at Prison for Women, which sparked a Royal Commission, which inquired into the strip-searching of women prisoners by men, the illegal transfer of women to the Regional Treatment Centre in the Kingston Penitentiary, a maximum security men’s prison, and several months of segregation at Prison for Women in illegal and dehumanizing conditions.

The Report of the Arbour Commission found at all levels of the Correctional Service of Canada, generally, a pervasive culture of disrespect for the rule of law, and more particularly that the needs of federally sentenced women were not being met by current correctional policies and practices. Within a year of the release of the Arbour Commission report, women classified as maximum security prisoners were transferred to men’s prisons, where a number remain confined without any meaningful work, with little or no programs and with severe restrictions on their liberty.

Those who do not remain in men’s prisons are now imprisoned in segregated maximum security “pods” and units in the regional women’s prisons: namely, Nova Institution in Truro, Nova Scotia and in Edmonton Institution for Women in Edmonton, Alberta. Maximum security units are also due to open this year in the Etablissement Joliette and the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener-Waterloo. The plans for the new women’s prison that will open in British Columbia in the next year or so include that it is also slated to have a segregated maximum security unit.

D. Statistical Overview

Women represent only 3.8% of the federal prison population, which includes 370 women who are imprisoned and 500 who are on conditional release in the community.

CSC. “Regional Women’s Facilities Operational Plan,” 2002.

The context in which federally sentenced women commit offences resulting in death is important in understanding the risk they pose to society. In many cases, the offences were defensive in the sense that they were a reaction against abusive partners.

In addition, the context of those offenses involving violence must be highlighted. Shaw’s research found that almost all of the victims who were killed by federally sentenced women were known to the women; in 38% of the cases, the victim was a husband, common law partner or a relative, and in 49% of the cases, the victims were close friends or acquaintances. Killing often occurred in the context of long histories of abuse by partners, or itself-defense during arguments or fights. Only 5% (4 victims) were strangers. In contrast, men are less likely to kill immediate family or friends, but twice as likely to kill someone during the commission of another criminal act.

Arbour. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at Prison for Women, 1996, p. 2301.

Submission of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) to the Canadian Human Rights Commission for the Special Report on the Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Race and Disability Faced by Federally Sentenced Women