…….WHEN THE PRISON INDUSTRY SAYS NO.

“Canada does have promising programs in its federal prisons, and Walls to Bridges is a great example,” noted the March 28 entry.  Yet, its availability is extremely limited and restricted to few inmates, and as the Correctional Investigator points out: “The Walls to Bridges program is funded entirely by the university/college offering the course and only requires CSC to provide classroom space and screen community students coming into the institution.”

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Two points:  Prison programming with few exceptions is suspended during COVID which leaves men and women with too much time on their hands during the best of times as it is with even less to do.  As well, this will report on the latest viewpoints and findings of Dr. Ivan Zinger and his Office of the Correctional Investigator.

But first, referencing the Correctional Service of Canada website, we read:  “CORCAN is a key rehabilitation program of the Correctional Service of Canada.  It contributes to safe communities by providing offenders with employment and employability skills training while incarcerated in federal penitentiaries, and for brief periods of time, after they are released in the community.”

Now, turning to the latest available correctional investigator annual report:  “…many prison shops visited for this investigation require offenders to work on obsolete machines no longer used in the community.  Few CORCAN-run industries provide training or teach skills that are job relevant or meet labour market demands.  The Service has continued to maintain obsolete infrastructure and technological platforms for such an extended period of time that these problems now appear insoluble.  Federal corrections maintain environments that are information-depriving, often using security concerns as a basis for maintaining the status quo.  There appears to be little motivation to improve, evidenced by the lack of progress over the last two decades.”

Further:  “It is equally difficult to obtain a job-ready or marketable vocational skills, even for those working in COCAN.  While we saw some CORCAN shops that were indeed providing workers with relevant, sought-after skills, it was also evident that too many workers were toiling day after day gaining very few skills that would assist them in obtaining a job.”  Some CSC staffers discussed how every CORCAN job taught dependability, working with others, problem-solving and conflict resolution, “many also confided that prison industries effectively fill an individual’s time rather than provide a useable skillset.”

The elimination of incentive pay by a previous federal government (changes that also reduced inmate pay from a base that hasn’t changed since about 1980) “made it difficult to recruit workers in CORCAN industries.  Few wanted to work all day in CORCAN jobs that were physically demanding, provided limited skills and were paid the same amount that a range cleaner makes, a position that requires far less investment in time or motivation.”

“Research and experience tell us that prison education and vocational training offer an important opportunity to intervene in the lives of individuals and a chance to provide them with the skills and knowledge required to succeed in today’s economy.  The reality is that the vast majority of individuals who are incarcerated will eventually be released back into the community; therefore, it is in the best interest of not only those who are incarcerated, but to all Canadians, that they be offered the basic tools in order to eventually contribute to the Canadian workforce and economy in law-abiding ways.”

The Correctional Investigator’s latest annual report cited ten of the recommendations it’s made for learning and vocational training behind bars to Correctional Service of Canada over the last ten years.  They range from computer and internet access to teaching computer skills, to meaningful work opportunities, to modernizing CORCAN, to action plans on relevant jobs, to studies on inmate work, to how to meet the needs of vulnerable populations.

What’s been going on at Correctional Service of Canada all these years?  A studied observation next time.

…..WHEN THE PRISON INDUSTRY SAYS NO?

Part I

The half dozen or so blocks of Bay Street south of Old City Hall in Toronto are the heart of the city’s financial district.  This is Toronto’s Wall Street.  Generally, the people who occupy the offices and walk the streets in the area are fiscal conservatives and socially ambivalent.  It is the route our heroes, champions, and special guests once were paraded through ticker tape streamers in the days of older technology and open windows up to a welcome at the grand building at the top of the route, the seat of municipal government years ago.

The canyon of office towers on Bay and its intersecting streets attracts many of Toronto’s homeless.  Heating grates on the sidewalks and the nooks and narrow spaces between buildings offer shelter and warmth, making such districts a common destination for the poorest in every large city.  The contrast between the neediest among us and the barons and their trains who manage much of the country’s wealth is stark and unwelcome.  The unfortunates tend to be shunned, seen as a nuisance.

A few years ago, one of the street’s financiers submitted a short opinion piece to a Toronto daily newspaper.  In it, he wrote about leaving his office for a short walk up Bay Street to lunch at his club.  On the way, he had to step over the body of a man laying over one of those hot air grates.  Normally, that would provoke a protest, an intrusion into his ordered world, but this time he took a different perspective.  This man lying on the sidewalk he thought, and all those men and women like him, were in truth lost consumers of society’s common life, people who could be lifted up, given the resources to regain dignity and purpose and to contribute to a higher good.  Not all would succeed but deserved care and support, nonetheless.

