…….through sanctioned abuse, and political malpractice

Okay, so we know it’s the inmates who pay for their phone service…that’s according to the government itself. On top of that, the government gets a kickback from what inmates spend on their phone service.

Now we move to October of 2013. Stephen Harper is still the prime minister. He and his government initiate a move by Correctional Service of Canada to CUT inmates pay by 30%. One source noted CSC’s enthusiasm for the policy. The new directive also took away the pay incentive for CORCAN jobs, what CSC calls its ‘training centre.’ CORCAN is a business run by the prison system using inmate labour to produce products and services which are primarily for prisons and the military. It offers inmates both work and work ethics experience, but there are very few positions available relative to the size of the prison population.

The agency claimed these cuts were to pay for room and board and the inmate phone system. The government added that this would make inmates more accountable and save the system about $4 million on its $2.6 billion annual budget. The government should also have noted that this was the basest kind of b.s. But then, perhaps the obvious didn’t need to be labelled.

So, what challenges inmates faced as things were now entered the realm of farce. An environment already rife with a vibrant underground economy, and ever-evolving inventive contraband pipelines, only spurred a stimulus that CSC cannot fully contain for a problem of its own making.

A group of inmates took the government to court in the fall of 2014 to contest pay policy. Jarrod Shook was one of the lead plaintiffs, and a Google search using his name will bring up a wealth of insight into this and other prison practices. He’s worth a read. In any case, the inmates lost, the court ruling they hadn’t proved the harm in the changes, and that it wasn’t up to the court to rule on the ‘wisdom’ of government decisions.

With the change in government, and Justin Trudeau’s mandate letter to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould calling for a review of the criminal justice system, it was hoped an intelligent assessment of prison conditions would yield enlightened and progressive legislation.

More on the way……..