PRISONER WRITES FROM THE PROVINCIAL PRISON FOR WOMEN

Recently my life has taken some interesting turns to places I really thought were long behind me forever.  I was arrested and held for 25 days at Vanier (provincial jail for women in Milton) before an amazing and true friend who lives what she believes in, bailed me out.  I wrote a little about my experience below.

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

Parent of Murdered Child Speaks Out Against Bill C10

I urge people to read the following thoughts about tough on crime rhetoric and its history of ineffectually addressing community harm.  Its an eloquently spoken critique of the omnibus crime bill by the parent of a murdered child.
Retrieved from: http://cpcml.ca/Tmld2011/D41121.HTM#7

Victim Advocacy Group Emphasizes Need for Social Programs Not "Law and Order" Approach to Crime

Posted below are excerpts from the presentation to the Justice and Human Rights Committee hearings considering Bill C-10 by Wilma Derksen, Founder, Victims' Voice Program and Past Coordinator, Mennonite Central Committee Canada.

***

[...] I am here on behalf of the Mennonite Central Committee [... h]owever, I will be speaking to you as a parent of a murdered child. I am also here because the issues you are addressing are extremely important to me and my family.
My daughter Candace was 13 years old when she was abducted and found murdered six weeks later. We lived for two decades without knowing the details of what happened. I not only know the horror of murder, but I am also intimately acquainted with the aftermath of violence. From the beginning, I began working with other victims, and I learned that the emotional aftermath can be as threatening as the crime itself. It does and it can destroy us.
The attention focused on this bill reminds me very much of the time when Candace first disappeared. All I could think of was the murder and the need for justice and safety. It was very difficult for me to think or talk about anything else, but I had to learn. I had two other children who were alive and I had a husband who needed a loving wife. If I had waited for justice and safety, I would have had to wait for a very long time -- life would have passed me by.
I am still involved with other victims of crime. Two weeks ago, I was with a group that spent most of the evening analyzing the problems of our justice system. We were wallowing in our pain, not always being politically correct, as one member put it, but allowing each other to speak freely.
At the end of the evening, I asked them what they would do to create justice in the country. To be honest, I expected that they would suggest changes to our criminal justice system similar to the bill that we have before us today. I thought they would prioritize safety at all costs, propose stiffer sentences, and advocate for victims' rights.
They didn't. As we went around the circle, they all agreed that the answer to crime is to put more emphasis on the school system and other social programs. While not denying that we have to maintain prisons, they insisted that we as a society need to put our energy and creative thinking into giving our young people a better education and a better life.
I could share equally compelling stories from my work with offenders. My experience in the way my family and I chose to respond opened up opportunities to visit many of the prisons across Canada, from William Head Institution in B.C. to Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick.
I am thrilled to report that this last February we saw our own case finally brought to justice. For the first time, we actually heard the story of what had happened to our daughter, but the sentencing of the man who murdered our daughter did not satisfy our deep longing for justice. In some ways, we had already found justice in the joy of the good things that had come out of Candace's death and in the support of our community of friends.
The trial brought out the truth, and it was the truth that healed us and set us free, not the sentencing. I still find no satisfaction in thinking that the man will be sitting in prison for the next 25 years. There is nothing life-giving about that. It's just sad. And it's going to cost us probably $2.5 million.
In this short time I can't begin to give you a comprehensive critique of the bill, but I do want to register my concerns with the potential for unintended consequences. For example, even though it sounds wonderful to enshrine the victim's voice at Parole Board hearings, I also worry about this. Are we going to be putting pressure on victims? Could we be locking some victims and offenders together in a dysfunctional dialogue for the rest of their lives?
Perhaps we need to include the victims at the beginning of the process, mapping out their healing journey at the same time as we are sentencing the guilty. Perhaps this should be at the discretion of the judge. We can think about these things creatively.
Furthermore, I wonder if we can afford to focus so many of our scarce resources on mopping up the past so that there are only crumbs left for the living, who are struggling to find hope for the future. As the Minister of Justice rightly noted earlier this week, the Government of Canada is funding many creative community-based justice initiatives that address the root causes of crime, support victims of crime, and help ex-offenders reintegrate into the community. I would ask that you assign a greater proportion of your attention to this good work. [...]