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What about our hidden population of men and women locked away in our prisons and jails?  Most of us assume that because the words “correction” and “correctional” are incorporated into the names of the provincial and federal agencies who manage offenders, that a correcting service is what these men and women are provided.  Inmates need only to take up the baton and run with it to a better future.  Right?

To be sure, the organizations that operate these institutions lay claim to the life-changing principles that underwrite rehabilitation.  The federal Correctional Service of Canada is representative of all in this field when its Mission Statement states that it “contributes to public safety by actively encouraging and assisting offenders to become law-abiding citizens, while exercising reasonable, safe, secure and humane control.”

Sounds good?  This is what we expect, don’t we?  Referring once again to the Senate of Canada’s 2019 report, “the security features inherent to federal correctional facilities are designed to keep people in as much as they are to keep people out.” Same for provincial institutions.  Further, “the management of the federally-sentenced population is largely conducted away from public scrutiny.”  Same for provincial.  So, not only are these men and women out of sight, out of mind, but how much attention do we pay to what services and programing is really available, or how widely available those services are?

Lee Chapelle spent just over 20 years in prison.  He’s been the president of Prison Consulting Services Canada for some years now, which offers a wide variety of comprehensive informational, reform and advocacy-based services.  Lee estimates that about 80% of incarcerated men and women can turn themselves around if the necessary supports are in place.

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“How can prisoners be rehabilitated without proper access to education?”  That headlined an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail from the end of December in 2019, authored by Lisa Kerr, an assistant law professor at Queen’s University, and Paul Quick, a staff lawyer at the Queen’s Prison Law Clinic.  It begins:  “Few will be surprised to learn that our prisons house our most poorly educated citizens.  What is less known is that incarcerated people in Canada are effectively not allowed to obtain the education that might help them get and hold a job after their release”

Correctional Service of Canada is required to provide education up to Grade 12 to everyone who needs it.  But, policies effectively bar prisoners from using their own money to go any further than high school.  We’re told that CSC has a policy expecting prison staff to help inmates access postsecondary courses, but then there’s a total ban on access to the internet.  In today’s world, how many educational institutions still offer paper correspondence courses?  As the Office of the Correctional Investigator said a vey few years ago, “It’s hard to understand how an environment deprived of computers and internet, and thereby deprived of information, can be rehabilitative.”

Canada does have promising programs in its federal prisons, and Walls to Bridges is a great example.  For-credit courses are taught by university professors in classes that are equally composed of students from the university and the prison.  There’s an emphasis on equality among teachers, students and prisoners to advocate for inclusivity.  But, there are few institutions offering this program and space is strictly limited.

The United States and some European countries are way ahead of Canada, and what we do here may even be unconstitutional, a cause waiting for a Charter-based challenge.  Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger’s latest report tells us:  “In Canada, those behind federal prison walls have long been deprived of most technological advancements in learning.  The current state of inmate access to information and technology is backward and obsolete.  Offenders have limited access to outdated and stand-alone computers that still use floppy disks.  CSC runs Local-area Networks, which are equipped with software from the early 2000s, have no access to the internet, contain limited reference materials and have almost no technical capacity to support or facilitate eLearning of any kind.”

Bad enough?  It doesn’t get better……more on its way.

 

“WE DON’T BELIEVE THAT CORRECTIONAL SERVICE CANADA WILL CHANGE ITS BEHAVIOUR UNLESS IT’S COMPELLED.”

So said Vancouver-based civil-rights lawyer Jason Gratl, who filed a proposed class-action against the government in Federal Court on Monday, January 11, claiming systemic bias in Correctional Service of Canada’s security classifications. 

The lawsuit argues that living assignments, access to programs, parole opportunities are negatively impacting thousands of inmates through prejudiced and outdated risk tools.  The Senate of Canada’s study of prison inmates’ human rights also noted the Custody Rating Scale, CSC’s first key assessment of inmates, was designed in the late 80s, where the sample of individuals to develop the ratings was predominantly composed of white males.

According to the Globe and Mail in early January of this year, watchdogs and academics pressed concerns long ago about this most important risk tool’s fairness towards women.  The prison agency is overseen by Public Safety Canada, and it investigated the charges, issuing a report in September of 2004.  The Globe noted the report “found serious flaws” with the rating scale and “recommended the agency (CSC) design a new one.  Sixteen years on, the tool remains unchanged.”

Globe and Mail investigations show prison assessment mechanisms are not only biased against Indigenous women and women in general but for Indigenous and Black men they have “far-reaching consequences for an inmate’s experience in prison.”  To quote further from the paper, “Black men were about 24 per cent more likely than white men to receive the worst possible security scores at admission.  Indigenous men, meanwhile, were roughly 30 per cent more likely than white men to receive the worst reintegration potential score at any point during their sentence.”

