April 7, 2017

The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould,
Minister of Justice,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Re: “Prisons became less deadly over past year, data show.”
        Patrick White, Toronto Globe and Mail, Friday, March 17, 2017

Dear Minister:

Patrick White’s article began, “In a single year under Liberal rule, federal prisons became less deadly, less crowded and less black, according to new data obtained by the Globe and Mail that suggested prison life has changed strikingly since the Harper Conservatives fell from power.”

The column went on to analyze the information leading to the conclusion, and referenced input from Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger, a useful observation from Jason Godin, National President of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, but only a non-committal response from a Correctional Service spokesperson.

Dr. Zinger said, “It’s quite impressive that, despite the fact there’s been no legislative changes, no regulatory changes, no injection of new money in corrections, the same commissioner, that we’ve seen a significant improvement in a number of performance indicators in health in prisons.” There are some setbacks, but “it’s mostly great news,” said the CI.

Minister, with my contacts in the work I do, one seasoned federal prison inmate was not surprised by the changes. As he put it in so many words, of course the anger over Harper’s perspective would give way to optimism with Trudeau’s refocus.

Those rehabilitative and progressive measures to which Ivan Zinger referred are an important and necessary component to trending changes for the better. Please make them happen.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

cc The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau
Dr. Ivan Zinger

After bleak decade under Harper era, officials speculate on why a ‘significant improvement’ under Trudeau.

So ran the tag under the headline for the Patrick White Globe article on March 17.

Correctional Investigator Dr. Ivan Zinger published sombre numbers last year looking at federal prison life during the decade under Stephen Harper. Health indicators spiked from the 2005-06 fiscal year to 2014-15 showing serious increases in bodily injuries, attempted suicides, double-bunking, suicides, deaths in custody, the gassing of inmates, and increases in black, aboriginal and female inmates. But, when the figures for the year immediately following Justin Trudeau’s election were compiled, all those 10-year trends ‘suddenly and inexplicably nose-dived.’

Not all areas improved. Inmate-on-inmate assaults still increased by 14 per cent, and while use of force against inmates by guards declined by 6 per cent after climbing nearly 50 per cent during the Conservative era, the use of chemical sprays against inmates grew almost 7 percent, and that after increasing 236 per cent during the previous ten years.

Perhaps that helps explain Michael Tutton’s Canadian Press article published in the Toronto Star shortly before on Tuesday, February 28. “Number of prison lawsuits tops 1,200”, where the same Correctional Investigator Zinger says that inmate-on-inmate and guard violence must be addressed.

There were 1203 active cases against CSC as of the end of March in 2016, handled by about 15 lawyers on Correctional Services Canada staff; the federal Department of Justice is used for additional legal advice. CSC is paying out around $10 million in legal fees, and a further $643,000 in out-of-court settlements during the year.

Zinger suggests that when families and inmates are asked to remain silent about the details of settlements, it can reduce the incentive for change in the Service. ”That’s an awful lot of energy devoted to fighting lawsuits and I’m of the view some of that energy could be better channeled by developing strategy to reduce the number is issues raised in the lawsuits,” he said.

In response, Correctional Services said it considers the correctional investigator’s views, but there is no indication it plans to decrease the number of non-disclosure agreements, or address actions to lower the number of legal actions.

So be it. It’s only your money, after all.

….♫ rooms to ♪ let, 50 cents ♫.”

The New York Times ran a story in late February under Dan Bilefsky’s byline which began, “The Netherlands has a problem many countries can only dream of: A shortage of prison inmates.”

About a third of Dutch prison cells are empty, attributed to a ‘spectacular’ drop in crime over the last twenty years, and a national preference for rehabilitation over incarceration. There was a upswing in prison populations there in the 90s, but the Netherlands now imprisons only about 61 of every 100,000 citizens, similar to Scandinavia. The United States, on the other hand, puts about 666 of every 100,000 citizens in prison, the highest in the world.

Norway negotiated an agreement with the Dutch two years ago for a three-year lease of a high-security facility and sent 242 prisoners there. They’re paying $35 million per year for the use of this prison, and Belgium is also making use of Dutch jails, sending about 500 inmates across the border.

Even more cells will become surplus over the next few years. As one criminologist explained, the Dutch have a deeply ingrained pragmatism when it comes to regulating law and order. “Prisons are very expensive,” this professor at Erasmus School of Law in Rotterdam rationalized. There is a relatively liberal approach to soft drugs and prostitution, and the Netherlands is more focused on what works and what is effective, while people in the United States, for instance, make moral arguments for imprisonment.

