{"id":190865,"date":"2021-02-28T18:26:09","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T15:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/houses-of-hate-how-canadas-prison-system-is-broken\/"},"modified":"2021-02-28T18:26:09","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T15:26:09","slug":"houses-of-hate-how-canadas-prison-system-is-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/houses-of-hate-how-canadas-prison-system-is-broken\/","title":{"rendered":"#Houses of hate: How Canada&#8217;s prison system is broken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#Houses of hate: How Canada&#8217;s prison system is broken<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n                                                                        Michael Ignatieff was staring right at the Prime Minister. \u201cI worked in a prison when I was a younger graduate student,\u201d he said. \u201cI worked with lifers. I\u2019m utterly unsentimental about criminals, but one thing I know about prison: It\u2019s that prison makes almost everybody worse who\u2019s in there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was a rare personable moment for Ignatieff, who normally has the air of a university lecturer, and it came in the middle of the televised leaders\u2019 debate. \u201cYou\u2019re going to end up with more crime problems, not less,\u201d Ignatieff said, imploring Stephen Harper to drop his $13 billion plan for stiffer prison sentences and megaprisons. His hands held aloft, in front of the television cameras, he said it\u2019s high time for an \u201cadult solution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a decade since that debate. Today, with COVID-19 running rampant in prisons (nearly one in 11 federal inmates have contracted the virus, despite assurances from Ottawa that everything is under control; five have died) and new reports that inmates are still being tortured through the use of solitary confinement (in violation of both court orders and the government\u2019s own laws), things seem worse than ever.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, by nearly every metric, found in a veritable mountain of reports from Correctional Services Canada and its watchdog, the Office of the Correctional Investigator, our penal system is badly broken.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Our prison system is dangerous: There were five murders in Canadian prisons last year, making the homicide rate in our prisons 20 times higher than Toronto. In a year, correctional officers deployed force more than 2,000 times. More than 60 per cent of prison staff were subject to physical violence. The Correctional Investigator reports \u201cthere is no overall strategy that specifically and intentionally aims to prevent sexual violence in Canadian federal penitentiaries.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Our prison system is racist. There are more than 12,500 inmates in our federal system: Nearly one-third of them are Indigenous, eight per cent are black. Upwards of three-quarters of the prison population in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are Indigenous. Black and Indigenous inmates are both twice as likely to be subject to use of force, more likely to be classified for maximum security, more likely to be involuntarily put into solitary confinement, and less likely to be paroled.<\/li>\n<li>Our prison system is falling apart. Many prisons ought to be condemned and torn down. Four are more than a century old, and another two are nearly that old. The infrastructure is crumbling and the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> running the prisons is antiquated.<\/li>\n<li>Our prison system is warehousing people struggling with their mental health. It is estimated that at least 10 per cent of inmates meet the criteria for fetal alcohol syndrome, 80 per cent have substance abuse issues when incarcerated, while some 45 per cent have anti<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> personality disorders.<\/li>\n<li>Our prison system is eye-wateringly expensive. Correctional Services Canada (CSC), with its $2.6 billion budget, is the 15th largest department or agency by spending \u2014 it is larger than the CBC and Department of Justice combined. Ranked by the number of staff, it is the sixth largest department. It costs CSC $110,000 per year to house each inmate, with about three-quarters of that number going to employee costs.<\/li>\n<li>Our prison system isn\u2019t even working. All available evidence shows that our prisons are doing little to reduce crime, and may even be increasing it. More than 40 per cent of all inmates released are returned to custody within two years, usually on parole violations. About a quarter of all those released from prison are convicted of a new offence within those two years, although most charges are non-violent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is just federal prisons. There are another 39,000 Canadians sitting in provincial jails, most awaiting trial.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past year, <em>Maclean\u2019s<\/em> has spoken to dozens of current and former inmates, consulted a host of correctional officers, support staff and lawyers, and consulted thousands of pages of Access to Information documents. It all reveals a racist and discriminatory system that is in crisis. We, as a country, are warehousing our social ills, while offering little in the way of self-improvement, rehabilitation or redemption.<\/p>\n<p>It proves exactly what Michael Ignatieff told us a decade ago: Our prisons make things worse. The only people who still believe this system works are our feckless politicians.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard not to feel like history is repeating itself.