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So, what is this ‘rating system’ about?  Brevity when detailing bureaucratic procedures is challenging, and more likely than not they are intended to be enigmatic, but an attempt here is in order.

A person ordered into a federal prison will have a preliminary assessment interview with a Correctional Service of Canada parole officer.  The result sticks with the inmate for the duration, will inform all further assessments and every decision, from where a sentence is served, access to programming, future meetings with staff, the use of restricted confinement, visiting privileges, odds of parole…every aspect of prison life.

The Custody Rating Scale, the first key assessment, measures what kind of security risk an inmate poses inside a prison.  It’s a 12 multiple-choice question evaluation focused on an offender’s history, it’s filled out by a parole officer, and the ‘score’ sets an inmate’s security level at minimum, medium or maximum.  Scores can be overridden if an officer believes it’s too high or too low.  Since treatment, programs, privileges, and jobs vary with institutions and with security levels, an inmate’s security ranking is their single most important score.  Levels can change with time, but the initial assessment is decisive.

A second key assessment is the Reintegration Potential Score, important near the end of a sentence, is used by the Parole Board of Canada to estimate an inmate’s preparedness for parole and what risks to public safety release presents.  Outcomes are based partially on two math-based actuarial risk assessments, such as the Custody Rating Scale for one, but two other assessments rely on the judgement of officers administering the tests which allows potential biases to interfere with impartiality.

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Much of this is impersonal and methodical, perhaps justified in a decision-making process.  But, between that preliminary assessment at the beginning of a sentence and an evaluation for a potentially successful reintegration near the end should come a plethora of multi-faceted opportunities for inmates to work towards a life most have never known.  That is fodder aplenty for upcoming postings.

In the meantime, the House of Commons public safety committee recently committed to a study into bias in prison risk assessments.  All the while, Correctional Service of Canada spokespersons say the agency “regularly conducts research to ensure they’re (risk assessment tools) still reliable.”  How is that possible?

“We want to see the system change,” lawyer Jason Gratl told the Globe and Mail during his January interview.  Mr. Gratl has been focused on that for some time, and will no doubt live with Jobian patience.

How ‘bout housing?  How ‘bout education and jobs?  How ‘bout…..more to come.

The Senate of Canada’s Standing Committee on Human Rights in its interim report released in February of 2019 on the state of human rights of inmates in our federal prisons addressed racism in the system as part of its investigation.
“The committee wishes to draw attention to the fact that it has heard personal storis of racism and discrimination from almost every Black individual with whom it has had contact during its fact-finding visits.  This includes persons serving sentences and those administrating them.  Discrimination was often based on multiple, intersecting identity factors like gender, race, language and ethnic origin.  These experiences transcend the correctional environment and condition the way Black people in Canada experience the world.  As one witness stated, ‘one aspect of anti-Black racism in the prison system is that it is not only applied to prisoners but also to Black communities, families and advocates.’  Another told the committee that they would need to live a year in her skin to fully understand her testimony.”

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Public Safety Minister Bill Blair told the House of Commons standing committee on public safety on Monday, November 2 last year that Indigenous and racialized people experienced “really bad results” in the federal criminal justice system.  “We know that Black Canadians and Indigenous peoples are overrepresented in the Canadian justice system and we are prepared to make significant actions, both in investment and legislation, in order to change that,” he added.  Minister Blair agreed with committee members that “timelines clearly defined” were necessary to address racism, some would argue systemic racism, within Correctional Service of Canada.

There isn’t a Black or Indigenous inmate in our federal prison industry who has not experienced racist treatment.  Now, we also have prison staff who allege systemic racism in the agency, too.

“They’re all talk.  Our input, our opinions, our feedback – it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a difference.  They just slough us off.  This kind of treatment – racism – shouldn’t go on.”  This is Jennifer Constant, one of two CSC correctional officers who are representative plaintiffs in a proposed class-action lawsuit against Correctional Service of Canada filed in Federal court on January 11.  The statement of claim says that, “CSC management and staff treat racialized staff as though they are inmates.  It is an ‘us versus them’ mentality, and racialized CSC staff members are on the outside.”  The suit can proceed once its proposed class – all racialized people who worked for or with CSC – is certified by a judge.

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Hold on.  We’re talking here about federal public servants supposedly working on our behalf and in our best interests who are financed from basement to roof, from underwear to tunic, from tire to steering wheel, from first day of training to graduation, and for each hour of a shift, by diverse communities of taxpayers that include racialized minorities who are factually paying government employees to discriminate against them!  Are we still in Canada?

Racism is learned.  Racism is taught.  As hard pressed as we would be to point to a country where racism is not a part of the landscape, perhaps we should credit “the former guy” in Washington’s White House who endorsed racist and white supremacist factions with exposing the depth of it in the United States, and in Canada.

