Reflections of a Female Prisoner on our Jail and Prison Systems

A former prisoner (Petey) who was incarcerated at the Grande Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario during an overlapping time frame with Ashley Smith, refers to the tragic manner in which Ashley died.  She uses the horror of what happened to Ashley to illustrate some important points about the need for transparency and an effective prisoner complaints system.  What goes on behind prison walls is invisible to the public and indeed in many cases, largely invisible even to those closest to someone inside.  The current direction being taken by our federal government, in pushing for ever greater secrecy and fewer transparent avenues to deal with prisoner complaints and human rights violations inside, will without question lead to more horrific and entirely preventable tragedies.  Such as the succession of "mistakes", and callous decision making which led to the end of Ashley's young life.  Read on for Petey's reflections on this situation.  
Also I would highly recommend following the links within Petey's statement for other written pieces by Petey on her experiences in our prison and jail systems.

Statement from "Petey" at the Demonstration and Vigil for the Death of Ashley Smith

* Read by Jennifer Kilty at the event.

My name is Petey. I am one year older than Ashley would have been, had she not died at the hands of the prison system. I was transferred to Grand Valley Institution for Women two weeks before Ashley Smith’s tragic death took place. 

The Fifth Estate documentary of Ashley Smith’s unfortunate journey through the penal system was given the very appropriate title, “Out of Control”. This is a succinct and precise description of the Corrections Service of Canada. I have been a prisoner in the youth, provincial, and federal systems, and witnessed firsthand the mistreatment of girls as young as twelve to women in their sixties. With them, I experienced oppression and abuse at the hands of prison guards, and felt powerless because it was my word against that of prison personnel. 

One such example is that I spent five illegal months in maximum security at Grand Valley the age of twenty, due to an oversight of the policies that blatantly stated I should not have been there. However, CSC was not interested in informing me about my rights or about policies that would be inconvenient for them to follow. Instead, they hoped I would never notice, and told me that it was “water under the bridge” when I raised objections. This, and many other complaints and grievances that I filed throughout my imprisonment, were strongly discouraged by CSC officials. Asking CSC to follow their own policies is seen as unruliness and noncompliance. Fighting for basic human rights meant that I was labelled as a troublemaker. 

It was a struggle to obtain copies of CSC’s policies and directives, which the public is told are freely available to all prisoners. If successful in obtaining a copy, every single woman in prison would inevitably find sections where the policies were not followed, and where her rights have been trampled. Should she find the courage, and have the skills to fill out a complaint or grievance form, she is seen as Enemy Number One by CSC, and all efforts are put into place to convince her to withdraw the complaint. If the complaint is handled informally or withdrawn, there is no documentation of the transgression, and the public is told that everything is fine; the prison is doing its job, because there is no record of prisoners complaining. 

Unfortunately, these tactics to silence injustice lead to severe breaches of human rights. Ashley Smith’s complaints about her indefinite segregation and excessive number of transfers between prisons and mental health facilities in Canada were left in the complaints box until long after she had died. They were filled out by other people because she was not permitted a pen. It took her death for the public to be made aware that someone at the age of nineteen was being held indefinitely in isolated segregation in a federal prison for women. This is unacceptable. 

It is my sincere hope that this inquest leads to some form of external oversight of CSC, because they are currently not accountable to any authority. They can and do commit any atrocities they deem appropriate, such as transferring someone seventeen times within eleven months, or involuntary injections, under the guise of public safety. This protest is the beginning of a new direction for Corrections, one where the public demands that justice is not synonymous with punishment, and where basic human rights are guaranteed to all Canadians, even the ones in prison.

- "Petey"

  Reflections on My First Free Prisoner Justice Day

 After finally escaping from the clutches of maximum security, I was bunked with a young girl who slashed herself up something fierce two weeks later. I was woken up at one in the morning and instructed to leaveour cell so it could be sealed for investigation. My cellmate was shipped toa psychiatric hospital and my nightmares got worse.I asked to please be moved to a single cell, but instead got another cellmate, who I was told was more “stable”. Ten days later, I came back to find she was gone. When I asked what happened, it turned out she wasin segregation on suicide watch. I was starting to think that there was something wrong with me because everyone around me was sick of living. I had no idea how to handle this kind of guilt. Guards in the prison treated these situations as normal and that I should just get used to it. I could not wrap my head around that kind of thinking, so I was left alone, hurt and confused. Several women died while I was at GVI and the injustice of them dying away from their families really weighed heavily on me.Here is a quote from Correctional Service of Canada. by Petey scribd-Reflections on First "Free" Prisoner Justice Day

Marlene Moore: Women in Prison

See this link for details regarding the Marlene Moore story that you may not have heard before.  Marlene was the first woman in Canada given the Dangerous Offender designation.  As with most women having received this label and increasingly now with men too, the designation is an over-reach of the injustice system.

http://prisonstatecanada.blogspot.ca/p/women.html

An Anarchist Woman in Jail Reflects on the Cage: Doing Time as a G20 Political Prisoner

Every Prisoner is a Political Prisoner

 http://prisonradio.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/every-prisoner-is-a-political-prisoner/

I found Kelly's memoir below really impactful.  She managed to remind me of some of the details around doing time that I'm sure most of us prefer to forget.  What I really appreciated was Kelly's reflections and analysis about the oppression which the women with whom she is forcibly confined must live through and survive every single day.  Oppressions which many of us are working hard to resist and indeed to eliminate, but which few of us actually have to resist daily from the inside.

Posted on July 29, 2012

from CrimethInc.

-
On July 19, Kelly Rose Pflug-Back was sentenced to eleven more months in prison for her participation in the 2010 G20 protests in Toronto. She remains unapologetic about her role in the black bloc that caused so much disruption during the summit, demonstrating that the forces that impose capitalism and patriarchy are not invulnerable.
To support Kelly and the millions like her who are imprisoned for the inconveniences they pose to the powerful, we are proud to present her eloquent and thought-provoking memoir of the time she spent incarcerated after her original arrest: “Every Prisoner is a Political Prisoner.” In this account, Kelly powerfully evokes the experience of captivity and the importance of understanding all captives of the state as political prisoners.
Our friends Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness are publishing a book of Kelly’s poetry as a fundraiser to benefit her during her incarceration. Walt Whitman argued that “to have great poets there must be great audiences,” but audiences is precisely the opposite of what there must be. To have great poetry, there must be people who are willing to act on their ideals rather than just watch from the sidelines. We are deeply grateful to Kelly for finding the courage to live her poetry as well as writing it.
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Interview with Kelly Rose Pflug-Back
Write to Kelly:
Kelly Pflug-Back
Vanier Centre for Women
P.O. Box 1040
655 Martin Street
Milton, Ontario
L9T 5E6 Canada

