BURNABY, BC – July 31, 2020 – Today, Prisoners’ Legal Services (“PLS”) filed a human rights complaint on behalf of Nicholas Dinardo, a 28-year-old member of the Piapot First Nation, against Correctional Service Canada (“CSC”).
Nick has a history of trauma and their family are residential school survivors. They have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and have attempted suicide many times. Their acts of self-harm have sometimes been so severe that they have required blood transfusions.
“Instead of responding to Nick’s needs with therapeutic and culturally appropriate mental health and healing services, CSC’s primary responses have involved force and isolation,” said Jennifer Metcalfe, PLS’ Executive Director. “[Their] experience is emblematic of how CSC treats Indigenous prisoners, who have often experienced multi-generational trauma tied to colonialism and are more likely to be classified to maximum security, held in isolation, and have officers use force against them. These kinds of responses only serve to further traumatize people who are already suffering, and continue Canada’s legacy of genocide against Indigenous peoples.”
Nick’s emotional distress has been met with extreme force, including the Emergency Response Team (akin to a riot squad), pepper spray, tear gas and batons. Officers recently shot them in the face with a rubber bullet. “At a time when Canada is reckoning with police brutality against racialized people and the harm done when police respond to emotional crises, CSC must also stop responding to emotional distress with violence,” said Ms. Metcalfe.
Nick has also experienced long-term solitary confinement in CSC custody, including an approximate seven-month continuous placement in 2012. Most recently, they were in a “structured intervention unit” (“SIU”) for approximately three months, where they rarely left their cell. SIUs were introduced in November 2019 to replace administrative segregation.
CSC also places Nick in small isolation cells where it monitors prisoners at risk of suicide or self-harm. Prisoners on suicide watch are often deprived of clothing (they must wear “suicide smocks”), belongings, diversions to help occupy their minds, and meaningful human contact. Sometimes Nick does not even have a mattress to sleep on. “One hour can feel like a whole day when you’re in conditions like that,” says Nick. “A weekend can feel like forever and it makes me feel hopeless. It makes me feel worse than I did before and want to kill myself more.”
Even at CSC treatment centres, which are supposed to be therapeutic, Nick has been isolated and antagonized by correctional officers. Nick remember officers telling them they hoped Nick would die.
“Despite the overwhelming evidence and acknowledgement by Canadian courts that solitary confinement causes serious psychological harm, CSC continues to isolate prisoners already at risk of suicide,” said Ms. Metcalfe.
An Independent External Decision Maker who reviewed Nick’s SIU placement concluded: “[t]here is a strong probability that, should serious intervention not be taken, [Dinardo] will die in jail as a result of a successful suicide, or that [they] will enter back into society with the same issues that brought [them] there.”
In 2019, PLS released an analysis of how correctional officers use of force in federal and provincial prisons in BC, based on interviews with over 100 prisoners. The report found that officers were frequently responding with violence to prisoners with mental health disabilities and prisoners in emotional distress, which results in trauma for prisoners and creates an adversarial environment that compromises safety for everyone. The report called on CSC to transform its approach to crisis intervention. CSC did not respond to the report’s recommendations.
Nick’s complaint builds on a representative human rights complaint filed by PLS in 2018, which alleges that CSC discriminates against prisoners with mental health disabilities. This case was recently referred to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Click here to see a copy of Nick’s complaint and here to see a copy of the representative complaint.
Media contact:
Jennifer Metcalfe
jmetcalfe@pls-bc.ca
604-636-0470