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” 

We out here in the community have the freedom of movement and access to the seats of power to petition for action against this pestilence, unlike the men and women in prisons.  To finish with an excerpt from that senate report, one we’ve printed previously at least twice. “The security features inherent to federal correctional facilities are designed to keep people in as much as they are to keep people out.  As a result, the management of the federally-sentenced population is largely conducted away from public scrutiny.  Invisible to the general population, federally-sentenced persons are often forgotten.”

What Bill Blair told the House committee is old news.  Will anything change this time?

The inmate rating system discriminates, and another lawsuit, next…….

 

 

 

Port Cartier Institution is a maximum-security prison with a small inmate population located outside the town of Port Cartier in far eastern Quebec on the north shore of the St. Lawrence.  Opened in 1988, it was built to boost employment opportunities in an area represented in parliament at the time by Brian Mulroney.  He was the member for the electoral district of Manicouagan and the Prime Minister.

The prison is a remote 600 kilometres from Quebec City and roughly a 14-hour drive from Montreal.  This increases operating costs.  Staffers travelling to Montreal or Ottawa must drive 60 kilometres further east to Sept-Iles and fly from there.  And, to meet Correctional Service of Canada’s mandate to encourage inmate contact with the community, visitors can be reimbursed for some travel costs.  It’s a long way from home.

Several years ago, a contact in the institution was placed in segregation for a time.  An elderly inmate was in the next cell, old and feeble and out of his mind.  He muttered through the day, had nothing but bedding and a few clothes, and spent at least some of his time painting the walls with his own feces.  Once a day, two guards would take him to the shower while his cell was hosed down.  This man lived in segregation with only himself for company, and he wasn’t there serving an institutional sentence.  He was intentionally hidden away, and by now has more than likely died, his only relief.  Why was he still in prison?

This is an evident example of cruel and unusual punishment, and it didn’t have to be.  Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger has pointed out that “prisons were never meant to house sick, palliative or terminally ill patients.”  Just so, the legislation and policies which direct Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board allows for compassionate release of sick inmates to hospices, nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

The release authorization process is slow and cumbersome to the point that sick inmates often die before their request is considered.  CSC recently developed its own MAID policy to accommodate inmates who don’t want to suffer through an often futile wait for a decision, but even that is a process.  There’s no question a sick inmate does not want to die in a prison environment, but notices are posted on the CSC website almost weekly announcing deaths from “natural causes.”

In this age of COVID, we frequently hear of sick patients dying in hospital alone, with only nurses and doctors for comfort.  A tragic death we’re told, and so it is.  Death in a prison infirmary is singularly solitary. No one cares.

Should we?  A moral tale may illustrate the conundrum.

A man has a dog, a faithful friend, a part of the family for years, a friend who walks with him every day in the ravine down the road.  There comes a time when the walk in the woods turns deadly.  His dog runs on ahead, an old habit, and encounters a predator….a coyote.  The man runs towards the sound of howls, growls, and barks, picking up a broken tree limb as he goes.  He reaches the fighting animals as the coyote tears at his dog’s throat.  He beats viciously on it  until it rolls away, bleeding, whining, gasping on the ground.  His dog is dead.  The man picks up his old friend to carry him away and pauses to look down at the coyote.  The animal is laying on its side, quivering, breathing heavily, mortally injured.  What does the man do?

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The state of health care in the prison industry is dismal despite the tens of millions of dollars spent by provincial and federal carceral agencies.  The need for services by the imprisoned is substantially higher than in the general population and explains in part the disparity between what is done and what is left undone.  The challenge in finding health-care staff who give a damn about outcomes is another piece to the answer.

From a lawyer in Quebec who specializes in post-conviction law we learn that “almost all federal prisoners are dealing with at least one serious medical problem and a quarter of the population are(sic) aggravated by health services which range from slow to spotty to forget-about-it.”  Over 40% of men and women sitting in provincial jails awaiting trial have mental/emotional health issues.  Our jails and prisons have become our largest provider of mental health services, and warehouses for the mentally ill.  And yet, most are left untreated in any meaningful way in spite of what CSC wants to tell us about the role of psychologists in the federal system.

Whether a decayed tooth, a broken bone, a diseased body or mind, the call for care tests the capacity to respond.  Imagine for instance the anxiety of a provincial prisoner who is transferred to the federal system where their prescribed medication is cut off until the federal health-care unit does a reassessment and may change or not renew an established regimen.  Imagine having to wait weeks with a toothache.  Imagine knowing you must live with bi-polar disorder because the treatment you need is not forthcoming.  Imagine men and women punished rather than treated because illness causes them to act out.

Institutional healthcare has been and will continue to be dissected here and elsewhere.  Changes?  Improvements?  Incrementally, yes, maybe.

There’s a long way yet to go.  For now, we move on.

