Ottawa mum about a proposal to treat mentally ill female offenders

OTTAWA – Behind the high fences and red brick walls of the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre may lie the answer to one of the toughest problems facing the federal corrections system – what to do with mentally ill female offenders.

This secure treatment centre in Brockville, Ont., may look like a prison from the outside, but on the inside it’s more hospital than jail.

The 100 beds inside the centre, which is run in partnership with the Ontario government and the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, treat 250 male offenders suffering from mental illness each year.

The men are patients as much as they are inmates. Psychiatrists and nurses, not guards, are the primary source of contact. Inmates live in rooms with hospital beds instead of jail cells.

And for the men treated at the facility, the difference has meant a 40 per cent drop in recidivism rates.

Three years ago, the Royal proposed a similar 50-bed centre for female inmates to the federal government.

But it has had no response from the Correctional Service of Canada, even as the inquiry into the prison death of 19-year-old Ashley Smith has led Ottawa to reconsider how it treats mentally-ill offenders.

“This tragedy continues to show that individuals with mental health issues do not belong in prisons, but in professional facilities,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said in the House of Commons in November.

First jailed at the age of 15, Smith racked up years of jail time for in-custody incidents. The troubled teen choked herself to death in October 2007 at a federal prison as guards stood by.

The Royal’s proposal promises to overcome the challenges raised by Smith’s stay in federal custody, but neither Toews nor the CSC seem interested in acting on it.

Both Toews and Commissioner Don Head of the Correctional Services of Canada turned down interview requests from Global News on this story. In separate statements, Toews said he can’t talk about specific proposals, while Head said he has had discussions with the Royal without coming to an official agreement.

It is estimated that nearly one-third of all federal female inmates suffer from some form of mental illness – illnesses the Royal wants to treat in a hospital, not in jail.

“This is not a correctional facility,” said Dr. AG Ahmed, the associate chief of forensics at the Royal’s Brockville Mental Health Centre. “We are talking about a health environment where the care of the patient is the primary focus, the primary direction that we take.”

Ahmed said in prisons, symptoms of these mental illnesses can be misinterpreted as bad behaviour by guards who are focused on the inmates’ correctional needs. At a health care facility, these behaviours can be treated as part of the mental illness – a step Ahmed said is necessary for correctional rehabilitation.

“If you do not treat the mental health problems it becomes difficult to engage such individuals in their correctional activities or programming that will reduce recidivism,” he said.

The proposal has found an ally in Conservative senator Bob Runciman, who comes from Brockville, and is pushing the Senate to study the issue.

Runciman said he is puzzled why the federal government isn’t jumping on a proposal that could save hundreds of thousands of tax dollars, reduce crime and possible save lives.

“This is an answer waiting for a serious response,” he said. “It’s been a true success story (at St. Lawrence) and I think that can be translated into the federal system as well.”

A study done by the Royal suggests recidivism rates could drop by 30 per cent and $12 million in tax dollars would be saved by the proposal.

The federal government said it has invested $90 million into mental health for prisoners, but advocates still point to a lack of resources available for women.

There is only one 18-bed mental health institution available for women in maximum security, but maximum security exactly where most mentally-ill female prisoners end up, according to Kim Pate of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.

“The reality is the way most women prisoners get classified as maximum security is (based on) how they adjust to a prison. People with mental health issues do not adjust well to a prison. Most of them end up in isolation, segregation,” she said.

Pate said that every individual Elizabeth Fry Societies have gotten out of a prison cell and into a mental health bed has done measurably better in just 24 hours.

And the needs just keep growing.

“What happened with Ashley is really just the tip,” said Pate.

Canada’s correctional investigator has pointed to at least 11 inmates who are in a mental health crisis and Pate is working with at least four such women. The Royal had to turn down requests for help from nine female inmates this year alone.

“We need one not just in Brockville. We need one in each province and territory, so we are not seeing people who really need health care put in prisons where they are ill-equipped to deal with them,” Pate said.

Pate sent a letter of support for the Royal Ottawa’s proposal in September, but has received no response from Toews.