Prisons to end rare solitary-confinement protocol for women

The Correctional Service of Canada says it will soon abandon a rarely used, but highly controversial program that allows female inmates deemed "high risk" to be placed in segregation for indefinite periods.

The service has also acknowledged that two women are still being treated with the "management protocol."

Prisoners in the program can find themselves held in isolation for months at a time, with severe restrictions on their movement. The government introduced the program in 2003 following a series of violent incidents at prisons, including hostage-takings.

Critics have said that such prolonged isolation can be "psychologically crippling" to a prisoner. Earlier this month, a civil-liberties group filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Saskatchewan woman serving time in a B.C. prison, alleging that she was kept in solitary confinement for the better part of three years. It called the practice "cruel, inhuman and degrading."

Suzanne Leclerc, a correctional service spokeswoman, declined to comment on the lawsuit. However, in an email to Postmedia News, she said the government is committed to "moving away" from management protocol and that a new approach "should be implemented in the spring of 2011." She declined to offer details about the new approach.

She did note, however, that of the seven women across Canada who have been subjected to the protocol since 2003, only two remain.

Canada’s correctional watchdog said while he is pleased the government is moving away from the practice, it’s something that should’ve happened a long time ago.

In his 2008-09 annual report, Howard Sapers, the correctional investigator of Canada, said the program should be "immediately rescinded."

"I have very serious concerns about the impact of this form of harsh and punitive confinement on the mental health and emotional well-being of these women," he wrote at the time. "They need intervention and treatment, not deprivation."

Sapers says rather than taking a blanket approach to dealing with the small group of high-risk female inmates, the government ought to provide a more individualized response that takes into account each of their "complex needs," particularly their mental-health needs.

Segregation, he adds, should only be used in exceptional cases, for very limited durations, and for well-defined reasons.

Those recommendations were echoed in a May 2010 report produced by the correctional service following a series of consultations with various experts.

There seemed to be a consensus, the report said, that the correctional service needed to be more flexible when dealing with problem inmates and that the current policy of "zero tolerance" toward aggressive behaviour was too rigid and didn’t take into account the fact that it takes time for offenders to unlearn certain bad behaviours.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association threw itself into the debate earlier this month when it filed a lawsuit on behalf of BobbyLee Worm, who is serving a six-year, four-month sentence for robbery and assault at B.C.’s Fraser Valley Institution.

According to the claim, Worm, 24, was placed in segregation in 2008 after getting into fights with other inmates and was confined to a 2 1/2-by-three-metre isolation cell for up to 23 hours each day with very limited access to counselling services, despite suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

It wasn’t only until November that Worm was finally allowed to interact with other inmates again, said Grace Pastine, the civil liberties association’s litigation director.

The lawsuit alleges that the practice of indefinite solitary confinement is unconstitutional, depriving inmates of their charter rights to liberty and security and subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment.

It asserts that the rules for getting off the management protocol are vague and that it can be "exceedingly difficult" for female prisoners to earn their way back to normal prison conditions.

Further, the association claims prolonged solitary confinement "can create mental illness where none previously existed and can exacerbate pre-existing illness, ultimately leaving individuals more damaged."

dquan@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/dougquan