The Dutch have also become creative with the vacancy rates by transforming jails into housing for asylum seekers, converting cells into apartments for families, and where the interior exercise yards, gymnasiums, kitchens and outdoor gardens have a practical benefit. High exterior walls and barbed wire are removed, but care is taken not to house former political prisoners in cells, unless they feel at ease.

Not everyone is happy. About 2,600 prison guards could lose their jobs in the next four years as more prisons close. The government doesn’t want to give up too many jobs, as this political football can play out to the disadvantage of the present centre-right party in control. As a spokesperson for the country’s Ministry of Security and Justice put it, the surplus of empty jail cells is “good and bad news at the same time.”

This isn’t an environment that’s generated in a vacuum, with no explanation, or can be simply written off to happenstance. This comes with a concerted effort to question the status quo, think outside the lock-em-up box, and take bold steps to take a different road. Separating some people from the community in a custodial setting will continue to be a reality for now, but there is an illogic to a prison-based system of justice. One perspective is in the form of a poem reprinted in Baz Dreisinger’s book, “Incarceration Nation”:-

We want them to be responsible,
So we take away all responsibilities.
We want them to be positive and constructive,
So we degrade them and make them useless.
We want them to be nonviolent,
So we put them where there is violence all around them.
We want them to quit being the tough guy,
So we put them where the tough guy’s respected.

Now, that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it!

……continued from March 5

Last December, Correctional Service of Canada reiterated that it doesn’t use solitary confinement because, for instance, inmates in “administrative segregation” have daily visits from wardens, health-care personnel and other staff. The Globe and Mail reported that prisoner-rights advocates found the argument preposterous. Wardens or their agents are required to visit segregation units daily, but what turnoverarocktoday knows is those ‘visits’ often amount to a simple step into the range, the exchange of a few words with guards, and the signing of the log. Regardless, all communication between inmates and staff members is through a small hatch in the cell door, hardly a ‘visit’ or meaningful human contact.

This particular reference by CSC to its isolation practices is in reaction to a suit filed last October by three inmates at Edmonton Institution, claiming damages totaling $5.6-million. The men contend long periods of segregation without social interaction led to health effects including major depression, paranoia, rage, self-harm and disrupted sleep patterns. The lawsuit uses a variety of international academic and anecdotal sources that support the Mandela Rules, maximizing the use of solitary confinement to 60 days in a calendar year, and which was passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The John Howard Society’s executive director Catherine Latimer says CSC will face an uphill battle trying to prove the defense it filed claiming Canadian segregated inmates do not suffer, and their well-being is monitored to ensure no adverse effects.

Now, Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell certified a class-action against Correctional Service of Canada on Monday, December 12 of last year, the first lawsuit in Canada on behalf of federal inmates alleging the use of solitary confinement and inadequate access to medication has violated the rights of tens of thousands of mentally ill inmates. In certifying the claim, the judge said the case hinges on whether CSC violated Charter sections 7 (life, liberty, security of the person), 9 (against unfair detainment), and 12 (freedom from cruel and unusual punishment) in its operation of federal prisons and whether the potential violations warrant damages. Both the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail reported on this lawsuit during that middle week of December.

Then in mid-February, another judge declared a rare postconviction mistrial in the case of a 33 year-old Yukon inmate, housed in the Whitehorse Correctional Centre, who has spent more time in custody awaiting trial and sentencing, including more than three years in solitary confinement, than his original crime would have warranted. His mental health deteriorated to a point where he was ruled unfit to participate in any proceedings against him. The court has just ordered a second trial but the outcome is in question, given the man’s mental health status.

To cap off a call for reform, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, representing around 35,000 family doctors, issued a statement on February 27 calling for an all-out ban on solitary confinement in Canada’s provincial jails and federal prisons. “Ethical, moral and professional obligations” of family doctors compelled the organization to take a strong position on the practice. “The use of solitary confinement can have a negative impact on a person’s health and can worsen pre-existing conditions, and it can be especially detrimental for youth and prisoners who suffer from mental illness,” said Ruth Martin, chair of the college’s Prison Health Program Committee.

Remember, these men and women who have experienced the negative impact of isolation, and prolonged isolation in many cases, will one day be returned to the community. They will be our neighbours, the person driving the car behind us, or sitting next to us on the bus. There is only a hair’s breadth between a constructive, contributing member of society, and a liability on our shared resources.

Whither goest thou?

“Please note that the term ‘solitary confinement’ is not applicable within the Canadian penitentiary system,” says Correctional Service of Canada.

This is a lie! This is a lie perpetuated over a long period by civil servants living off the public purse, whose self-serving agenda facilitates a medievalist mind-set intended to thwart reforms to bring our penal systems into line with 20th and 21st century revisionists.