Every Prisoner is a Political Prisoner: A Memoir

June 27, 2010, was uncharacteristically overcast for mid-summer Toronto. My head pounded from the humidity as I walked alone down Queen Street, through a cityscape teeming with riot police, and still dusted with shards of broken glass from the day before. Construction crews had already set to work repairing the trail of wreckage, attempting to get everything back to normal before anyone noticed.
When I reached Jimmie Simpson Park, where people were meeting for the day’s scheduled prison solidarity rally, I saw only a small crowd of friends standing under the drooping honey locust trees: some debriefing or consoling one another, others speaking with the reporters who swarmed like gnats around the gathering. This sparse group of about thirty was all that remained after the preemptive kidnappings and mass arrests. I can’t remember if I felt any particular sense of foreboding—any eerie apprehension of why I too hadn’t been taken away.
As our diminished group walked from the park to the detention center where our friends were being held, I hoped to be able to find some news of what had happened to my partner, or to anyone for that matter.
The gray sky sprinkled rain upon us, but we were happy and smiling. We chanted, sang, played instruments and shared whatever food we’d brought. Cops surrounded us, jostling the crowd to step farther away from the chain link fence surrounding the prison. I’d been there about half an hour when the unmarked van drove into the crowd. A group of men jumped out and forced their way toward me, yelling for people to move out of the way. One of them said my name, and within seconds they had dragged me into the van.
I can’t say I felt anything when my face hit the floor, but later in my cell I noticed a deep throbbing in my teeth and gums. The front ones were loose. My mouth tasted like blood.
One of the cops who’d pulled me into the van asked me if I was on welfare. He leered at my bare legs and told me I needed a razor. Another tied my wrists with zip ties and proceeded to rifle through my purse.
Inside, the building was a massive warehouse filled with wire cages, like some industrial chicken farm. The noise of other prisoners screaming protest songs and rattling the doors of their cages echoed off the concrete walls, making our numbers seem greater even than the 992 people occupying cells. They put me in a cage and locked the door. On the wall to my left I saw a guard scribble my name on a white board alongside the words “do not release.” I sat down on the concrete and anticipated the worst.
The following day I was hospitalized after losing consciousness from low blood sugar. All we were given to eat was a cheese sandwich every 12 to 24 hours with no alternatives for those who were vegan or had an allergy. I was unable to walk to the medical trailer; the guards informed me that this constituted refusing medical attention. Another prisoner who overheard this screamed at a guard who was busy amusing himself doing tricks in an unused wheelchair, and they brought it to my cell shortly after.
A female guard snarled at me to “close my fucking legs” while I sat sprawled inside the medical trailer with an intravenous glucose drip in my arm. I’d been arrested in a short skirt and tank top, and they had refused me, numerous times, pants or a blanket. It was freezing inside the detention center. There was no way to get off the bare concrete. My teeth chattered constantly, and I never stopped shaking. It was too cold to sleep.
After they took me back to my cell, I could hear a man nearby screaming that he needed his medication. He screamed for hours before stopping abruptly; I pressed my face to the cage door and I could see him convulsing on the floor of his cell with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. “Get up,” the guards told him, repeatedly, before finally acknowledging his unconsciousness. Then they dragged him away.
Countless people were processed and released, many of them with bruises, cuts and abrasions on their arms and faces from being slammed into the concrete. A number of the guards passed the time by spewing racist, homophobic, classist, and sexist harassment at prisoners, or threatening them with further brutalization. A number of women were threatened with rape.
Hours and hours passed, and it became increasingly clear that I would not be allowed to call my lawyer or let my family know where I was. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t yet been informed of my charges. I spent over two days in my cell, curled in a ball on the concrete or pacing the small vicinity of my cage, sometimes yelling to other prisoners or joining them in hysterical, sleep-deprived bouts of laughter.
I was unsurprised to see a few old friends from Toronto’s street community pass through the detention center. Were it not for the unfortunate situation, it would have been a welcome reunion. When an acquaintance of mine ended up in the cell beside me, we started talking about the circumstances that had brought us there. Only seventeen, he had spent the majority of his life being transferred from group home to group home. Since he had finally been appointed as his own legal guardian, his life had been plagued by poverty, class profiling, and prejudice in the court system. Although he didn’t consider himself an “activist,” he was obviously more steeped in the realities of social struggle than a large portion of the other detainees. We talked about our mutual experiences with police, shelters, group homes, and homelessness. We talked about how these experiences had politicized us, and how a person doesn’t need to understand party politics to be political. Every poor person is political, we agreed, just by nature of their experiences.
I realized at that point that I probably had more in common with him than I did with most of the other protesters. Unfortunate as it was, life had already acclimatized us to be treated like shit by the authorities. None of this surprised us. We were used to being beaten, having our rights stripped away.
After most of the detention center had been emptied, I was transferred to the general population at the women’s prison in Milton. While we waited to be processed in the holding cells, the other women and I laughed and joked, trading stories about how we’d ended up where we were. A lot of them were arrested and presumed guilty for unequivocal bullshit; for being homeless, poor, non-white, using drugs, working in the sex trade, or any combination of these factors. Others were arrested for crimes of necessity: for stealing food because they were hungry, or robbing a store to feed their young kids, for needing a way to pay rent. A few had been charged with assault after having fought back against abusive spouses. I told them my charges, and got a lot of hugs, high-fives, and congratulations. “Fucking right,” people said, slapping me on the back. “Fuck the rich bastards! Fuck the G20!”
Some people had been unclear as to what the summit had been all about, and we got into a long conversation about it. We all laughed, ranted, waited, and laughed some more. If these were the women with whom I’d be surrounded, I thought to myself, maybe prison won’t be all that bad.
My first days inside were largely spent adjusting to the prison environment, and as time went on, my new setting reminded me increasingly of the years I spent living on the street when I was a teenager.
On the streets, as in prison, you never get a decent night’s sleep or a meal that resembles real food. There are always a few arrogant people who think they run everything because they’ve been there the longest, and people in uniforms can do whatever they want to you and get away with it. In both situations, your status as a human being is revoked. Humanity is a privilege awarded to those who help perpetuate capitalism, and once you cease to do that, you’re a burden. You’re expected to express gratitude to the system that ghettoizes you, doling out a few table scraps and a thin blanket.
The first range I was sent to was renowned for being the least hospitable. We were locked in our cells for most of the day. Each had one bed, though the high volume of prisoners meant that two people usually shared a cell. The only windows were thin slats of frosted glass too opaque to see through, and we were allowed outside only once a week. “Outside” was a small walled concrete enclosure with metal grating for a ceiling. Through a small crack underneath the heavy steel door, I could see grass. It depressed me to look at it. I tried not to.
This was the range to which people were sent as punishment, for getting into fights, mouthing off to guards, being caught with contraband or generally failing to comply with prison regulations. If you were “good” you qualified for transfer to a medium-security unit, where you could go to a real outdoor exercise yard, have your own cell, and see visitors without a thick pane of Plexiglas separating you.
A lot of the women on maximum security had been on the same range for over a year. I met one woman who had been there for almost two; she’d never had a misconduct, but there was a note in her file stating that she would have to serve her entire sentence on maximum security. She came from a mafia family, she explained. Putting her on a medium security unit would have been an open invitation for any of her high-up friends to come break her out.
After visiting the classification office, I learned of a similar note in my file. “Apparently I’m a terrorist,” I shrugged, when people asked why I hadn’t been transferred yet.
I won’t say that I instantly got along with everyone on my range, or that I was the most popular prisoner. I didn’t pay attention to the hierarchies that existed between other prisoners, and some people had a problem with that. I wouldn’t join in when others ridiculed or ganged up on the less popular women. It was a total pecking order, and it reminded me too much of a schoolyard.
I became close friends with a woman named Rachel* whom I met in the common area during breakfast on a rare day when we weren’t on 24-hour lock down. She was violently ill from drug withdrawal, and the nurse hadn’t filled her methadone prescription. Apparently, her cellmate was a complete asshole, so we snuck her into my cell after the doors were buzzed open. The next guard that came by on her rounds started yelling at us, but we assured her that the other staff had transferred Rachel and forgotten to do the paperwork. I don’t think the guard believed us, but she didn’t seem to care enough to do anything about it.
When Rachel wasn’t too sick to make conversation, we passed the long hours of our confinement playing cards, singing tuneless renditions of R&B hits, washing our dirty uniforms in the sink and talking about life in general. She lived near Niagara with her partner, their four-year-old son, and their newborn daughter. She struggled with addiction, but still managed to keep her life together and be there for her kids. Her dad had been in and out of prison most of her life, and her mom had been drunk all the time. She’d spent her early teenage years working as a prostitute, and the crown attorney at her bail hearing had used this to argue that she was unfit to reenter society. It seems that when 13-year-old girls end up hooking on the streets it’s because they possess some moral defect, and not because life has given them no other choices.
Our cells looked out onto the common area, an oval-shaped concrete room. It contained five bolted-down tables, four showers at one end, a shelf with a few bad paperback romance novels, and three phones, only two of which functioned. When allowed into the common area, I went straight to waiting in line for the phones. Some women didn’t have anybody to call or only had relatives outside of the country; the phones only transmitted collect calls within North America. Other women gripped the phone receivers with white knuckles, trying to explain to their young children why mommy wasn’t coming home. Rachel said she had told her partner not to bring the kids when coming to visit her. “They’re just too young. They would only be confused by the Plexiglas in the visitor’s cubicle. Being able to see their mother, but not reach out and touch her.”
I thought of an article I’d read once about animal testing laboratories. One method the lab technicians used to create symptoms of stress and depression in mammals involved removing newborn babies from their mother, then placing the mother in isolation. I looked up at the florescent ceiling lights within their shatterproof wire cages. Soon, the nurse came and people lined up to receive their daily doses of sedatives and anti-psychotics—a precautionary measure, prescribed to virtually everyone, like cutting off the beaks of factory-farmed chickens to prevent them from pecking themselves, or each other, to death from the stress of confinement and isolation.
My views of the prison system solidified: prisons are little more than warehouses for concentrating the poor. Rather than being populated by the people most harmful to society, they are crowded with those who have been the most harmedby society.
Rather than being “correctional” facilities, they are a method of ridding the streets of those who act as living reminders of the crisis of poverty, the widening income gap, the future of hardship which may very well await many more in the coming years if something does not change. Prisons are a way of sweeping people under the rug. They are a way of pretending that nothing is wrong.
Very few of the women on my range had been imprisoned for any kind of violent crime, and most of those who did have violent charges had been defending themselves against abusive partners or assailants. Most of these women’s attackers had walked away without charges, free to roam the streets at their leisure.
The small portion of women facing violent charges not involving self-defense were often the survivors of past traumas; a history rarely taken into consideration by the courts that sentenced them. Much like the homeless community, a large portion of the women with whom I spoke were survivors of the lifelong onslaught of abuse perpetrated against poor and disenfranchised women by our society, particularly women of color. Many had been arrested for not having full citizenship, while others had been in the process of applying for refugee status. A disturbingly high number also lived with (dis)abilities like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Fetal Narcotic Syndrome, Schizophrenia, and ADD/ADHD.
These are women who have been bounced between abusive foster homes and youth detention facilities, graduating at 16 as wards of the Children’s Aid Society only to become wards of the State, criminalized for doing what it takes to survive the minefield of poverty.
As the days turned into weeks, I began to erase from my mind the hope of being released. The health problems with which I’ve been living the last few years became increasingly severe, and I often found it difficult to stand up or walk around without fainting. My ribs stuck out. My stomach became concave. I became depressed.
Was it stress, overly-processed food, or a general lack of fresh air and exercise that made me unhealthy? Probably some combination of all these things. Without even examining me, the doctor put me on a liquid diet, which in jail consists largely of juice crystals, water, and MSG-filled soup powder. When I was finally sent to the examination room I was told that nothing seemed to be wrong with me, regardless of the fact that I’d lost close to 20 pounds, felt tired constantly, and was in serious pain and discomfort.
I talked to my partner on the phone, but his voice sounded distant and crackly through the receiver. He came to visit me, and we pressed our hands to the inch-thick Plexiglas between us. It was almost harder than not seeing him. My mom sounded stressed whenever I called her, and I could hear my dog howling in the background at the sound of my voice through the receiver.
I needed to talk to somebody, but the prospect of being force-fed Thorazine dissuaded me from applying to see the psychiatrist. So I went to the prison Chaplain, for the sheer novelty. He was a square-jawed man in a gray suit, with the bearing of a Televangelist. He told me I was in prison because I had sinned, and that I had to repent for these sins. I was in my current situation because the Devil had led me astray.
“But Jesus was a political prisoner!” I said. “The Devil didn’t tell me to do anything; I’m a political prisoner like Jesus!” He thought I was crazy.
I was released after about a month on conditions of strict house arrest and non-association with some of my closest friends. All I felt was numb. I walked into the parking lot with my family and my partner, squinting under the bright sunlight. We drove back to the house where I lived as a kid and I slept for days. At first I felt fine. I could leave the house, if I was with my parents, to take the dogs for walks in the last of summer’s warm weather. I drank coffee, read a lot. People I’d never met sent me stickers and zines and nice letters in the mail.
Two months later I started having panic attacks, insomnia, and nervous breakdowns on an almost daily basis. When I did sleep, I had awful nightmares. It seemed as though every past instance of trauma and violence I’d seen or experienced had been consolidated into a heavy, poisonous lump, slowly turning my insides black and rotten. I felt like the world was just too ugly to live in. I was suffocating under the weight of clear-cut forests and floundering, tar-drowned shore birds. When I closed my eyes all I could see was torture and war, droughts and chemical spills, napalm.
All I wanted was to move past the negative experiences I’d had and work towards piecing my life back together. But I realized that the pain I felt was trying to tell me something: I would not be able to forget and move on as though none of this had happened. In a way, I think the disgust and pain we feel when we see or experience something horrific can be the greatest catalyst for creating positive change. When we experience something firsthand we are better equipped to understand it—and with that understanding we can educate others and give real support to those who are also experiencing it. We can see its flaws and weak points, and we can use this knowledge to criticize, discredit, and eventually destroy it.
Although I never heard this said firsthand, others told me they overheard quite a few young people say they’d never go to another protest again after their experiences at the detention center. I felt not only disappointed that everyone hadn’t been able to see the ways to reclaim these experiences and use them as further motivation, but profoundly confused by this perspective. What we went through during the mass arrests at the G20 was only a small window into the everyday experiences of countless minorities in this country who suffer police profiling, brutality, and prejudice within the legal system on a horrifyingly regular basis. As hard as I try, I simply can’t understand the notion that anyone could propose to be an ally of any marginalized group, then give up and turn away when faced with a tiny microcosm of what that group puts up with everyday.
My experience in prison and the women with whom I shared it have reminded me of the reasons I became politically active in the first place. They’ve reminded me of the sorrow, the desperation, the heartbreak, the trauma, the unlivable realities of poverty that first spurred me to get my life together and dedicate myself to helping others rather than accepting the conditions in which I lived. Being in prison reminded me of the core of my politics. At the bottom of it, we were all inside that prison for the exact same reason. We were dangerous only in the sense that our existence discredited Canada’s status as a place of liberty and equality. We were a glaring reminder that this country doesn’t offer equal status and opportunity to everyone.
Some political prisoners are arrested for staging public demonstrations that address poverty, and some are arrested for living in poverty. Some actively protest social inequality, while others turn to drugs or alcohol because they can no longer bear the brunt of this inequality. Some choose to publicly draw attention to injustice by their words and actions, while others are swept off the streets because their very presence is a public exposure of this injustice. Now is the time for everyone in our community to think about what it really means to say that every prisoner is a political prisoner. The next time we’re shocked and outraged by an experience of being targeted, harassed, or otherwise mistreated by law enforcement or society in general, we should stop to recognize how much respect we owe to the people all around us who face much more than that every day of their lives. Every prisoner is a political prisoner.
*All names have been changed to protect the identities of those mentioned.