….WAITING FOR JUSTICE.

 Soleiman’s family and his supporters’ anger only grows as court documents suggest jail guards violated policies and ignored guidelines when they killed him on December 15 in 2016.  The province fired two managers as scapegoats, but its culpability is detailed by its refusal to hold jail staff members involved in this crime accountable, allowing a questionable OPP investigation to prevail.

Ottawa lawyer Michael Spratt’s essay, “The dangers of turning a blind eye to abuse in jails,” was published on the editorial page of the Wednesday, January 20 Toronto Star.  Referring to Soleiman Faqiri’s death, Mr. Spratt writes “…despite the compelling evidence suggesting the killing was a criminal offence, the OPP declined to charge any of the guards because they could not say for sure who delivered the fatal blow.  The OPP’s absurd justification for the lack of charges is a legal fiction that smells of a coverup.”

Mr. Spratt believes police should be charging the guards involved in the killing as well as investigating politicians who often intentionally ignore the violence in the jails they supervise.  He tells us that we should not be surprised by the atrocities that occur in jails when politicians go so far as to dismiss “judicial condemnation” for the conditions they allow to persist.

The closing argument demands that “Those who commit murder, even if they are jail guards, should be held to account.  And so should the politicians who enable them.”

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We thanked him for his perspective, adding in our letter that “Those guards wanted Faqiri in that cell where he died.  Once inside, all they had to do was close the door.  Why didn’t they just do that and leave him alone?  It’s the kind of scene that plays out in provincial and federal institutions across Canada daily.  The inmate had given guards a hard time and they wanted to teach him a lesson.  They may not have intended to kill him, but they sure as hell didn’t care if he died.”

The minister needed to be reminded of the obvious:-

January 25, 2021

The Honourable Sylvia Jones, Solicitor General,
George Drew Building,
Toronto

Re:     Soleiman Faqiri

Minister Jones:

A group of men is brawling one afternoon in the courtyard of the YMCA across Grosvenor Street from your office.  It’s noisy.  The storm of flailing arms and legs, shouts, screams, and shuffling feet is incessant, and it appears focused on just one person, a victim of the melee.

The police arrive, the dust settles.  A man lies dead on the concrete plaza.  Notes and photos are taken, men are interviewed.  No one is arrested.  An investigation follows.  No charges are laid.  Why?  The police cannot determine which of that group of men may be responsible for the homicide.

Fiction?

Yes, unless those men were employed by Ontario’s correctional services, in uniform and working in our jails.  Like the men who murdered Soleiman Faqiri in Lindsay back in December of 2016 and still walk free.  And what about ministry personnel like you who enable the daily atrocities and abuses that characterize life in provincial institutions by turning a blind eye to violence and a deaf ear to judicial reprimands?  Impunity extends to you too, doesn’t it.

Are you able to feel shame?

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Soleiman’s family is in the midst of a $14.3 lawsuit against Ontario and the individuals responsible for his death.  That however is the sound of only one shoe dropping.  How about criminal charges where criminal charges are due as a next step!

Prisons as long term care facilities….and more….next time.

WHY SO MUCH ATTENTION TO PRISON GUARDS?  A note from an inmate in Alberta included an afterthought unrelated to his purpose in writing but it illustrates one reason for the notice correction officers are due.
This man was wakened early one morning by guards to search both him and his cell.  He was not moving fast enough to please one guard who called him “a piece of shit.”  He objected at length, and as a result, was written up for a minor charge.  No contraband was found in the search.
The charge was dismissed by an internal review but the deputy warden, with whom he had never met, let him know that his behaviour would not be tolerated, and his visiting privileges were in peril.  The guard’s behaviour was never an issue.  The inmate was free to file a grievance, a process that is universally understood to be nothing more than a sop.
This is typical for every day in our provincial and federal institutions.
THAT’S REASON ENOUGH!

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In a call shortly after 7pm on Saturday, September 7 in 2019, an inmate in Millhaven Institution phoned from the prison gym where guards had moved the men on his range while they conducted an unauthorized search of the institution.  There had been violent incidents on one range during the last week of August and guards had recommended a search of the institution.  The warden did not agree and would not consent to a search.  The guards waited for the weekend when management would not be in their offices and went ahead anyway.

The inmates could have countered the guards’ action.  If, for instance, the men on his range refused to allow the search and the guards persisted, extraction teams would be called, equipment and chemical agents would be issued, thereby creating a written record requiring a justification for the search.  The inmate on the call complained that his fellow prisoners didn’t have enough “jam” to confront guards who were violating policy.  In plain English, they did not have the balls.  And, as he said, this is the kind of thing that will go on for as long as people stand by and do nothing.  For him, that meant it would go on forever.

So, what happens if/when the warden learns that a search was conducted despite her decision?  Anywhere from not much to nothing.  Management does not want a conflict with the guards’ union.