Call it what you will, any time a person is placed in a barren cell with limited access to resources usually available to prison inmates, and held in such limbo for 23 or more hours per day, that is solitary confinement.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society were scheduled to be in court on January 3rd of this year to begin the first ever comprehensive challenge of solitary confinement practices in federal prisons. As their literature put it, “International bodies and experts, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, have been unwilling to mince words. Solitary by any other name is still torture.”

In the middle of December last year, a judge postponed the start of the case until July 4 due to a “reasonable expectation” that federal legislation will be enacted. BCCLA and John Howard will continue to prepare their case to ensure proposed reforms meet the expected standards.

The West Coast Prison Justice Society, another British Columbia group representing federal prisoners in that province issued a 112-page report last November calling for the total abolishment of solitary confinement across Canada. They argue the point at which the use of segregation is considered to cross the line of torture or cruel treatment is a subjective assessment that cannot be left in the domain of regressive agendas.

Jason Godin, who is the national president of the 7,400-member Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, called that proposal “absurd”, but then, these are the same men and women who have supported a discredited practice. More, the union has never called for a review of segregation its members know has had considerable negative outcomes for hundreds of inmates every year. To boot, it has criticized the reduction in the use of solitary confinement by Correctional Service of Canada, and has called Justin Trudeau’s intended prison reforms unreasonable. In the meantime, CSC’s own data does not reflect a rise in prison violence.

Yes, Correctional Service of Canada has been ‘drawing down’ the use to solitary confinement. Our perspective can be found in the February 19 posting, “Segregation….another stench from under ‘a rock’.” And, as Jason Godin and his union were making their objections last October to possible changes, both the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail published editorials calling for action to end the government’s abuse of human rights

……more to come March 12

“Riots. Stabbings. Beatings. Lockdowns. THE $1-BILLION HELLHOLE.”

This is from the cover of the March issue of Toronto Life magazine, printed over a photo of the Toronto South Detention Centre, which “was supposed to be a state-of-the-art superjail. Instead, it’s a total disaster.”

Raizel Robin, a Toronto freelance writer/journalist with a long list of wide-ranging writing credits, conducted over 50 interviews preparing this story. She made attempts to meet and speak with Brennan Guigue, an inmate in Toronto South at the time, but was blocked by the institution’s visiting policies, and the head of security. Nonetheless, he was able to get some of his written material to her which is included in her research.

On the morning of Thursday, February 16, the day before the magazine issue was on the newsstands, Raizel guested on CBC radio’s Metro Morning, hosted by Matt Galloway out of Toronto. At one point, she said that Toronto South inmates were so often locked down for long periods that the men don’t know just when they would be let out. When Matt asked what that must be like, Raziel referred to an inmate who had told her to imagine being locked in your bathroom for 24 hours. That relevant analogy came from Brennan Guigue.

CBC asked Community Safety & Correctional Services for a comment on the Toronto Life story. The most current minister, Marie-France Lalonde, came back with a long and old toe-the-CSCS-line-policy-statement that means nothing at all…..but says everything.

A letter had gone to the new minister soon after her appointment:-

January 20, 2017

The Honourable Marie-France Lalonde,
Minister of Community Safety & Correctional Services,
18th Floor, George Drew Building,
25 Grosvenor Street,
Toronto, ON M7A 1Y6

Dear Minister:

You are a brave politician to take on CSCS at a point when the ministry is coming under increased scrutiny and facing several legal challenges. And so it should. I’ve been nipping at its heels for twenty-five years.

I have two suggestions.

The bureaucrats who people 25 Grosvenor will go a long way to keep you occupied and away from the many closets in the agency. Lord forbid that you should peek inside any one of them.

When presented with a stack of files for your attention, start at the bottom. That’s where the good stuff is hidden.

In hopes that this note actually ends up on your desk, I am,

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

Guess we didn’t make an impression.

Not willing to leave it be, another short letter went to the minister on February 22. The body is reprinted here:-

Re: The $1-Billion Hellhole

Dear Minister:

I can’t believe the response you and your ministry gave to Matt Galloway of CBC’s Metro Morning when he asked for a reaction to the March Toronto Life cover story on the Toronto South Detention Centre.

Raizel Robin had much more material than she needed or used in the article. I know, because I was one of her contributors. There are thousands, even tens of thousands of people in this province who are better informed than you appear to be.

Looks like you didn’t take the advice in my January 20th letter.

As it is now, it seems you’ve only taken a few weeks on the job to go over to ‘the dark side.’

Yours truly,

God grant the legal actions against the government will cost Ontario millions….will cost you millions.