Woman Asks Judge for Federal Time

Robber wants federal prison time to get treatment

Too common a scenario in Canada's courtrooms - where those being sentenced ask for more time than they would likely get in order to acquire treatment not available at the provincial level.  This is a particularly pressing issue for women who are provided far fewer "treatment" options in either provincial or federal prisons.

It sounds like Camille is encountering a particular form of violence at the facility which is currently holding her.  Again a far too common scenario for the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.  Doctors messing with the prescribed medications that a doctor or doctors outside the prison saw fit to prescribe to an individual.  Where pyschotropic medication for depression and anxiety are concerned it is extremely common for institutional doctors to ensure increased suffering by removing a prisoner (usually cold turkey) from a medication that was working well for her.  Thus increasing anxiety, hostile and aggressive behaviour and thus the stress level within the institution.  Totally unnecessary and done for the sole amusement of the perpetuator - in this case, institutional doctors.  

It does look as though the courts in St. Johns have seen fit to investigate this particular doctor and good for the brave women who spoke out from the inside!

Note:  if anyone has additional info. about this investigation I would love to hear more and write about it here!  j-sheryl@hotmail.com  or comment here

• 
  Camille Strickland-Murphy in provincial court in St. John's on May 24.

A surprise twist in the case of a 19-year-old who was to be sentenced Friday for a knife-point robbery she committed in April.