<\/p>\n<p>Many Canadians, when asked to imagine our prisons, may immediately conjure up the scene of Agnes MacPhail touring Kingston Penitentiary, immortalized in the Heritage Minutes which saturated Canadian television through the 1990s and 2000s. In the spot, MacPhail, the first woman elected to the House of Commons, glares, shocked, at the sight of inmates being whipped mercilessly as they are hanged by shackles from their arms. When MacPhail stands in the\u00a0 House to highlight the injustice, she faces sexist heckling from the government benches. Undeterred, she slaps a crop onto her desk and cries: \u201cIs this normal?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In reality, MacPhail had to spend years hammering the government before it sought even modest reforms. She cited report after report from the government\u2019s own watchdog, raising the alarm about those inhumane conditions. She lamented the over-incarceration of Canadians, the pittance the inmates were paid for their manual labour, and the solitary confinement cells that inmates were thrown into indefinitely. Worst yet, she said, the prisons didn\u2019t seem to be reducing crime at all. \u201cThere is something radically wrong with a system that produces such a condition,\u201d she told the House in April, 1935. She was consistently ignored. Government MPs regaled the house with stories of how things were just fine in those prisons.<\/p>\n<p>MacPhail wasn\u2019t the only one. Austin Campbell, jailed for financial misdeeds in the lead-up to the stock market crash, wrote the \u201cHouse of Hate\u201d column for this magazine from inside the Kingston Penitentiary throughout 1933. \u201cI have watched men during the last few weeks and days of their time,\u201d he wrote of the solitary confinement cells. \u201cMen who were decent fellows all the long months went to pieces in the last few days\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nearly a century ago, MacPhail lamented that Stony Mountain Institution, in Manitoba, was dangerous and unfit for habitation. It is still open today. The main wing is nearly 150 years old. Nearly 800 inmates live there, a sizeable majority of them are Indigenous. It was the site of one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks, with more than 350 inmates testing positive.<\/p>\n<p>Zilla Jones, a Winnipeg-based criminal lawyer, has represented several inmates at Stony Mountain. \u201cIt\u2019s freezing in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer,\u201d she told <em>Maclean\u2019s<\/em>. It\u2019s so bad, she has to keep her coat and gloves on while she meets with her clients, and she still shivers. It\u2019s \u201cnot comfortable in terms of human habitation\u201d she says. (A newer wing of the prison was completed in 2014, and is better suited for human habitation.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty cr<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>y building but it\u2019s what happens inside that\u2019s worse,\u201d says Jones. \u201cThey can fix up the building all they want, but it\u2019s not going to change the culture that\u2019s inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones provides \u201ca prime example of life at Stony\u201d \u2014 a client who was arrested on a breaking and entering charge. \u201cI begged the judge not to send him to Stony Mountain,\u201d Jones says. Her client was just 18 years old. She told the court: \u201cGive him a provincial sentence, so at least he wouldn\u2019t get influenced by the gangs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her pleas were ignored, and the teenager was sent to Stony Mountain. Not long after, he was recruited by a gang to attack a fellow inmate\u2014one who had been identified, by a guard, as a sex offender. The teen was convicted of a new charge, meaning his stay at the notorious prison was extended.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know why we would send anybody there,\u201d Jones says. \u201cWhat are we doing? Warehousing people in a violent place so we can feel like justice is done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some gangs are given their own sections in the prison. A corrections officer told <em>Maclean\u2019s<\/em> that segregating members by gang affiliation is done in hopes of keeping the rival groups apart, in order to prevent violence. Some inmates enter the prison already linked to a gang, but many affiliate in order to protect themselves, or to get in on the lucrative drug-running business. Money has been poured into drug-sniffing dogs and body scanners, and yet the proliferation of drugs within the prisons has continued, unabated. In 2017, 70 inmates overdosed inside our prisons.<\/p>\n<p>One corrections officer who works in the prairie region, who was not authorized to speak on the record, explained that the \u201cunbelievably dated\u201d infrastructure can put corrections officers\u2019 lives at risk, too. The archaic technology that runs their system can cause delays in opening doors or accessing the right monitors, \u201cwhich makes our jobs a lot more dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While prisons no longer chain inmates standing up, solitary confinement cells do not look tremendously different than \u201cthe hole\u201d that Campbell saw. Canada still locks inmates in tiny, windowless cells for 22 hours a day, or longer, for months or years on end. That meets a United Nations definition of torture, a definition which Canada has endorsed. Nevertheless, Ottawa defended the practise, insisting on branding it \u201cadministrative segregation.\u201d The courts took dimly to that euphemism, calling it what it truly is: Solitary confinement, and unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p>Two years after the first court ordered that Ottawa must stop the practise, in June 2019, the Trudeau government finally adopted legislation to replace them. They rebranded the new isolation cells as \u201cstructured intervention units.