by J Metcalfe | Nov 16, 2020 | News, News Releases, Uncategorized
Burnaby BC
Today, the West Coast Prison Justice Society and Prisoners’ Legal Services (PLS) released Solitary by Another Name: The ongoing use of isolation in Canada’s federal prisons.
The report identifies ways that the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) continues to routinely keep prisoners in solitary confinement, or solitary-like conditions of isolation, sometimes for months on end, despite Canada’s claims to have eliminated the use of segregation.
The report focusses on prisoners’ experiences at Kent Institution, where prisoners are subjected to extensive isolation. Kent Institution frequently uses “lockdowns,” where prisoners on certain units or in the entire prison are confined to their cells all day, often only getting out for a 15-minute shower and phone call, sometimes for weeks at a time. The reasons for lockdowns are often for administrative reasons, rather than for true emergencies.
Kent Institution has also implemented a restrictive movement routine, which kept prisoners who had not secured institutional jobs or spots in programs or school, locked in their cells for all but three hours per weekday. During the pandemic, the routine has been modified to allow prisoners out for an additional hour on weekdays, which is not a significant improvement especially when other services are restricted.
One anonymous Kent prisoner describes this isolation: “I feel completely messed up spiritually and mentally. I spend my time just thinking about what I will do when I get out of my cell. And then I get so agitated that by the time I leave my cell, I get extremely irritated when people talk to me. When we get out of our cells, everybody is on edge, like me, and I feel like I have to watch my back.”
The report also describes prisoners’ experiences at Mission Medium Institution, which was locked down for more than two continuous months when prisoners tested positive for COVID-19. All Mission prisoners were held in total isolation for the first eight days, and were held in extremely restrictive conditions of solitary confinement for the rest of the lockdown, including for weeks after there were no active cases of COVID-19.
November 30, 2020 marks the one-year anniversary of the implementation of Structured Intervention Units (SIUs), which were introduced to replace CSC’s unconstitutional segregation regime. Solitary by Another Name describes many prisoners’ experiences in the SIU at Kent Institution over the past year as involving the same isolation and lack of meaningful human contact that they experienced in segregation. The report details obstructionism by Kent which denies prisoners the right to counsel in SIU reviews.
Often people with untreated mental health needs that are exacerbated in the prison environment end up in maximum-security and SIUs. Indigenous people, who may have been impacted by multi-generational trauma and are often further traumatized by the colonial prison system, are also overrepresented in maximum security and SIUs.
Solitary by Another Name recommends legislative limits on the use of isolation, with more investment in independent healing professionals. It recommends prisoners with serious mental illnesses be transferred to community-based hospitals where they can receive mental health care in a therapeutic environment. The report further calls on Canada to significantly increase funding for Indigenous-run healing lodges.
“With no significant investment in alternatives to SIU, such as Indigenous-run healing lodges or units that would actually provide a therapeutic environment for people with mental health disabilities, CSC will continue to keep vulnerable prisoners in conditions of isolation.” – Jennifer Metcalfe, Executive Director, Prisoners’ Legal Services
Prisoner accounts in the report make it clear that CSC will not be able to reduce its reliance on isolation unless its toxic staff culture changes. PLS calls for an external review of staff culture at all levels within CSC to develop a plan to change the culture of corrections that would respect the dignity and human rights of prisoners.
“It is well acknowledged that isolation causes serious harm to mental health, yet CSC continues to subject prisoners to this draconian practice.” – Jennifer Metcalfe, Executive Director, Prisoners’ Legal Services
The full report is available here.
Media contact:
Jennifer Metcalfe, Executive Director, Prisoners’ Legal Services
604-636-0470
jmetcalfe@pls-bc.ca
by J Metcalfe | Aug 17, 2020 | News, News Releases, Uncategorized
Burnaby, BC – Today, Prisoners’ Legal Services (“PLS”) called on Correctional Service Canada Commissioner Anne Kelly to convene a formal investigation into the abuse of a federal prisoner being held in solitary confinement.
Thirty-one year old Shane Yukich has been diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. He is described as having delusions, paranoia and auditory hallucinations. He is certified under the BC Mental Health Act but, instead of being held at a treatment facility, he is on “extended leave” at Kent Institution, a maximum security prison, where he has been held for the last approximately eight weeks in the Structured Intervention Unit, which replaced administrative segregation in November 2019. He describes spending most of the day alone, pacing back and forth in his cell.