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It was late on an early June afternoon last summer.  During a call from an inmate in a maximum-security institution in eastern Canada a commotion erupted on the range.  A loud but unintelligible male voice was shouting a command, repeated more than once, and was then followed by the sound of a short scuffle.  The inmate on the phone called out to someone, castigating them for the use of pepper spray.  I asked for an explanation.

An inmate had been a ‘nuisance’ earlier in the day, uncooperative and in a foul mood.  As I was on the phone, he was let out of his cell for a shower, called for a guard to turn on the water, was ignored, and ignored more than once.  Using some initiative, he pulled a plastic bag over his head which brought guards running onto the range, ordering him to remove it.  He refused.  Pepper spray was discharged.  He would be particularly vulnerable to the effects of pepper spray under the circumstances, and even though he put himself into that position, caution was in order.  That’s the objection the inmate on my phone was making.

Once the bag was off, policy dictates an inmate who has been sprayed must be decontaminated ….in the shower.  For better or worse, and one way or another, this man was getting his shower.

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Some would say the inmates above and below were authors of their own misfortune, but that is no justification for guards to behave less than to expected standards.

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An inmate in a western province was transferred to a maximum-security institution, likely earning the move to a more restrictive environment.  He had prescription glasses which were a necessity for any reading, writing, or close work.  When his property arrived, he opened the protective case to find the glasses had been crushed and broken.  That could only have occurred when guards at the previous institution packed his property.

This inmate was told he could not replace his glasses, at least not without intervention from God.  He had contact lenses which would have been a partial solution, but he needed moisturizing solution.  He was told that was no longer available from the institution.  He was not given any options, and water was neither a satisfactory nor a sanitary substitute.  He needed lenses to function.

What this man needs most is a lawyer.

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Treading into a provincial jurisdiction, namely Newfoundland and Labrador, offers two recent examples of perfidy by their penal system staff.

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The CBC ran a story on December 8 of last year under Bruce Tilley’s byline which began, “A former Bishop’s Falls inmate claims one corrections officer performed dental surgery on him while another recorded it, and he’s suing them, three dentists, and the provincial government.”

It seems that Ron McDonald and Roy Goodyear, two guards at the local correctional centre, took inmate Blair Harris to the Gander Family Dental Clinic for surgery on October 16 last fall and dentist Dr. Louis Bourget permitted McDonald “to do a procedure” while Harris was sedated, and Goodyear videotaped it and then distributed the recording.

Harris was unconscious and none the wiser, but on November 19 he was told by a provincial superintendent of prisons that he had obtained the tape and a day later said that both guards had been fired. A week later, the inmate was taken to another clinic because teeth fragments left in his gums required further surgery.

Blair Harris is no longer in custody.  The RCMP is investigating.

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Jonathan Henoche died at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s on November 6, 2019 after an interaction with jail guards.  He was a 33-year-old Inuk man from Labrador, awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge relating to the death of an 88-year-old woman there in 2016.  He had been moved to St. John’s over concerns for his safety.

The chief medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.  The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary announced charges against ten guards on December 22 of last  year.  The charges include manslaughter, failure to provide necessities of life, and criminal negligence causing death.  The announcement did not include the names of the accused, when they were arrested or under what conditions they were released.

That’s right.  The charges were not filed in court and all ten were released.  Bob Buckingham is Mr. Henoche’s lawyer.  “I have never seen a case where one individual has been charged with manslaughter and allowed to go home, let alone a cabal of ten correctional officers charged with the care and custody of an individual be charged like this, and not be brought to court.  It is reprehensible.  How many aboriginal accused persons get to have their bail hearings deferred on manslaughter charges?  Or get to have their names withheld from the media?”

Charges were filed in court this January 8, and the ten guards were named.  Again, Mr. Buckingham, “In all the research that I have done – and I’ve had a number of my colleagues doing research on this across the country – no one has ever seen people charged with manslaughter who have been released by an officer in charge…without being brought to a court for a judicial interim release before a judge.  This was favouritism to a group of Department of Justice employees.  And the racism component involved the fact that my client was Aboriginal.”

Nuff said.

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If guards are not part of the solution, then they are part of the problem.
Guard material is endless.  But with one exception next time, we will move on.

The Senate of Canada’s Standing Committee on Human Rights took to the road between February of 2017 and March of 2018 to examine the human rights issues of federally-sentenced persons, visiting prisons across Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.  Members of the committee also held 22 meetings, taking evidence from 92 witnesses, including inmates, academics, lawyers, corrections officers, and Indigenous representatives.
The Committee released an Interim Report in February of 2019 but was denied leave to meet that summer to finish the Final Report.  That will be completed in 2021.