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1216557\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1216557 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/PRISONS-CANADA-LING-JAN27-02.jpg\" alt=\"A view of a segregation cell at Joyceville medium security institution in Kingston, Ontario on Wednesday, January 24, 2018.(Lars Hagberg\/CP)\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of a segregation cell at Joyceville medium security institution in Kingston, Ont., Jan. 24, 2018(Lars Hagberg\/CP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The new system is supposed to add safeguards and mental health supports. They are supposed to give inmates more time outside their cell and meaningful human contact. The cells themselves were spruced up: Some with a new coat of paint and a poster, but other units give inmates access to televisions and more comfortable accommodations.<\/p>\n<p>But the data show things haven\u2019t improved overall.<\/p>\n<p>Respected criminologist Anthony Doob was initially tapped by the Trudeau government to study the supposed elimination of solitary confinement in favour of new \u201cstructured intervention units.\u201d He was thwarted for more than a year, before media attention pushed the government to hand over the data. His most recent report, from February, shows just how bad things are: \u201cWe estimate that 28.4 per cent of the SIU stays qualified as \u2018solitary confinement,&#8217;\u201d he writes. \u201cAnd an additional 9.9 per cent of stays fall under the definition of \u2018torture or other other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The law requires inmates get four hours outside their cell per day. That isn\u2019t happening.\u00a0The courts have said anything less than two hours is cruel and unusual punishment. It has continued anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Correctional Services Canada has rejected the findings, alleging Doob got the data wrong.<\/p>\n<p>The year-long saga of the data lends credence to the idea that the reforms were just, as the B.C. Civil Liberties Association put it, \u201cwindow dressing.\u201d Senator Kim Pate, who has spent nearly four decades advocating for real prison reform, had warned from the outset that the supposed reforms would actively \u201cmake things much worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CSC reported that, since last December, it has reviewed 1,100 placements in the new units. A quarter of those reviews recommended CSC take additional steps to improve the conditions for the inmate, while just 2.5 per cent of reviews recommended the inmate be released from isolation. This new regime has implemented new bureaucracy without substantially changing the practise, which was blasted by courts in two provinces as unconstitutional\u2014a finding that the federal government, eventually, accepted.<\/p>\n<p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, plenty of inmates learned that the difference between the old cells and the new ones didn\u2019t amount to much. Prisoners showing symptoms of the virus were thrown in the old solitary confinement cells, being let out for just 20 minutes a day to shower or make a phone call.<\/p>\n<p>Blair told <em>Maclean\u2019s<\/em> those measures were \u201cnecessary\u201d given the pandemic and that they \u201cwere not intended in any way to to violate anybody\u2019s rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some prisons are even worse. A lawsuit filed by inmates in the \u201cspecial handling unit\u201d at the prison in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Que., allege that they are kept in solitary confinement for upwards of 22 hours a day. The unit, which is designed to handle dangerous sexual offenders, encourages inmates to undergo chemical castration. While it is not supposed to be required, one inmate said in an affidavit that \u201cI believe I will never be transferred from the SHU unless I take this treatment.\u201d CSC insists inmates in that unit \u201chave the same rights and conditions of confinement as other inmates, except for those that must be limited due to security requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While CSC Commissioner Anne Kelly declined to be interviewed for this story, <em>Maclean\u2019s<\/em> asked her about the state of solitary confinement in Canada\u2019s prisons during an unrelated press conference. \u201cWe do not have solitary confinement any longer,\u201d she said, insisting that the structured intervention units had been successfully implemented, aside from \u201csome hiccups early on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pressed on the data from Doob, which clearly shows that CSC is practising the definition of solitary confinement, Kelly put the onus on the inmates. \u201cIn some cases the inmates actually do not want to come out of their cells, despite the repeated attempts that we make for them to avail themselves of the opportunity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Dec.14, 2016, at 1:30 in the afternoon, officers at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary read the riot act over the prison\u2019s loudspeakers. Inmates had joined in a prison-wide strike, barricading their rows of cells, protesting the harsh conditions inside and shrinking food rations. More than a quarter of the whole prison joined the action, primarily in the medium-security unit.<\/p>\n<p>The prison called in crisis negotiators and took to the loudspeaker to demand the inmates return to their cells and lock up. They ignored those calls. Officers armed with batons and shotguns were deployed to the ranges, battling inmates hurling burning debris.<\/p>\n<p>When the riot was cleared, officers found the body of Jason Leonard Bird. He had been beaten and stabbed to death by other inmates, for unknown reasons. Bird was serving a two-and-a-half year sentence for breaking and entering.<\/p>\n<p>An internal review concluded that the riot was caused, in large part, because the state of the food at the prison. Kitchen staff had warned the warden that funding cuts meant they couldn\u2019t adequately feed the inmate population.