Camille Strickland-Murphy has asked Judge Pamela Goulding to give her more than two years in prison so she can go to a federal facility in Nova Scotia because she and her family fear she won't get the medical treatment she needs in her home province.
In May her lawyer, Peter Ralph, had suggested she be given a sentence of less than two years so she could serve her time in this province and be near her supportive family.
Crown lawyer Bill Carigan said Strickland-Murphy, who used a knife to rob another woman at a St. John's bank machine, should be sentenced to three years in prison.
Strickland-Murphy has dealt with mental illness most of her life.
The last time she appeared in court Ralph raised concerns that the psychiatrist at Her Majesty's Penitentiary, Dr. David Craig, would change her medication.
"I've been advised that Dr. Craig intends on changing my client's prescription while she is in custody, which is disturbing. Certainly, there is a number of psychiatrists who thought that a prescription for anxiety is important for her and she has been advised by Dr. Craig that he is going to stop that medication when she is in custody," he said on May 25.
On Friday, Ralph said that's exactly what has happened to Strickland-Murphy who has been in custody since her arrest.
Other inmates have complained in the past about Craig's prescribing practices.
His approach to medicating prisoners is currently under review.
In March 2011, the provincial justice minister ordered a peer review of Craig's work at the penitentiary but it hasn't reported yet.

Giving Birth in Shackles

Note from author: If anyone has knowledge of cases where this practice has taken place in Canada, women who want to speak out, news articles, or access to policy or practice documents where this practice is mandated could you please pass it along.  Though I read of the specific case below in the Toronto Star, the article itself seems to have disappeared and I can find no other references to this horror in Canada.
 
The shackling of women who are in labour and giving birth is positively medieval, and exceptionally cruel.  Only a monster could come up with such a practice.  Anyone who has given birth or supported a mother during this time in her life, knows that women in labour pose no security or escape risk.  It is for the benefit of both mom and baby that labouring mothers be able to move around, shift their weight, stand up, and walk around the birthing room if they feel the need to.  Restricting the womans movement can be dangerous for her and her baby.  Not to mention the egregious emotional harm being done to the woman - harm which is sure to last as long as her memories of the birth.

Though the below article is an American story, this is a practice which takes place in Canada as well.  It just happens to be much less reported on by mainstream or social justice media.  2 years ago in Toronto, a woman was shackled and cuffed while giving birth.  While she laboured cuffed to the bed and feet shackled together, the guard with the keys decided to go for a walk.  While he was gone the woman gave birth, the doctors were unable to find the guard to remove the shackles from her ankles and thus unable to put the woman's legs in stirups or to otherwise allow her to position herself to allow a normal birthing position.  It was difficult for the doctor to catch the baby and further endangered both lives.

Birthing Behind Bars: Fighting for Reproductive Justice for Women in Prison

This Mother's Day, take a few minutes to find out how you can help shape a society where no woman ever has to give birth while in shackles and chains.

May 10, 2012  |  

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"I never thought of advocating outside of prison. I just wanted to have some semblance of a normal life once I was released," statedTina Reynolds, a mother and formerly incarcerated woman. Then she gave birth to her son while in prison for a parole violation:

"When I went into labor, my water broke. The van came to pick me up, I was shackled. Once I was in the van, I was handcuffed. I was taken to the hospital. The handcuffs were taken off, but the shackles weren’t. I walked to the wheelchair that they brought over to me and I sat in the wheelchair with shackles on me. They re-handcuffed me once I was in the wheelchair and took me up to the floor where women had their children. 

"When I got there, I was handcuffed with one hand. At the last minute, before I gave birth, I was unshackled so that my feet were free. Then after I gave birth to him, the shackles went back on and the handcuffs stayed on while I held my son on my chest."

That treatment, she recalled later, was "the most egregious, dehumanizing, oppressive practice that I ever experienced while in prison." Her experience is standard procedure for the hundreds of women who enter jail or prison while pregnant each year.

Upon her release, Reynolds started WORTH, an organization of currently and formerly incarcerated women based in New York City, to give currently and formerly incarcerated women both a voice and a support system.

In 2009, Reynolds and other WORTH members took up the challenge of fighting for legislation to end the practice of shackling women while in labor in New York State. At rallies and other public events, formerly incarcerated women spoke about being pregnant while in jail and prison, being handcuffed and shackled while in labor, and being separated from their newborn babies almost immediately. Their stories drew public attention to the issue and put human faces to the pending legislation. That year, New York became the seventh state to limit the shackling of incarcerated women during birth and delivery.

Recognizing the power of women's individual stories to enact change, WORTH is launching Birthing Behind Bars, a project that not only collects stories from women nationwide who have experienced pregnancy while incarcerated, but also strengthens their capacity and ability to share their stories. Too often, issues of reproductive justice are separated from issues of incarceration. Birthing Behind Bars ties women's individual experiences to the broader issues of reproductive justice (or injustice) behind prison walls and helps push a state-by-state analysis of the intersections of reproductive justice and incarceration.

This past March, Arizona became the sixteenth state to pass anti-shackling legislation. Thirty-four states still have no legal protection for women who give birth while behind bars. In Georgia and inMassachusetts, formerly and currently incarcerated women, their advocates, and reproductive rights activists are currently pushing for legislation to prohibit the practice of shackling of incarcerated pregnant women during transport, labor, delivery and recovery. Stories of incarcerated women's pregnancies and birth experiences have proven to be powerful tools when educating the general public and confronting legislators to support such a bill.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe, a feminist, abolitionist and author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, issued a proclamation urging women to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. For Howe, Mother's Day was not a holiday simply for breakfast in bed, cards and flowers—it was a call for women to shape their societies at the political level.

This Mother's Day, take a few minutes to reflect on the reality of women who give birth behind bars. Then take a few more minutes to find out how you can help shape a society where no woman ever has to give birth while in shackles and chains.

Victoria Law is a writer, photographer and mother. She is the author of "Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women" (PM Press 2009), the editor of the zine Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison and a co-founder of Books Through Bars - NYC. Her latest book, "Don't Leave Your Friends Behind" (PM Press, Fall 2012) addresses how social justice movements and communities can support the families in their midst.Tina Reynolds is co-founder and co-chair of Women on the Rise Telling Her Story (WORTH) and an adjunct lecturer at York College/CUNY. She is a co-editor of "Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States" (UC Press 2010).

Prison Needle Exchange Advocacy Project

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (CHALN) Video 

As per their usual standard of high quality, thoughtful, prisoner rights advocacy in Canada and internationally, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (CHALN) have been working on an informational advocacy video which demonstrates the need for needle exchange in our jails and prisons.  The video project is part of CHALN's mandate to reduce harm for prisoners living with HIV/AIDS and for those at risk of contracting the infection.

Participating in the Project

 
I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in this project and did a filmed interview here in my home last Wednesday.  The fact that everyone was flexible and able to come to my apartment made things much more comfortable for me.  It also provided a backdrop of "normalcy" to the filming.  In other words, yes drug users also have families, homes, furniture, and photos of our loved ones!

Video Advocacy Team

 

CHALN has hired an exceptionally professional team with experience in social justice issues.  In fact they recently put together a video project for PASAN - the Prisoner AIDS Support Action Network, around the work PASAN does in advocating for prisoners who are HIV and/or HCV (hep C) positive.

Unsafe Drug Injection in Prison

 
The criteria for the video was that participants had injected drugs in prison.  What we talked about was my experiences of injecting in prison and how my family and I have been affected by the lack of sterile injection equipment.  Yes I have injected in jail, yes I used equipment that had been used by others (many others) and yes I was lucky, I did not contract HIV or HCV from those experiences.  Though I am HCV positive and I did contract HCV the very same way many women contract it... from sharing equipment with a trusted partner.  I naively believed that he would disclose to me (out of respect and care) if he were HIV or HCV positive. Silly me!  He was Hep C positive, he knew it, and he didn't tell me about it.  

What an asshole right?

Yes and No.  If there were not such a severe stigma associated with HCV and hence with disclosing, maybe he would'nt have been so scared to tell me.  Is fear of stigma and judgment a good enough excuse?  Not in my books, but it happens - alot.  
He, himself contracted HCV from injecting and sharing needles in prison.  If sterile equipment had been available to him and to others in his shoes maybe there wouldn't have been anything for him to disclose to me in the first place!