Three excepts from the Interim Report, commenting on prison guards:

During site visits, the committee was told by federally-incarcerated persons that they often experienced reprisals for accessing the complaint and grievance processes under the CCRA (Corrections and Conditional Release Act), or for speaking out about human rights issues.  Staff members confirmed that they discourage this use of the grievance system, preferring to settle things informally.  The lack of procedural fairness in segregation decision-making was also highlighted by witnesses.  According to witnesses, reprisals could take various forms including harassment, destruction of property, loss of privileges, interference with correspondence, visits and programming, neglect of responsibilities and excessive use of force.  These types of reprisals were discussed in some detail by El Jones (Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies, Mount Saint Vincent University), who indicated that retaliation can also come in very subtle ways, such as being labelled as a “troublemaker” on the range or being continually targeted for disciplinary action based on the arbitrary exercise of discretion.

In fact, the committee was informed that a number of federally-incarcerated persons refused to meet with the committee for fear of reprisal.  The committee was very concerned to find that this fear extended to communications with senators during site visits.  In this context, it was particularly disturbing that at certain institutions, correctional staff surreptitiously listened to the committee’s confidential meetings with federally-sentenced persons, despite the committees (at time repeated) requests for privacy.

It should also be noted that fear of reprisal in the federal correctional system was not only raised by federally-sentenced persons.  In confidential meetings with current and former correctional officers, the committee learned that they too feared retribution from their coworkers for reporting inappropriate or unacceptable behaviour by other correctional officers directed at them, other staff or prisoners.  During these meetings, the committee was also told that correctional officers are admonished by other correctional officers for being too friendly with prisoners.  Behaviours deemed too friendly included helping prisoners file grievances.

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Specific instances of inmate experiences will flesh out the Senate report’s findings.  This is one, and while it may seem petty and does not involve interactions between guards and inmates, it contributes to a pervasive cynicism in the prison environment.

From Canada’s West, an Inmate’s Observation Examples How Negative Attitudes Toward Guards Develop in the Inmate Population. 

Correctional Service of Canada operates a few medium security institutions with a design model incorporating direct observation ranges.  Guards work on ranges from a glass enclosure, a ‘bubble,’ that allows sightlines to all cells, improving oversight and command.  The arrangement also gives inmates a view of their keepers.

An inmate noted a few weeks ago that as he walked by and looked at the guards in the bubble on his range, one was slumped sleeping in a chair, trying not to fall off his perch, and snoring loudly enough to be heard through the glass.  A second guard sitting close by was concentrating on his phone, tapping an outgoing message.  On another day, he watched three guards in their chairs busy tapping away on their phones in unison.

Inmates are not out of their cells during the night, so these guards were not on a late shift.  Sleeping on the job is not encouraged for one, and policy requires that mobile devices stay in the car or a locker during work.  Aside from keeping staff focused on their duties, there’s a practical purpose for the prohibition.  A misplaced or lost phone would trigger a lockdown and search.  Nonetheless, their use during working hours is pervasive.  Repercussions, if any, are minor.

Offenders are imprisoned under the surveillance of public servants whose uniforms grant impunity.  What’s the lesson there?

….guards and inmates…once more next time.

“ONTARIO MAN SUING PRISON GUARD AFTER ALLEGED ASSAULT CAUGHT ON CAMERA IN PRISON PARKING LOT.”
So read the lead of Nicole Brockbank’s CBC News posting on October 16, 2019.

Paul Saliba has an accessible parking permit due to injuries from a serious car accident.  He had permission from Correctional Service of Canada to use a disabled spot in the staff parking lot when he visited his son at the Bath Institution just west of Kingston.  On February 28 in 2017, about four months after CSC granted him use of the parking space, Correctional Officer Darin Gough cancelled his visit over an argument about parking in the staff lot.

Mr. Saliba is in his late sixties and was stopped by C.O. Gough before he could enter the prison.  A disagreement over the use of the parking spot escalated when the guard cancelled his visit and Mr. Saliba would not identify himself out of fear for retribution against his son.  Gough escorted him back to his car where he took pictures of his licence plate while Saliba reached into his car for his cellphone, intending to take a picture of the guard.  “I was going to try and take pictures of him, but I’m not savvy with that,” Saliba told CBC News.  “The next thing I know he slammed me up against the vehicle next to my vehicle.”

He believes he would have been charged for assaulting the guard had it not been for a security camera that shows C.O. Gough grabbing him by the coat and pushing him against a vehicle.  Gough insists he never touched Saliba, even after looking at the video, and claims he was “the true victim” of the altercation.  CSC investigators disagreed.  “There is no doubt (Gough) did touch Mr. Saliba, although he is adamant he did not.”