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a widespread problem. The Correctional Investigator found that more than one-in-five meals served in federal prisons failed to meet basic Canada Food Guide requirements, CSC failed to respect prisoners\u2019 dietary restrictions, the meals are sometimes prepared in unhygienic conditions, and that a significant amount of food was being wasted.<\/p>\n<p>Internal spreadsheets tracking the nutritional value show that, if a prisoner were to eat every morsel of food on their plate, they would get about 2,600 calories a day \u2014 Health Canada recommends active adult males actually need about 2,900 calories. The meals also wildly exceed Health Canada guidelines for both fat and sodium intake. (Correctional Services wrote in an email statement that they follow a \u201ccomprehensive set of nutrient reference values for healthy populations\u201d in designing the meals.)<\/p>\n<p>These problems can be traced back to an attempt to centralize food production. In 2014, to save money, CSC changed to a \u201ccook-chill\u201d model, where food was prepared at regional hubs, frozen, and shipped to the prisons, where it would be reheated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople thinking that we get good food in here? Oh my god, that\u2019s\u2014\u201d says Norman Larue, a prisoner at the Pacific Institution. \u201cOuf.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Larue works in the kitchen. As he explained to <em>Maclean\u2019s<\/em>, there was suddenly a lot less work to do after cook-chill came along. \u201cToday, it was a mac and cheese for lunch,\u201d he says. \u201cAbout two days ago in the kitchen, I cooked and prepared, on site, the actual macaroni noodles, and that\u2019s it. Everything else comes in a bag.\u201d Larue says that the amount of food served to prisoners is \u201cbarely enough to keep a guy alive.\u201d A corrections officer told Maclean\u2019s that \u201cany massive riotous situation we face in the next five years is going to be because of the food.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The cook-chill model has meant CSC spends about $2,300 per inmate, per year on food. About $5 a day.<\/p>\n<p>Blair dismissed the idea that something is structurally wrong, but said \u201cthere may be individuals, because of their level of physical activity or other health considerations, that have unique requirements\u201d and some \u201cmay desire more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I asked Blair: Could you stay healthy on a diet worth $5 a day?<\/p>\n<p>Blair demurred. \u201cI can\u2019t do a calculation based on the dollars and cents in question.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1216559\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1216559 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/PRISONS-CANADA-LING-JAN27-04.jpg\" alt=\"Members of the Senate Committee on Human Rights conducted a fact-finding mission to Canada\u2019s Prairie penitentiaries and held a public hearing as part of their study on the human rights of federal prisoners. Pictured: Senator Cordy inspects a lunch offering: grilled cheese, salad and pears. Small portion size is a regular complaint at the prison, members of the prisoners\u2019 committee told senators. (Courtesy of the Senate of Canada)\" width=\"1200\" height=\"801\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Senate Committee on Human Rights conducted a fact-finding mission to Canada\u2019s Prairie penitentiaries; Senator Cordy inspects a lunch offering: grilled cheese, salad and pears. (Courtesy of the Senate of Canada)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The problems in prisons go far beyond the size of the cell, the food, or the physical infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>Inmates are frequently upgraded to higher-security facilities, which are more dangerous and offer fewer supports, sometimes on vague and subjective criteria. One inmate was upgraded to medium security because he \u201cexhibited a negative attitude and engaged in repeated rule infringements.\u201d Racism plays a role, as well, as a 2013 Correctional Investigator found that when it comes to Black inmates, \u201cbody language, manner of speaking, use of expressions, style of dress and association with others were often perceived as gang behaviour by CSC staff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A <em>Globe and Mail<\/em> investigation from October found Black and Indigenous inmates are significantly more likely to be rated as a security threat, despite the data showing them less likely to reoffend than white offenders.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Gallagher, an Indigenous inmate also incarcerated on drug trafficking charges, was upgraded from minimum to a medium-security facility because CSC was looking to open an Indigenous-oriented wing and \u201cthey needed the numbers.\u201d He filed a grievance and won, yet he still hasn\u2019t been moved.<\/p>\n<p>Grievances, one of the only ways in which inmates can seek redress, are supposed to be answered within four months. In reality, CSC admits, they take up to three years to be resolved. Inmates can, technically, petition the courts over their treatment, but that is rarely effective: When one inmate filed a habeas corpus application to a provincial court over the conditions in his prison, the court dismissed the case, ordered him to pay the Attorney <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General<\/a>\u2019s costs, and banned him from making any other application with the court.<\/p>\n<p>Not every officer is part of the problem. Well-intentioned and well-trained corrections officers are plentiful. \u201cAs soon as they walk in the door, before they go to their cell, we give \u2018em a speech,\u201d one corrections officer said. \u201cLike: \u2018This is easy time for you, here, if you treat us with respect.