“The $1-Billion Hellhole” is available on-line at http://www.torontolife.ca.

This is another item from the root cellar waiting for ‘screen time’.

Back on October 12 of last year, the Globe and Mail ran “Use of solitary in federal prisons plummets” under Patrick White’s byline. The story begins with, “Canada’s prison agency has halved the number of inmates it keeps in indefinite solitary confinement over the past two years……”

Correctional Service of Canada wouldn’t admit outside pressure influenced the changes, but there is no question CSC is attempting to to curry favour with the Justice Minister. What Don Head and the rest of the prison management team do not want is any intrusion into their domain, and will do what it can to thwart efforts to bring Correctional Service of Canada into the 20th century, let alone 2017.

Nick Fabiano is CSC’s director-general of security….at least he was last fall. After reading his comments on the subject, we had to jump in:-

October 17, 2016

Nick Fabiano, Director-General, Security,
Correctional Service of Canada,
340 Laurier Avenue West,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0P9

Re: Solitary confinement

Mr. Fabiano:

“There’s been a collective push among all of management to ensure that we’re exercising our responsibilities and due diligence.” Nick Fabiano, Globe and Mail, October 12

Cow cookies!

The management team at Correctional Service of Canada has not only had ample opportunities over decades to introduce progressive policies without outside prompting, but the agency has been emphatically encouraged to do so for years from any number of knowledgeable and expert resources, here and elsewhere. That it stubbornly resisted and even rejected recommendations outright is a true measure of CSC’s medievalist mentality.

What you and the others at 340 Laurier Avenue West are now doing is attempting to stave off legislated changes to CSC policies and practices. If you can convince the government that you’re moving in the direction you should have taken long ago, then perhaps it will leave you alone to go right back to the dark ages.

“I don’t think this issue (solitary confinement) will be solved without legislative changes,” is how Howard Sapers sees it. He’s right, and not only on the question of the use of segregation, but in so many areas where the Service has refused to let in the light.

Yours truly,

Charles H. Klassen

cc Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Hon. Ralph Goodale,
Howard Sapers, Com. Don Head, Patrick White-Globe and Mail

It wasn’t just Mr. Fabiano’s remark quoted at the start of our letter that offends, but he went on later to say that, “we are providing advice on that front”, referring to the government’s goal to have the Service implement the recommendations of the Ashley Smith inquest. Good grief, CSC has diligently ignored and subverted as many of those proposals as it can.

Cow cookies, indeed!

turnoverarocktoday has put most of its resources into Justice & the Penal Systems and related areas because it’s an overwhelmingly rich and fertile source of material. There is so much in line for preparation, and more awaiting editing/rewrite. Using assets for the site’s broader mandate is a daunting challenge.

This story, important only to those immediately involved, illustrates the vagaries of a justice system plagued by a backlog peppered with often frivolous and unsupportable actions that satisfy only the questionable agendas of some stakeholders.

There have been a few recent calls from an inmate in Toronto South Detention Centre who is held on remand, waiting for the disposition of a number of charges. Let’s call him Zachariah, because it’s a great name. Zachariah is charged with two bank robberies, using disguises, and so forth, while his girlfriend has been charged as an accessory for sitting in an idling ‘getaway’ car. There is no evidence….no DNA….no money….no reliable witnesses….nothing connecting either of them to these crimes. There is security tape which does show a disguised suspect who could resemble Zachariah…..and a few hundreds of other black men his age and size. His one vulnerability is opportunity….he might have been in the area of the crimes about the time they were committed.

So here we have a man whose life is on hold while he sits in a provincial jail that has a well-earned reputation as a difficult environment, his girlfriend has a cloud hanging over her, time is passing, and there can be many months before a satisfactory conclusion is reached that works well for them both…if they risk a trial, and the cards are dealt in their favour.

And so, his lawyer and the Crown negotiated a resolution that the Court will accept under the circumstances. If Zachariah will plead guilty to the charges, he will be sentenced to six months in custody, which of course will be reduced by the two months he has already spent in jail, plus the extra benefit for time-served as a presumably innocent defendant. And, the charges against his girlfriend will be dropped.

What? These are serious crimes. What this offer tells Zachariah is, we-think-you-possibly-did-these-bank-jobs-but-we-can’t-prove-it-and-we-know-you-can’t-afford-to-sit-in-jail-for-months-waiting-for-a-potentially-better-outcome-so-if-you-accept-this-deal-we-can-close-the-file-and-show-the-case-as-won-without-wasting-the-court’s-time-with-a-trial. How this will impact Zachariah and his girlfriend’s life is irrelevant to the officers of the court.

Nonetheless, of course he’s going to take the offer.