At RPC, prisoners who act out may be placed in seclusion cells in the isolation or segregation area of the women’s unit. CSC argues that the segregation provisions of the CCRA and the Regulations are not invoked at RPC because seclusion is used for “treatment” rather than “security” reasons. This reality notwithstanding, a prisoner may be required to stay in segregated seclusion indefinitely, at the discretion of the treatment team, with no formal process for review. Prisoner may and consequently do end up being left in seclusion for an indefinite period of time. This is one of the clearest examples of the manner in which prisoner/patients are disadvantaged when their statutory entitlements are withdrawn by reason of their mental disability.

The procedural protections for segregated prisoners are among the most important in the CCRA. In her Report of the Commission of Inquiry Into Certain Events at Prison for Women in Kingston, Madam Justice Arbour emphasized the harshness of segregation. Justice Arbour also proposed models of external scrutiny to monitor CSC and ensure compliance with their legislative obligations and procedural requirements. Regardless of the reason for the imposition of seclusion/segregation, the legal rationale for procedural protections under the CCRA is the same; namely, to protect against the use of an extremely restrictive form of confinement in an arbitrary and oppressive manner.

e) Voluntariness

CSC continues to perpetrate the myth that all women prisoners who are transferred to RPC must be voluntary patients. In addition to the documentation of several involuntary transfers of women to the segregated [Churchill] unit at RPC, even those women who are ostensibly there as a result of some degree of their own volition face the constant presence of uniformed correctional officers in the unit. There can be no doubt that the participation of correctional officers and nurse/guards on “treatment” teams raises real questions about the voluntary nature of prisoner compliance with treatment. Indeed, this issue underscores the element of coercion which is ever present in a prison setting.

Coercion is absolutely incompatible with voluntariness, especially in the context of a prison regime, which is by definition coercive. Women at RPC and the SLEs alike, are usually advised that if they do not consent to remain and/or participate in treatment, they will be considered more difficult to manage and therefore not suitable for the general population. If they are not already labeled as maximum security prisoners, they will likely be reclassified. They will be described as having elevated their security risk by virtue of their refusal to recognize their “need” for treatment to address their criminogenic “risk factors”.

In the end, this will mean that women who do not consent to such treatment regimes will likely see their security classification level elevated to the maximum security designation, so they will be transferred to the closest segregated maximum security unit. Within the maximum security units, women are usually further segregated within those units by reason of mental health disability. This means that they may end up being confined in cells for 24 hours a day, with no personal property of any kind and released only for showers and exercise, for one hour daily, usually in shackles.

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