Rates of HIV and HCV Among Canadian Prisoners

Approximately 70% of those imprisoned in Canada have problematic drug use issues.  Injection drug users in general have higher incidents of HIV, HCV infection than the rest of the Canadian population.  This coupled with the lack of sterile injection equipment in prison ensures staggering rates of HIV, HCV infection rates among Canadian prisoners.  The HIV prevalence rate among prisoners is 10-19 times higher than the general population.  The HCV prevalence rate is between 19% and 40% higher than the general Canadian population.  
Studies conducted in 2005 at the provincial level throughout Canada found that between 33% and 67% of incarcerated injection drug users had shared equipment with other prisoners.  One Vancouver study found that as many as 21% of injection drug users had contracted HIV while in prison.

Human Rights Abuse

Is this a human rights issue?  You bet!  Does the government of Canada see it as such?  Not so much.  Particularly not the current conservative devils!  This fact should not prevent us from continuing to push and fight for drug abuse/drug use to be treated as what it is, a health issue, a coping mechanism, a reflection of mental health troubles, and not the individual moral corruption those without expertise or experience like to pretend it to be.  

Personal Experience with HCV Treatment

I was diagnosed with HCV about 10-12 years ago.  I have done little else by way of monitoring and/or treating it since then  I have however recently initiated HCV genotype testing and will be writing about my experiences with this process and the subsequent process of treatment if it is deemed necessary.  I will be participating in a program run by a community health centre in Toronto.  I chose this particular program because it offers a somewhat holistic approach to treatment.  What I mean by somewhat holistic is that the treatment is based pretty heavily on the medical model, but also offers individual and group counselling/support.  My first appointment is later this month.  I have already cancelled once and played phone tag with the program nurse for about a month after that.  Not sure if this was nerves or simply that other thing which causes me to cancel appointments and avoid people...depression.  In either case, I'm committed to attending the next appointment.

Ashley Smith's Mom Speaks at Fundraiser - Moncton

Coralee Smith, Ashley Smith's mother spoke to a crowd gathered in Moncton recently to raise money for local mental health service agencies.  She has and unfortunate and somewhat unique experience to share about mental health service provision in our very broken system.  I say somewhat unique because the kind of cruelty that her daughter experienced, being criminalised for mental health issues, denied effective and proper treatment, ignored or further endangered as a response to her issues ~ these are common occurrences in our healthcare and prison systems.  What has been more unique is the rightful publicity Ashley's situation attained.  Rarely is the system ever exposed as widely as it was after Ashley's death.  Rarely is there such a public outcry in the face of a prisoner death.  Ashleys was not the first and more than likely wont be the last instance where a person with serious mental health concerns has been imprisoned and then been ignored when in serious mental or medical distress, ignored and denied assistance right up to the point of their death.   

Perhaps the likelihood of future deaths and the possibility of waking people up before it occurs is one of the reasons why Coralee Smith continues to speak out.  Here is what she had to say as reported by the Canada East News Service;

Ashley Smith was destroyed by prison system: mother

CanadaEast News Service

Coralee Smith holds a journal from 2003, kept by her then 15-year-old daughter Ashley Smith, as she speaks at Women & Wellness at MacNaughton High School in Moncton on Saturday.

Published on February 5, 2012

MONCTON – Coralee Smith has a journal from 2003 kept by her then 15-year-old daughter Ashley Smith, in which the girl wrote touchingly about her "babies," the four children under age five she often babysat for Zalmen and Aida Stiefel and when Zalmen was the rabbi at Tiferes Israel Synagogue.
"She had a big soft heart," Ashley's mother recalled for an audience of nearly 500 at the ninth annual Women and Wellness event at Bernice MacNaughton High School. The event raises funds and awareness for the Canadian Mental Health Association in Moncton.

As most know, Ashley Smith was a troubled Moncton teen whose term of probation for throwing apples at a mail carrier eventually led to an accumulation of more than 100 charges and four years in custody, mostly for incidents that occurred while she was behind bars, mostly in isolation. She died while on suicide watch as guards looked on.

While Coralee Smith has spoken to reporters on a few occasions in the past, the speaking engagement in the MacNaughton High School auditorium stands out for the size of the audience who got to hear some of Ashley's family's story.
Coralee says her daughter also had an independent streak. When Ashley got her first two-wheeler, it had training wheels on it. After making sure she had the hang of it, Coralee and her husband Herbie Gorber let the little girl take advantage of the family home's two driveways, which were configured in a way so she could circle the house safely.

When Ashley disappeared out of sight and then failed to reappear around the far side of the house, Coralee went to look for her.
"When I looked up the other side of the house she was already getting the man next door to take off the training wheels for her."

For all her spunk, Ashley had some definite limits imposed on her growing up, her mom says. In the urban neighbourhood they lived in, where a higher incidence of crime is a fact and the heavy traffic in the area is a fright, the pre-adolescent Ashley usually had a set of concerned grown-up eyes looking out for her. She wasn't allowed to go to the playground by herself, or take her bike more than just around the block.

As she got older, of course, she was gradually allowed to take her bike on rides a bit farther from the family's home in Moncton's east end.
Soon, "cheese strings and granola bars and stuff like that," were disappearing from the Smith and Gorber household.

Eventually, about a year after Ashley first incarceration at a youth centre for the postal worker incident, she finally admitted to her mother where the snack foods had disappeared to. She used to bike down Moncton's Riverfront Trail to feed old Joe, a well known Moncton street person who lived under the old Gunningsvillle Bridge before it was demolished.

Coralee says she eventually ran into Joe outside the Irving Convenience Store in Dieppe after Ashley died in prison and took the time to ask if he remembered Ashley.
He said he did remember the dark haired girl on the red bike who brought him food and was his friend and asked why he hadn't seen her in a long time.
"I told him she passed away and Joe cried, so there were tears out there for Ashley."

Joe has not been alone in crying for Ashley Smith in the past four years or so, as details of her appalling life in prison and her death in front of prison guards who did nothing to stop it have emerged.

Tragically, Ashley Smith's cries for help have mostly been heard long after it was too late to save her. During the roughly four years she was incarcerated, it often seemed as if the old cliché figure of speech was actually true, that society had locked her up and thrown away the key.
Ashley was a troubled person before her incarceration, but her mother says her daughter was not suicidal until she faced an ever growing series of sentences for misbehaviour inside prison walls, sentences that she eventually realized (perhaps correctly) would never end.

Before things completely descended into hopelessness, mother and daughter talked about her coming home whenever they had the opportunity to talk.
"Ashley's biggest wish was to get home to her room, get in the Jacuzzi tub and to hold her dog." Coralee said. "Ashley did not willfully commit suicide."
She was in the youth centre for 36 months, 27 of which were spent in TQ.
Ashley Smith's Orwellian nightmare of imprisonment came with the requisite euphemistic jargon. TQ stands for "temporary quiet" a placid and pretty sounding name for what prisoners, those who actually have to do the time in TQ, call the hole.

"It's segreation, where you're segregated for 23 hours a day and maybe if you're on good behaviour, you get out for an hour a day. That includes shower, shampoo, brush your teeth time. "
Coralee says people shouldn't mistake segregation for prisons cells that inmates get to themselves, where they have a few amenities and are allowed to have books or buy televisions for companionship.

Segregation means you're in there with nothing but yourself and your cell, she said, noting that in many TQ cells the lights are on 24 hours a day until you even lose your sense of day or night. The only human contact is with the hand that pushes food through the slot in the door, light fare like sandwiches in the name of not providing the segregated inmate with cutlery. 

While we like to think of Canadian prisons having enlightened standards when it comes to basic rights like food, it's troubling to note Ashley's mother says her daughter lost 90 pounds in the last 11-and-a-half months of her life.
Her toilet paper ration was four or five sheets at a time, so even the basic dignity of maintaining her own hygiene was denied her. Ultimately, she was allowed no clothes other than a "suicide coat" a garment that made it difficult for her to even conceal her breasts, not that she ever got any visitors.

