PLS’ 2022 submissions to the BC Finance Committee
On September 2, 2021, Prisoners’ Legal Services presented to the BC Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. You can read our written submission here.
NEWS RELEASE: Two-Spirit prisoner files human rights complaint over violence and harassment in federal prisons designated for men
BURNABY, BC – August 19, 2021 – Today, Prisoners’ Legal Services (“PLS”) filed a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission on behalf of Nick Dinardo, a 29-year-old Two-Spirit and transfeminine member of the Piapot First Nation, against Correctional Service Canada (“CSC”).
Since coming out to CSC last year, Nick has been repeatedly transferred between institutions designated for men, where they have experienced violence and harassment from both officers and other prisoners and have frequently been isolated in Structured Intervention Units (which replaced administrative segregation).
Nick has been repeatedly subject to physical force by correctional officers, and in May 2021 officers broke Nick’s arm. Officers have discussed Nick’s gender identity openly, putting Nick’s safety at risk. Both prisoners and staff have called them transphobic slurs.
Nick has often declined opportunities to come out of their cell because they fear officers will use violence against them again. Nick has not showered in approximately two months as a result. Nick has also been subject to indignities including having male officers watch them use the toilet and repeated searches by male officers, in violation of CSC policy.
These experiences are extremely traumatic for Nick, who has a history of trauma and abuse and whose family survived residential schools.
“CSC has written that it is seeking specialists in gender identity disorder for me, but my gender and culture are not a mental disorder”, Nick says. Nick’s complaint argues that not being able to live freely and safely as a Two Spirit person is a consequence of colonization and genocide against Indigenous peoples.
Nick’s requests to transfer to an institution designated for women, where they would be safer and more able to express their gender, have been denied. In making its decisions, CSC has not considered the risks to Nick’s safety and wellbeing nor their experiences of victimization in institutions designated for men.
“Nick should not have to live with a constant threat of violence hanging over their head from the people charged with their care and custody, and in conditions that regularly undermine their dignity,” said Jennifer Metcalfe, Executive Director of Prisoners’ Legal Services.
In July 2020, Nick filed a human rights complaint against CSC for failing to address their mental health needs and for responding to their emotional distress, including acts of self-harm, with violence and isolation, including officers in riot gear, pepper spray, restraints and bare isolation cells, which serve only to exacerbate their suffering. This complaint is ongoing.
Media contacts:
Jennifer Metcalfe
jmetcalfe@pls-bc.ca
604-636-0470
Nicole Kief
nkief@pls-bc.ca
604-636-0470
News Release: Report exposes Canada’s use of widespread isolation in its prisons
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
NEWS RELEASE: Prison Justice Advocates Call for Formal Investigation into Abuse of Man with Mental Health Disabilities Held in Solitary Confinement
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
PLS calls for decarceration during COVID-19 pandemic
Prisoners’ Legal Services is among many organizations and individuals calling on provincial and federal governments to reduce incarceration to prevent the spread of COVID-19 inside prisons. You can read our letter to government here:
20200319 – Call to Reduce Incarceration During COVID-19 Pandemic
Call to action on the eve of National Indigenous Peoples Day
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.