Recently, another prisoner reported to PLS that officers take advantage of Mr. Yukich’s mental health disabilities to harass and abuse him, speaking to him in a language they know he does not understand, leaving him in feces-covered cells, and denying him access to legal counsel.
A copy of the letter can be found here.
The following can be attributed to Jennifer Metcalfe, Executive Director of Prisoners’ Legal Services:
“The leave provisions of the Mental Health Act are meant to allow psychiatric hospital patients to reside in the community if their doctor feels it would be therapeutic and beneficial to them. Using it to send a patient to a maximum security prison where they are held in solitary confinement is unjustifiable.
“Mr. Yukich’s circumstances demonstrate that without adequate external oversight, abuse of vulnerable prisoners runs rampant. This situation occurs after many months of Kent Institution obstructing prisoners’ right to counsel generally, including by cancelling our segregation clinic – which was designed to identify and remedy situations just like Mr. Yukich’s.
“We call on Commissioner Kelly to immediately convene an investigation under section 20 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act into Mr. Yukich’s circumstances and the broader issues they raise around prisoner abuse and interference with the right to counsel at Kent Institution.”
Media contact:
Jennifer Metcalfe
jmetcalfe@pls-bc.ca
604-636-0470
by J Metcalfe | Jul 31, 2020 | News, News Releases
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
by Web Master | Jun 20, 2019 | News, News Releases, Uncategorized
Today, Prisoners’ Legal Services called on the governments of Canada and British Columbia to take immediate and dramatic action to address the crisis of the over-representation of Indigenous prisoners.
Click here to see our open letter to government.
We make this call to action with other leaders in the legal community, including the Canadian Prison Law Association, the Indigenous Bar Association, the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association, the Alberta Prison Justice Society.
by J Metcalfe | Jun 17, 2019 | News, News Releases
Burnaby BC
Today, the West Coast Prison Justice Society and Prisoners’ Legal Services (“PLS”) released Damage/Control: Use of force and the cycle of violence and trauma in BC’s federal and provincial prisons. The report analyzes law and policy governing the use of force by correctional officers in light of interviews with over 100 federal and provincial prisoners and makes 87 recommendations for change.
The report highlights the stories of 21 people who were subjected to acts of force in the custody of BC Corrections or Correctional Service Canada (“CSC”), including federal prisoner Joey. Joey, who like many people in custody has a history of trauma, began self-harming in prison as a coping mechanism. Because of his self-harm, Joey has been pepper-sprayed and forcibly removed from his cell by the Emergency Response Team, a group of officers in riot gear with pepper spray and shields. He has been isolated in empty, filthy cells with the lights on 24 hours per day and officers sitting outside threatening to pepper spray him if he hurts himself. Joey says these experiences were so traumatic that now, when he worries the Emergency Response Team is coming, he often waits with a razor blade to his throat or a noose wrapped around his neck.
“Joey’s case exemplifies the psychological harm done to prisoners when officers repeatedly rely on force. Using force rather than a therapeutic response has done nothing to stop his self-harm and only exacerbates his distress and thoughts of suicide. This terrible cycle indicates how misguided, counterproductive, and dangerous it is to use a punitive response against traumatized and vulnerable prisoners,” said Nicole Kief, Joey’s PLS legal advocate and the report’s author.
The report finds that both CSC and BC Corrections officers use force in response to prisoners in emotional distress and as a tool to coerce compliance, even when there is no immediate risk to safety. It argues that relying on physical force in these circumstances creates an adversarial environment that compromises safety and wellbeing for both prisoners and staff.
“This report is designed to bring prisoners’ stories to the forefront and highlight the way even ‘justified’ uses of force can create environments of mistrust, trauma and fear,” said Ms. Kief. “Eliminating acts of force, as far as possible, is to the benefit of BC Corrections and CSC, as well as to the people in their custody.”
As part of PLS’s review, BC Corrections made internal materials available to PLS, including video footage and internal reports about many use of force incidents. “We commend BC Corrections for their commitment to transparency and accountability,” said Ms. Kief. “It is unfortunate CSC was not equally transparent.” The report calls for greater public accountability when officers use force, recommending the BC Investigation and Standards Office review every use of force against prisoners in BC Corrections custody. It also calls for prisoners’ voices to be heard in use of force reviews and for prisoners to have access to their personal information when force is used against them.
The report also examines the role of prison medical professionals, who check prisoners for injuries after officers use force. “We found that policies fail to ensure prison medical staff meet their ethical obligations to act with undivided loyalty to their patients and to document and report signs of ill-treatment,” said Jennifer Metcalfe, PLS’s Executive Director.