Coralee Smith asked her audience Saturday what they thought would happen were any of them to take their "15-year-old child and lock them up for three years and segregate them for 27 months. We're talking about a young girl who hadn't stayed out overnight except at her sister's, a young girl who hadn't gone to the movies on her own, just a young girl trying to grow."
Ashley turned 18 at the youth centre and though they could have kept her another year, they shipped her out to adult institutions, first in Saint John and then to the Nova Institution for Women in Truro.

"She had a couple good months there," Coralee recalls of Nova. "She had a psychiatrist who was working with her and she seemed to be doing all right. But while he was on Christmas break they shipped her out to Grand Valley Institute."
Grand Valley Institution is Kitchener, Ontario would ultimately be the last of the 17 facilities Ashley had been bounced to and from.
"Ashley's story is long and sad," her mother said with an audible sigh. "Those four years must have felt like 40, to be alone and in such dire straits."
Saying Ashley had, like most inmates, kept much of the horrors she was going through mostly to herself, Coralee said, "you only hear about the horrors after the fact ­- in our case, only after Ashley passed away."

Noti· g the two news documentaries made to date about Ashley's life and death both won prestigious Michener Awards, arguably Canada's most prestigious journalism awards for reporting in the public interest, Coralee said her daughter, "has raised some people's hearts."

But it (treatment like Ashley received) has to stop. It's still going on."
Coralee and Herbie recently donated $20,000 to assist programs to help women who have been incarcerated, a gift acknowledged by Kim Pate, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies who shared the stage with Coralee.
As for the Women & Wellness event, it raised $41,720 for a number of local mental health initiatives.

Herbie and Ashley's sister Dawna Ward were in the audience to support Coralee as she told her tragic story, Dawna in an ironic twist winning the evening's top prize, a package valued at $2,150.
Somehow, even as she continues to live the ordeal of coming to terms with Ashley's passing and the idea so many other Canadians battling mental illness are in prisons whose very conditions seem guaranteed to break the fragile further, Coralee Smith's natural warmth and wit shone through as she made her first ever speech to an auditorium full of people.

No one was expecting to laugh Saturday night, but a few times they did. Quite likely, because most have already heard so much of the Ashley Smith case these past four years and either hardened themselves to it or started blocking much of it out, most of the women in the audience probably didn't expect to cry. But many did.

"What Ashley went through none of us can begin to understand," her mother said. "There's not a person in this room, myself included, who knows what that little girl endured," she said. "I'm embarrassed to death to say this is Canada. And it's still going on."

Mandy Hiscocks - Prisoner, Activist

Wow - today as I was reading and looking around the Rabble.ca website, I came across Mandy Hiscocks blog.  Mandy is one of the people who were arrested and convicted on conspiracy charges during the G20 in 2010.  Though I visit Rabble often, I'm sorry to say today is the first time I have come across the blog posts by Mandy Hiscocks.  I like many of you care deeply about social justice, and about the inequality many of us face day to day.  I am passionate about making change or at least bringing awareness to the connections between class, racial, and gendered inequality and conflicts oppressed persons encounter at the hand of the criminal legal system.  Based on Mandy's story of the G20 and her blog posts regarding her forced involvement with the judicial system, I believe these are issues she cares deeply about as well.

Mandy is currently incarcerated at Vanier in the Milton superjail.  She is writing regular blogs about her experiences with the system and with the day to day stupidity and uselessness that is imprisonment.  She is situated in a strong position to bring us the public some analysis of systemic violence as it happens in the provincial prison system in Ontario.  I say her position is strong because Mandy already possesses an educated analysis of systems of oppression as they are applied in Canada and elsewhere.  Her education, her experiences with activism, with advocacy, have allowed her an important viewpoint of the world and the sometimes overt and often times insidious and covert methods of its impact on the vulnerable.  This viewpoint is one incarcerated and criminalised persons rarely hold, nor have most been provided any opportunity to have developed any kind of analysis regarding their lives circumstances.  Mandy seems to be well aware of this fact as well.

Her blog is an important read.  It provides us access to the inner workings of the jail system, its impacts on one Canadian woman incarcerated within, and a sound analysis grounded in social justice.

Here is the latest post and the Rabble link to her other posts.    sj, 2012

Bored but not broken: Liberation 

 The other day I opened a book appropriately entitled Liberation. On the very first page, written in pencil, was this:

Why I am here?
How long am I going to be here?
How do I get out of Prison?
Who put me here?
Who do I speak to, what do I say?
Who will help me?
What do I need?
What type of help do I need?
Where do I go? for help.
When do I get out?
When does someone tell me what I am supposed to do?
I can't imagine how it must feel to be that isolated and disoriented in a place like this. When I got here, I'd been preparing myself for two months -- lots of time to get comfortable with the idea of incarceration, to put plans in place, to find out much of what I needed to know. I'm fortunate, and privileged, to have tons of community support and friends who are skilled organizers with a lot of resources and access. All of that has made it pretty easy for me to get my bearings and transition into life on the inside.
But it's not like that for everyone here. There's a lot of uncertainty. I can hear it constantly in snippets of conversation as people walk around the range, talk to their lawyers on the phone, and ask anxious questions to guards, nurses, social workers -- anyone who might know anything that could help them. I've met people who don't know what exactly their next court date is for, or if their their surety should be there, or why their lawyer didn't show up to represent them, or why they're being deported.
The legal system is not user-friendly, and there's no reason for that. I think there should be an orientation to the process for people just getting to jail. A regularly offered class, like the workshops on anger management, substance abuse, healthy relationships and so on that they run here -- or just a handbook. Hmm... I sense a project coming on, anyone interested in working with me on this?
As I think I mentioned in my last post, my "Earliest Discharge Date" is Dec. 3, 2012. That's two-thirds of my 16-month sentence which will be all I'll serve as long as I "earn full remission and protect it by proper behaviour"... how's that for condescending? Most people end up serving no more than two-thirds of their sentence, it seems that improper behaviour has to be pretty bad (but don't quote me on that, I don't know for sure). Because the Crown has not asked for a period of probation following sentence, on Dec. 3 I will be completely out of the clutches of the criminal "justice" system.
If I fail to act appropriately, I could be held past Dec. 3 but no later than May 12, 2013, which is my Warrant Expiring Date and marks the end of the 16-month sentence. Let's not think about that.

That brings me to the last important date: June 22, 2012, which is my Parole Eligibility Date and marks one-third of my sentence. Despite rumours to the contrary, which I'm sorry to say I helped spread before arriving here, parole is available for people doing up to two years less a day in provincial jails and isn't only for people serving longer sentences in federal penitentiaries. In fact, if your sentence is six months (181 days) or more, your right to a parole hearing is automatic. If it's less than that you have to apply in writing but it's still possible.
The person to talk to about parole is the institution liaison officer (ILO). One is available at every institution. The ILO I spoke to was very nice, and explained that her role is to give me all the information I need and then to help me prepare for a hearing. She gave me some pamphlets to look over which were very informative and slightly condescending, and a Parole Planning Guide which was slightly informative and very condescending.
If you're interested in how parole works in provincial jails, check out www.opb.gov.on.ca
For now, in case you're thinking that me getting out on parole this summer sounds like a good idea and/or remotely possible, here are some of the highlights:
-  The parole board "wants to discuss your offences with you and how you plan to keep yourself from committing a crime in the future." They want to see remorse, of which I have none.
-  "The board will focus on whether or not your release will pose an undue risk to society" -- yes, that's important because I was such a threat before -- and "whether or not your release will help you to become a law abiding citizen." Pardon me while I laugh uncontrollably for a moment.
-  One of the "things you can do to increase the likelihood of parole" is "think about the decision you made that got you into trouble with the law and what you need to do to increase your chances of staying out of trouble if you are released." <sigh> so many things to say about this, and they all lead to PAROLE ELIGIBILITY FAIL.
But here's the real kicker: There are six mandatory standard conditions that come with parole. If I breach any of them or am "convicted or charged" with another criminal offence before the end of my full sentence in may 2013, my parole could be suspended. I could be forced back to Vanier to serve the rest of my time, which could even be extended past the 16 months if they decide not to count my time out on parole as time served. The conditions are:
-  Report to your parole supervisor and local police as required;
-  Remain in Ontario;
-  Get permission from your parole supervisor before changing address or employment;
-  Carry your parole certificate at all times
Okay, so far so good, I suppose I could accept those, but the last two are:
-  Obey and the law and keep the peace;
-  Not associate with any person who is engaged in criminal activity or who has a criminal record unless approved by your parole supervisor.
Now there's absolutely no way, after what happened to Alex, that I trust the cops or the crown attorney's office to not have me arrested on some bogus charge or breach and have me thrown back in here just because they can. As for non-association conditions, I don't expect I'll ever sign those again. It's hard to believe they're constitutional (I suspect they're actually not) but easy to believe they're designed to rip targeted communities apart, one conditional release at a time. Of all the mistakes I made since my arrest in the summer of 2010, agreeing to non-communication with my co-accused is the one I regret the most.
So thanks but no thanks. I've decided to waive my right to a parole hearing so that when I walk out of here I will not be on any conditions and won't be bound to the criminal "justice" system in any way.
This post is titled "Liberation" so I'll end with a shout-out to Erik, who's spending his first week out of jail as I write this. Of course, being freed from incarceration is not real freedom... none of us will have real freedom until we get our shit together and decide what we're willing to give up for it. But you all know that already.
In solidarity, with much love and thanks for all your letters,
mandy :)

