Institutional Abuse Issues

The emerging picture of the extent of institutional abuse of young people is grotesque (Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs; CAEFS). Young people who have already been labelled as behaviour or management problems are especially vulnerable to abuse at the hands of institutional staff. It is extremely important that victims of abuse can take action and be heard and responded to in supportive ways. Audits and investigations into abuse allegations in residential schools, group homes, orphanages, and custodial centres provide horrendous examples of how and why youth are inadequately protected from abusive conduct. Institutional mechanisms for dealing with internal and external abuse are overwhelmingly inadequate. Reports generally place specific emphasis on the particular needs of young women, who have often been victims of abuse prior to their institutionalization.

It is frightening that children placed under the control of the Canadian government are experiencing physical, sexual, verbal, and emotional abuse. We know that such abuse can have an irreparable and debilitating impact on the lives and psyches of our youth. The fact that abuse is perpetrated by the very systems established to assist them only underscores the reasonableness of youth rejection of the values and authority that do harm to them.

Women are increasingly being charged in circumstances where they have called the police in relation to assault and/or threats directed at them by abusive men, especially if they have managed to defend themselves or otherwise reacted to the violence perpetrated against them. This is especially true for Aboriginal and other racialized women. The increasing numbers of younger women in the provincial and federal prison systems in Canada are also of particular concern to CAEFS. Unless we resist the calls for more punitive and regressive scapegoating of youth, and instead embark upon a public education campaign to inform the public about the excessive penalizing and incarceration of youth, we are not likely to see much change in the current slide away from justice for young people.

First Nations and Aboriginal youth are disproportionately jailed. For eight of the nine most common offences tracked in Canada, youth serve longer prison sentences than do adults. In addition, we jail youth at four times the rate we jail adults, and many times the rate in most states in the U.S. and European countries.

To make matters worse, young women usually end up being jailed in mixed youth centres. This results in many incidents of sexual harassment and rape, most of which go unreported. When we conducted research on young women in custody we found two rather shocking results. First, we discovered that many young women do not define what they experience as sexual harassment or rape. Instead, they talk about it as being flirting or fooling around, or their "turn in the closet." Secondly, for those who do identify what they experience as sexual harassment or rape, most claim that they would not report such assaults (CAEFS).

Too many young women explained their reluctance to report sexual and non-sexual assaults as a consequence of their fear that there would be repercussions, such as being held in more isolated conditions. This fear has been reinforced by experience. Not only are young women and girls often all mixed together, whether they are remanded in custody, or serving a disposition of open or secure custody, they are often isolated and have more limited access to services and programs than their male counterparts (CAEFS).

When a young woman reports a rape or has suddenly ended up impregnated while in custody, the institutional response is rarely to address the issues. Instead, what generally happens is that the young women are subjected to more restrictive and isolated conditions of confinement. This reinforces the adage that women, especially racialized young women, are too few to count. This reality has important implications for women in prison generally.