Canada: Champion of Human Rights? or Torture State?

There are many forms and means of torturing prisoners as it occurs in the North American and more specifically in the Canadian context. Torture is illegal in Canada and prevented by several bodies of law including the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA), which mandates prisoner treatment, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Canada has also ratified international agreements which prevent us from engaging in torture on any level, including turning a blind eye. [UN Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners ; Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)]. Despite this fact, we have witnessed many examples over the years and especially since 9/11 where politicians and others in positions of power excused or re-classified torture as something less than torture.

The Canadian government, mainstream media, and even much of the Canadian public have been complicit in Canada's involvement in the torture of prisoners abroad (Mahar Arar, Abousfian Abdelrazik, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin, Ahmad El Maati, and Afghan detainees, all of whom were handed over to torturers by the Canadian government and our allies).  And complicit in the torture of prisoners here at home (Ashley Smith, Donald Marshall Jr., David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin, Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, Zakaria Amara)

 Mahar Arar

Ashley Smith

To guard against the practice of torturing prisoner's we have built in rights and protections for the treatment of prisoners in western society.   Despite this, there is little oversight, access to, or supervision of prisoners, guards, and other staff in the prison setting. What goes on behind those walls is for the most part closed to the public view.  Even with legal protections and codes of conduct built into the system, prisoners who protest run the risk of making things much worse for themselves inside.

Muddying the waters further is the fact that what constitutes torture is never really spelled out with any adequate or effective detail in law, rules, or conventions. Much is left open to interpretation. And some policies and procedures for dealing with non-compliant or mentally ill prisoners, are in fact forms of torture.  However they may not be considered so by law. And in those cases where the courts would likely rule practices to constitute torture, the courts are never given a chance to do so because it is too expensive and too dangerous for most prisoners to persevere and take their cases to a judge.

A UN report (2010), which investigated accusations that NATO countries, including Canada, had turned over Afghan detainees to certain torture, defined torture as occurring “when State officials, acting in their official capacity inflict or order, consent or acquiesce, to the infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering against an individual to obtain a confession or information, or to punish or discriminate against the individual."  

We can see from this particular definition that much is left open to interpretation. And interpretation is known to morph, shift, and change as societal attitudes change, new governments take power, etc.

For instance when considering what causes metal anguish or suffering, one must concede that it varies from person to person and from time to time. Depending on a persons physical and mental health to begin with, pain or suffering may begin much earlier in the process than with  healthier persons. Not only does the point at which pain and suffering begins vary from person to person, but interpreting it or understanding the presence of it can vary from one torturer to another.

So how is torture determined in Canada?

Overt forms of cruel and unusual punishment which few would or could argue, not to be torture, are acts of violence causing serious injury that maims, or kills.

Less overt forms of pain and suffering that are subject to argument and contention, both in Canadian law and in the minds of the Canadian public are routines like arbitrary and frequent strip searches, various degrees of sensory deprivation, like that which occurs in solitary confinement, long periods without adequate food and water, refusal to provide effective treatment and pain medication for serious illnesses like cancer and HIV/AIDS, caging 2 or 3 people to a 1 person cell, the use of loopholes to extend a persons stay in solitary (like that which was done to Ashley Smith), and the use of “dry” cells, etc.

Even less clear in defining what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment are policies which deny pain relief and treatment for non-lethal but severe and chronic medical conditions, cutting off treatment for Trans-gendered prisoners undergoing hormonal therapy, not allowing Trans prisoners to self identify their own gender, not providing prisoners basic supplies to maintain hygiene, conducting late night cell searches, denying the minimum allowable by law for yard, phone, and shower time, etc.