This post was orignally published on mandy's blog: bored but not broken.

Comments

Former Prisoner Reflects on Life in Prison for Women on One Year Anniversary UN Guideline for Treatment of Women in Prison

UN Guidelines on the Treatment Of Women in Prison - 1 Year Anniversary

On December 21, 2010 the United Nations adopted “Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders” or the Bangkok Rules. The document can be examined at http://www.ihra.net/files/2010/11/04/english.pdf – beginning on page 9.

Some of the measures which are particular to women and addressed in the rules are:
  
Arrangements for Minor Children
That women be allowed to make arrangements for their children at time of arrest and that if she is unable, suspension of her detention must be considered. This rule states that women be permitted themselves to ensure their children have adequate caregivers, and not that the state place these children in state care as the first and only option. 


Incarcerated Near Home and Family  
Women are to be imprisoned close to their homes and families. 


Hygiene
They are to be provided items necessary for hygiene, 


Healthcare
Women are to have access to gynecological care, with a female healthcare provider if she wishes. 


Violence 

Women disclosing incidents of violence against them are to be provided legal and psychological counselling. 


Oppressive Prison Routines
a)  Alternatives to strip searches should be developed and implemented in order to avoid possible psychological and physical harm.


b)  Pregnant, breastfeeding, or women imprisoned with children are not to be placed in solitary confinement and no woman is to be denied access to family visits - ever. 


c)  Women in labour, and giving birth should never be put in restraints. 


Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):
I personally don't feel that any of these rules goes far enough in seeking the protection of women in places of confinement, but the provision restricting the shackling of women in labour or giving birth should be expanded in particularly obvious ways,

No pregnant women, disabled women, women undergoing surgery or other medical procedures, women in pain or injured, or women with any significant health issues should be placed in restraints.  I would even take this a step further and mandate that no women be placed in restraints at all unless immediate and unquestionable harm to the woman or others would otherwise take place.  I would expect that circumstances involving immediate and unquestionable harm be spelled out as well.

Because we are talking about an international treaty I think its important to know the differences between rules, conventions, principles, guidelines,  and declarations when we are examining the specifics of any international agreement to be used in advocating for the human rights of any person.

Treaties are agreements between international states whereby responsibilities are taken on, and written into law. Conventions, once ratified are usually seen to have the force of international treaties, however they are not always legally binding. This depends on the language of the agreement and those made between member states at the time of signing. For instance, The Geneva Convention included requirements that member states write the convention rules into their national laws.

Rules, principles and guidelines on the other hand are strictly, suggested practices and are not legally binding.

The Independent, a UK media agency produced the below findings from a survey which they carried out to mark the one year anniversary of the “Bangkok Guidelines”. While the results are disturbing they are not at all unusual in most men's or women's prisons anywhere in the world, including Canada. 
I have included that article below and in blue writing I go over the abuses raised in more detail as they come up within the article and compare these to what I know of Canadian institutions.

Force-fed and beaten – life for women in jail

New UN guidelines are being flouted worldwide, Independent on Sunday research shows

Female prisoners around the world are being subjected to body cavity searches, beatings and force-feeding, are held in padded cells, shackled during childbirth, and made to work in chain gangs. Some of the worst conditions are in developing countries, but there are also serious abuses and overcrowding in Europe and North America. These are the major findings of a survey by The Independent on Sunday to mark the first anniversary of United Nations rules governing the treatment of women in prison.

The "Bangkok Rules" make stipulations about contact with families, gender-specific healthcare, psychological treatment and hygiene, and they forbid strip searches in most circumstances. The guidelines were adopted on 21 December 2010, but reports from around the world show they are being widely flouted.

In Greece, for example, prisoners have been offered a choice between a vaginal search and solitary confinement on a course of laxatives.

Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):


First of all I don't get the application of laxatives in lieu of an internal vaginal search. Unless I'm mistaken women, like men, poo out their ass and not the vagina. So either both rectal and vaginal searches are carried out upon entry into the prison or the forced prescribing of laxatives is strictly punitive and can't even be argued to be for a purpose of any kind.

Secondly, while I've never heard of people being forced to take laxatives in Canadian penal institutions, we do subject people to what's called “dry celling”. Anyone who has been subjected to this practice can speak of the inhumanity of it. Prisoners suspected of holding drugs or weapons (or even tobacco and matches) can and will be held in a dry segregation cell. This means no access to water for any reason until a sufficient number of bowel movements have been examined. No water for drinking, bathing, or even to wash your hands after peeing, pooing or changing sanitary napkins. Besides the potential health consequences in not being permitted to wash your hands, its a simply disgusting practice. Then there is the wonderment of the bathroom facilities themselves. As stated there is no water, also no sink, and no toilet in many cases. Prisoners must squat, on camera into an open hole in the floor. The contents of your bladder and bowels will then be examined by staff. And they won't give up easy. Prisoners have been held in these conditions for weeks and I wouldn't be surprised to hear of cases lasting longer than that.


Violence Encouraged by Prison Staff 

Chinese prison officers encouraged inmates to tie each other up and fight.

Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):


In Canada, hated prisoners are set up by guards to be beaten by other prisoners. You may guess at some of the usual victims vulnerable to this practice. Guards don't like rapists and child predators any more than the prisoners do.
But also making you vulnerable to this kind of retribution are things like getting away with something. If for instance your drug package didn't come out in the dry cell, but the minute your back on range, the whole place stinks of pot... well some screws are apt to take this personally. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can see you made vulnerable to retributive beatings as well.  A means of ensuring you keep your mouth shut or be subjected to more of the same.  Making complaints about your treatment by staff is a no no too.
Other prisoners are recruited to look after all these kinds of things. But guards are not beyond laying a beating on you themselves as well.

Shackling Pregnant and Birthing Women


In Turkmenistan, prisoners are shackled to their beds as they give birth - a practice that is also legal in most of the United States.

Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):


A practice that is legal in Canada, Australia, and many other places all over the world. 2 years ago in a Toronto hospital a woman was left labouring with her legs shackled together. She could not open her legs to allow the doctor to catch the baby during delivery and the guard could not be found to remove the leg irons. Anyone who has been in labour or even accompanied a woman while she laboured knows that this woman is not going anywhere and further she is a danger to no one. This applies for most women prisoners in labour or not. Anytime a prisoner is in substantial medical distress, pain or injury, they should not be shackled – period.

South African prisoners complain that they run out of water on an almost monthly basis.


Male Guard on Female Prisoner Violence


A Russian male deputy prison governor was jailed for beating female inmates with his fists and boots.

 Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):


 Yes boys and girls it happens here in Canada too. Its important to understand that prisons operate around a mentality of sadism, violence, and abuse. Guards demonstrate how tough, how adept and ready for the job they are, through brutality. The more sadistic a guard is, the more likely they will be promoted. I have witnessed male guards punching and kicking female prisoners. Also common is for a prisoner to be moved to solitary so that a group of guards can kick the shit out of her. Usually when I have heard of this happening or been around to actually hear it happening – It will be female guards on female prisoners or male guards on male prisoners. But not always.

Rape victims have been jailed in Afghanistan for having extramarital sex. And women's prisons from Russia to Canada, France to Australia have been condemned for their appalling living conditions and inadequate mental and physical healthcare.


Increasing Rates of Female Incarceration
 

Just as alarming is the steep rise in the number of women being jailed. More than 500,000 are in prison around the world.

Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):


  Common stats throughout the “free” world. Many European nations, North America, and Australia have all seen similar increases. In fact many statistics in these countries are disturbingly similar where women are concerned. 80% of female prisoners have experienced sexual abuse in childhood; 2/3rds of women are mothers, 2/3rds or mothers were sole support parents on their arrest; 70% admit substance use issues; most were unemployed when arrested, and educational attainment is often below grade 10.

In the US alone, there are now eight times more women in prison than 30 years ago. Fiona Cannon, who chairs the Prison Reform Trust's Women's Justice Taskforce, said women's prisons are now seen as "stop-gap providers of drug detox, social care, mental health assessment and treatment, and temporary housing". Self-harm and suicide are far more common among female prisoners than male, relatively few women are in jail for violent crimes, a majority have children, and many are drug addicts or victims of sexual abuse.

At Johannesburg Women's Prison, cells typically contain one toilet, one sink, one shower and as many as 40 people. Prisoners are locked in from 2pm to 8am. "People can kill each other before they unlock the cells," Duduzile Matlhabadile, a former prisoner, told The IoS. "You don't know what's going to happen. It's not safe in there." Ms Matlhabadile, who served 12 years for armed robbery and homicide, recalled an incident in which a woman threw boiling water over a fellow prisoner; it took two hours for the guards to come and open the doors. She said her cell would often be without water for two days at a time.

A former judge inspector of prisons in South Africa, Deon van Zyl, last year called the country's prison conditions "shockingly inhumane". Campaigners at the Wits Justice Project, which investigates problems in South Africa’s justice system, say the Department of Correctional Services has ignored their requests to gain access to prisons since February, adding that anecdotal evidence indicates conditions have not improved.

In northern Turkmenistan, inmates at the Dashoguz Women's Prison colony are reportedly handcuffed to the bed from both sides while giving birth. The baby is given away and the woman returns to forced labour a day or two later. More than 2,000 women are housed in a colony built for 1,000. Fights break out when food is handed out: black bread, porridge and a thin soup made of bones, cotton oil and pumpkin make up the daily diet.

The EU has its share of horrors, too. Greece's Thiva Women's Prison is an hour north of Athens. A former detoxification centre, it has the bleak atmosphere of a converted warehouse. Its dormitories each hold six bunk beds and a couple of single beds. A communal area features a concrete floor, dark green walls and little else; the exercise yard contains no equipment or shelter. Messages are conveyed to inmates via a loudspeaker.


Excessive Internal and Strip Searches
 
Vaginal searches are conducted there, as in other women's prisons in Greece. Until earlier this year, prisoners who refused a vaginal examination on arrival were placed in a segregation unit for several days and made to take laxatives. Authorities say vaginal searches are now undertaken only in exceptional circumstances and are now done by trained doctors, rather than by nursing assistants. They say laxatives are no longer administered, but monitors from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture confirmed that the practice was still going on when they visited in January.

In France, strip searches are more or less routine, and inmates' letters seen by The IoS complain about being made to adopt degrading positions. One pregnant woman was told to lift up her breasts while being searched before being permitted to see her family in the visiting room.

Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):


  This is routine everywhere as far as I know. Men and women are strip searched routinely. If you are coming or going to court, having a visit – coming or going, when cells or common areas are searched, so are prisoner bodies. I would say 2-3 strip searches per week if attending court is pretty average. And if you are sentenced and not having regular family visits, then I would expect to be stripped at least a couple times a month.

Lifting breasts, bending over, squatting and coughing, spreading cheeks, being told to remove tampons - these are all common routines of a strip search. So is removing false teeth, and prosthetics, standing on one foot to show the bottom of the other, lifting arms to show your pits, removing any piercings – etc, etc. Plenty of discriminatory abuses occur during body searches with regards to people with physical limitations or disabilities.


Denied Access to Gynecological Care or Conversely, Forced Access

But the real problem in France's prisons is healthcare. In the mixed-sex Nîmes Prison in southern France, for example, there is no facility for gynecological examinations, which means that no preventative consultations are done.

Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):


Conversely in Canada I have heard of young underage women being coersively subjected to internal and breast exams as part of a court ordered psychological examination. It was presented as a service which they could take advantage of if they wished. However because the girls were being held in custody until court ordered psychological exam was satisfied, girls felt they would be viewed as oppositional if they refused any part of the court ordered stipulation.

In England and Wales, conditions are far more benign, but the number of women in jail has increased from 1,800 in 1996 to 4,100 now. More than half of female prisoners say that they have suffered domestic violence, 37 per cent have previously attempted suicide, nearly 40 per cent left school before 16, and one in three have experienced sexual abuse. More than two-thirds of female prisoners have children, which means, according to Home Office research in 2003, that prison deprives nearly 20,000 children of their mothers each year. And judges do not take into account whether a defendant is a primary carer. "It's deeply ingrained in judges that a child must not be an excuse to avoid imprisonment," said Rona Epstein, who has studied 47 cases in England and Wales where judges have ignored the rights of the child.


Overcrowding

The situation in North America is worse. The California state prison healthcare system has been in federal receivership since 2006. To get healthcare and living conditions to a constitutional minimum, the state has been ordered to reduce its prison population by 33,000 over the next two years. In the meantime, supplies of medicines and sanitary products are limited, and under-staffing means prisons are in lock-down mode.

Author, Former Prisoner (sheryl jarvis):


A common occurrence this side of the US border as well. Facilities are often understaffed and overcrowded. Under-staffing leads to ongoing and continuous lock-downs which see prisoners forced to remain in overcrowded cells. Most times one person cells hold 3 prisoners, requiring one person to sleep with their head directly in front of the toilet. Prisoners are denied access to services guaranteed in the Canadian Charter or enshrined in other law. Such as the right to 1 hour of outdoor yard time per day, the right to access family visits and telephone calls, the right to legal counsel, adequate healthcare, and the right to be safe from disease and violence, among others. Left untreated and unaddressed these conditions emulate that of a pressure cooker. The heat increases until pressure eventually blows the top off. Its dangerous for prisoners and for staff. It is getting worse as we speak and expected to worsen further still with the passing of Bill C10.

Two-thirds of education staff have been laid off in the past two years, and all the while the prison population continues to rise.

The state's two biggest female prisons are both in the desert town of Chowchilla. Valley State Prison is designed to hold 2,024 people and is currently housing 3,810. Central California Women's Facility is holding 3,918, far more than its 2,004 capacity. Cells originally built for four people are holding 10. "We've never, ever had the reports of violence among peers that we're seeing now," said Cynthia Chandler, the director of the women's campaign group Justice Now. "People are dirty, their cells are dirty, they're bleeding on themselves, they're emotional and in a state of despair. It's creating conditions inside a pressure cooker." And, across the border in Arizona, female chain gangs are made to bury the dead and clear wasteland in the desert heat, in a scheme introduced by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in June.

Andrew Coyle, director of the International Centre for Prison Studies at London University, said: "Scandinavian practice in general terms is better than in many other countries. That's because they put fewer people in prison, and the consequence is they can run them more decently and humanely. The criminal justice system is kept for those who need to be locked up for the sake of society.

"Reducing re-offending is a false target. It's based on the premise that sending someone to prison makes them less likely to commit crime. In fact, one of the strongest predictors of future offending is being sent to prison. We know the solutions: more community-based facilities and putting women in small units close to home. The answers are there. They're just not being implemented."