The report makes 87 recommendations for change, including:
• Using force only when necessary to prevent imminent harm to a person, and never to coerce compliance.
• Limiting Emergency Response Teams to emergencies involving imminent threats of serious physical harm, such as hostage takings or riots.
• Providing officers with in-depth training on working with people with mental health disabilities, particularly when they work at treatment centres, on mental health units, on segregation units, and as members of Emergency Response Teams.
• Creating specialized officer-nurse teams to respond jointly to situations involving emotional or medical distress, following police-health partnerships in the community.
• Developing and expanding mechanisms for prisoners with serious mental health needs, including those who chronically self-harm, to reside at community psychiatric facilities.
• Authorizing the Investigation and Standards Office to review every use of force in BC Corrections facilities.
To view the report, click here.
Media contacts:
Nicole Kief, Legal Advocate
604-636-0470
nkief@pls-bc.ca
Jennifer Metcalfe, Executive Director
604-636-0470
jmetcalfe@pls-bc.ca
by Web Master | Feb 28, 2019 | News Releases
February 27, 2019 – Burnaby – Prisoners’ Legal Services
Today, Prisoners’ Legal Services (PLS) filed an injunction in federal court on behalf of Joey Toutsaint, a federal prisoner with serious mental health issues who has spent more than 2,000 days in segregation in Correctional Service Canada custody. Mr. Toutsaint is currently in segregation at Saskatchewan Penitentiary, where he is self-harming on a regular basis and says he thinks of suicide almost every day. The injunction argues he is at risk of death if he is not transferred to a treatment centre.
“It is unconscionable that someone with Mr. Toutsaint’s mental health issues would be held for so long by the government in conditions the United Nations considers torture or cruel treatment,” said Nicole Kief, a Legal Advocate at Prisoners’ Legal Services. “If he isn’t considered inadmissible to segregation, it is hard to imagine who would be.”
Mr. Toutsaint is an Indigenous man from northern Saskatchewan who grew up on the Black Lake Denesuline First Nation reserve. He experienced trauma as a young person that continued during his time in prison. He spent several years at Edmonton Institution, now notorious for its culture of fear, intimidation and bullying, where he suffered both physical and sexual violence. Mr. Toutsaint was recently diagnosed by an independent psychiatrist with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder.
Mr. Toutsaint has a very lengthy history of self-injury, which includes cutting, head-banging, punching himself in the face, choking himself and biting himself. He has been on suicide watch numerous times and placed in restraints to prevent him from hurting himself. He has been OC sprayed and confronted by guards in riot gear (known as the Emergency Response Team) in response to his self-harming. In May of 2018, he slit his throat, severing his jugular vein and suffering extensive blood loss.
“My body is covered in scars. I used to cut from side to side, but now I go up and down because I’m running out of space. I used to take out my anger on other people, but now I take it out on myself. I feel broken,” Mr. Toutsaint said. “When I worry that the Emergency Response Team is coming, I wait with a razor blade to my neck. I’ve been through that so many times and I can’t go through that again.”
In June of 2017, a CSC psychologist found that Mr. Toutsaint’s mental health was deteriorating in segregation. An independent psychiatrist also concluded, in October of 2018, that Mr. Toutsaint’s psychiatric problems were greatly exacerbated by his isolation and that being in solitary confinement was making him more suicidal.
Despite these findings, Mr. Toutsaint has continued to be placed in isolation, where he continues to self-harm on a regular basis. CSC mental health staff have repeatedly found him fit to remain in segregation.
“Mr. Toutsaint’s case illustrates the need for independent health care services for prisoners in Canada. Why does an independent psychiatrist consider him to be clearly suffering from major mental illnesses and at risk of suicide in segregation, while CSC health care professionals consider him fit for segregation?” said Jennifer Metcalfe, Executive Director of Prisoners’ Legal Services.
Mr. Toutsaint has made numerous requests to be transferred to a treatment centre to get help with his mental illnesses and his self-harming. These requests have gone unanswered.
In May of 2018, PLS assisted Mr. Toutsaint in filing a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission about discrimination on the basis of his mental disability and his Indigenous identity.
Today’s injunction asks the court to move Mr. Toutsaint to the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon and provide him with meaningful treatment for his trauma and loss as well as access to Dene traditional practices, arguing that failure to do so would place him at high risk of life-threatening self-harm and even death.
Media contacts:
Jennifer Metcalfe
jmetcalfe@pls-bc.ca
604-636-0470
Nicole Kief
nkief@ps-bc.ca
604-636-0470