As a brief interjection, federal prison video has no audio, and it is Correctional Service of Canada’s standard operating practice to discount video evidence that does not support a CSC narrative.  What is more, and despite the finding of the investigators, neither CSC nor C.O. Gough will accept culpability for its treatment of Mr.Saliba

To move on, he reported the incident to the Ontario Provincial Police and the prison warden.  The police declined to lay assault charges against Darin Gough, and Saliba then laid a private charge against the guard following the release of the prison investigation.  In September of this year, Crown Julie Scott stayed the charge by arguing that the effort to get a conviction was not warranted, given the possible penalty.

Paul Saliba is now focusing on his civil lawsuit against Darin Gough and the Attorney General of Canada.  His $500,000 action claims C.O. Gough “concocted false criminal accusations” against him “to cover up Office Gough’s own wrongdoing” and that the Correctional Service of Canada owed him a duty of care as a visitor at their institution.  A Justice of the Peace earlier told him to exercise patience in the process, as “they protect their own.”  The first Discovery Hearing was not until December 8 and 10 of this year, with a second scheduled for late January.

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“GUARD’S ‘SELFIE’ ON VISITOR’S PHONE PROMPTS INMATE TO LAUNCH CASE.”
Brendan Kennedy’s report in the Toronto Star, August 21, 2018

Paul Saliba almost walked away from his lawsuit against Darin Gough more than a year ago, until he came across media coverage of another incident involving Gough and a visitor to Bath Institution, this time in February of 2016.

Tammy Truesdell was visiting her husband Jason Lauzon on February 17, 2016.  She left her phone in the car; later, Darin Gough and a drug detector dog checked the vehicle in a random search.  When Ms. Truesdell checked her phone after the visit, she found an email from her security feature app.  The email was titled “someone tried to unlock your hangouts,” and included a close-up photo of Darin Gough, his face a portrait of concentration, his eyes focused and the tip of his tongue sticking out.  The phone’s security takes an “Intruder Selfie” when someone incorrectly enters its four-digit passcode twice, then emails it to the phone’s owner.

She was shocked and angry.  Visitors may be subject to a search of their person and sometimes their vehicles, but CSC guards do not have the right to search the contents of phones.  Ms. Truesdell recognized Gough as the guard who had searched her earlier in the day and spoke to her husband that evening.  He filed a complaint using the prison’s internal grievance system.

The complaint went nowhere, not surprising given that the grievance process is a sop.  Prison management discounted the photo it was given.  Gough denied trying to unlock the phone, saying he must have inadvertently triggered the security function when he moved the phone into the glove compartment so it would not be damaged by the drug dog.

Lauzon took the government to court in the face of “unequivocal photographic evidence.”  He was not suing prison officials or looking for damages, but he asked the Federal Court to review the Correctional Service of Canada’s handling of his grievance.  All he wanted was an acknowledgement of what occurred and an apology.  Lauzon’s lawyer, Paul Quick of the Queen’s Prison Law Clinic, said the case may be minor but was important, “because it clearly illustrates the dynamic that allows prison staff to commit abuses and act outside the law without fear of being held accountable.”

When Lauzon raised the matter with a supervisor, assistant warden Tim Hamilton told him if he ever wanted to be transferred to a minimum-security facility, he should “keep (his) head down, stay off the radar and don’t flood us with paperwork,” which Lauzon understood as thinly veiled threats.  According to Paul Quick, “the word of a guard will not only be believed over that of a prisoner but will be accepted over all other evidence….,” adding that “time and again” CSC is “fundamentally incapable of acknowledging wrongdoing.”  He went on. “It sends prisoners a message that it is not the law that matters, but simply power and the ability to get away with it.”

According to Brendan Kennedy’s report, “The inmate grievance was denied at each stage of the process until a judge dismissed the couple’s application for judicial review because the potential wrongdoing happened to Ms. Truesdell, a visitor, not to an inmate.”  But Justice Glennys McVeigh noted in her decision that “the idea that two incorrect four-digit codes could be imputed simply by moving a phone into the glovebox is an unlikely explanation for what occurred.”

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Paul Saliba is forging ahead with his action: “The judge in Napanee was on my side and made us come back to court 8 times before Crown Julie Scott had the charges stayed.  He warned the Crown that I was passionate about this and I would not stop there if he had to stay the charges.  He was so correct!  I will not stop until we see changes.  We cannot continue like this.”

We know Tammy Truesdall and Jason Lauzon were not satisfied with the outcome of their action against the prison agency.  We do not know what their experience with the system has been since they stood up to it.  No doubt their names are red flagged.  No doubt they are subject to biased scrutiny.  Hopefully, they are alert and cautious, but not cowered.

Expect Paul Saliba to be challenged, frustrated, and oppressed as he pushes against a government service not regulated by the mechanisms of popular control.  There’s more to come.

….and, there’s still more guards to come, too.