I believe that whether these repugnant prison routines constitute torture or not in the minds of politicians and the Canadian people would become very clear if they themselves or a loved one were subjected to such treatment.

I have been denied medical attention and pain relief myself in jail. I have also witnessed many others suffering needlessly. I can assure you it is a form of torture and that there is no good reason for it. Imagine suffering some injury, broken bones, a severe allergic reaction, or any kind of intolerable pain. Now imagine that there is not one damn thing you can do about it. You can't get up and take yourself to hospital, or call yourself an ambulance. You can't call your family physician and have a script sent to the pharmacy. There is no opportunity to knock on a neighbour's door and ask for or even purchase something for pain relief. You can't grab some ice from the freezer in hopes of just taking the merest edge off. There is no helping yourself to some ibuprofen or taking some of those leftover oxy's you have from an earlier treatment. You won't be getting up to distract yourself with TV, a book, or to pace back and forth.

I spent several months, hours each day, and  up through the long, long nights rocking myself quietly back and forth because I could do nothing else. It was the worst kind of painful hell imaginable. I can hardly describe the feeling of utter hopelessness, frustration, and despair at being denied the basic human right to look after ones own body, your own needs. At being locked in this place with your life and well being in the hands of ill trained, indifferent, and uncaring staff, some of whom will be the most psychotic, masochistic people any of us have ever had the misfortune to meet.

I was eventually given basic medical treatment for a straight forward, easily treatable medical issue. I was not provided a choice about which treatment I wanted and I would have chose other options had others been open to me.  For this privilege I had to wait 3 months.  Others wait much longer.  And some prisoners are never provided relief from the torture or from their torturers.

• The Fifth Estate on Ashley Smith

           www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/out_of_control/9 Jan 2010

           www.cbc.ca/fifth/2010-2011/behindthewall/

• Cruel and Unusual:
  US Film surrounding the issue of being Transgender in prison. With interviews of US prisoners.   (on Youtube)

• Justice Behind the Walls. For a story on solitary confinement from the 70's in Canada which changed some of the law surrounding how long someone could be continuously held in solitary.  http://www.justicebehindthewalls.net/book.asp?cid=770

• Canadian Prison Law I found the below court case on a web site called Canadian Prison Law (http://www.canadianprisonlaw.com/ccra/inmates.htm) which looks at among other things prisoner treatment, solitary confinement, and strip searches. I've included one court case where a prisoner brought a challenge under both the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and the Canadian Charter. He challenged the use of restraints which are not permitted as a form of punishment, but to be used for inmate or staff safety only.
• Issue of Restraint in MacPherson v. Regina

CCRA 68. Instruments of restraint - No person shall apply an instrument of restraint to an offender as punishment.

CCRA 69. Cruel treatment, etc - No person shall administer, instigate, consent to or acquiesce in any cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment of an offender.

Judicial Consideration:

MacPherson v. R - (1996), 106 C.C.C. (3d) 271, 48 C.R. (4th) 122, 177 N.B.R. (2d) 1, [1996] N.B.J. No.182 (N.B.Q.B.T.D.)

A prisoner in a provincial jail was granted a habeas corpus application where a court found that he was the victim of the use of unreasonable and excessive force and illegal actions by jail guards. Videotape evidence revealed that while occupying a bare cell, the prisoner repeatedly kicked his cell door in an attempt to get the attention of the guard to allow him to call a lawyer. Several guards then strapped the prisoner for two to three hours face down onto a stretcher and placed a hockey helmet and wire mask over his head. The court found that the prisoner was strapped to the stretcher as punishment for creating a disturbance, rather than for reasons of his own protection or protection of others. It was held that he was a victim of cruel and unusual treatment and arbitrary detention in violation of his rights under s12 and s9 of the Charter. The court then asserted that if M were a federal prisoner subject to the CCRA, the way he was mistreated would also invite consideration of s68 and s69 of that Act.