\u2019\u201d Good officers are happy to do the \u201cthousand little things that they need help with,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have relationships with these guys. And that way, when something serious is happening, they listen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The officer said not every prison was as supportive of the inmates as his. Even still, officers don\u2019t get to decide who gets incarcerated or not\u2014they just have to manage it.<\/p>\n<p>Prisons constantly struggle to handle the number of inmates with severe mental health issues. \u201cWe\u2019re law enforcement officers, we\u2019re not psychologists,\u201d the officer says. There are mental health workers who visit the prison, they aren\u2019t around on evenings and weekends. \u201cWe do take a little bit of training on these kinds of topics. But I mean, it\u2019s like a day of training, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Correctional Investigator has consistently found mental health support lacking, actually finding that officers in one women\u2019s prison punished inmates who self-harmed. Problems are particularly acute for transgender inmates, some of whom are still being housed in prisons that do not match their gender identity, and who are often placed in isolation, ostensibly for their own safety.<\/p>\n<p>Sentenced time is supposed to be \u201cproductive,\u201d yet that\u2019s rarely the case. There are schooling programs, but they are largely one-size-fits-all\u2014a former inmate, with a university degree, recalled having to sit through the equivalent of Grade 8.<\/p>\n<p>There are Indigenous-focused programs, but access is spotty. Inmates have some access to computers, but are cut off from the internet. CSC directives still refer to \u201cfloppy diskettes.\u201d The jobs available are generally menial light labour, and provide little in the way of marketable skills. Work is often necessary, however, as inmates are required to pay for food to supplement their diet, and are charged by the minute by the phone system. The most an inmate can earn is $6.90 per day, although the prison deducts \u201croom and board\u201d costs from their salary.<\/p>\n<p>But when even that inadequate programming goes away, like they did during the COVID-19 shutdown, \u201cit was just violent,\u201d the corrections officer reported. \u201cIt was a nightmare, there was overdoses and suicide attempts and stabbings every couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1216558\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1216558 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/PRISONS-CANADA-LING-JAN27-01.jpg\" alt=\"A prisoner paces in an outdoor recreation yard at Edmonton Institution (Courtesy of the Senate of Canada)\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A prisoner paces in an outdoor recreation yard at Edmonton Institution (Courtesy of the Senate of Canada)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The closer you look at Canada\u2019s prisons, the more the absurdity of the practise becomes obvious.<\/p>\n<p>It is unavoidable that some inmates need to be locked up: About 800 inmates are currently designated as \u2018dangerous offenders,\u2019 meaning they can\u2019t be released. About a quarter of the federal prison population is serving life or indeterminate sentences.<\/p>\n<p>Yet more than 30 per cent of that population is incarcerated on non-violent offences, mostly drug and property crimes. Critics have wondered for years: Why do they need to be in the violent confines of federal prison, counting down days at the expense of the Canadian government?<\/p>\n<p>Less than 40 per cent of applications for full parole are granted. For those offenders who are granted release, there\u2019s often no place to go: In 2018, the Auditor General found that halfway houses and community programs for released offenders were generally full: Some inmates who were cleared to be released have continued to sit in prison because there is not enough space in those houses.<\/p>\n<p>A 1987 report from the Canadian Sentencing Commission laid out the problem at hand succinctly and blunt. Canada\u2019s over-incarceration problem, it read, \u201ccannot be eliminated by tinkering with the current system or exhorting decision-makers to improve what they are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When he took power five years ago, Justin Trudeau promised more restorative justice, to reduce the over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples, and to end the practise of solitary confinement for good. He has taken a knee with Black Lives Matter protesters, and has vowed to heed the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, In his government\u2019s September throne speech, he promised, again, \u201cto address the systemic inequities in all phases of the criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet what does he have to show for it? His government has lengthened the maximum prison time for many sentences. As of January 2019, government lawyers were defending against 173 separate constitutional challenges to mandatory minimum sentences. Lawsuits are targeting his government\u2019s handling of COVID-19 in prisons, the exploitative nature of prison labour and Quebec\u2019s Special Handling Unit. There is still no cap on the number of days someone can be placed in solitary confinement. The over-representation of Indigenous and Black people in prisons is getting worse, not better.<\/p>\n<p>A February report from the Correctional Investigator found scant evidence that the federal government depopulated prisons in the past year, but did find that the overall prison population declined, due to a drop in crime, court delays, and judges looking for alternatives to incarceration amid a pandemic. Even then, Indigenous peoples benefited least. Zinger found that \u201cthe non-Indigenous inmate population declined at twice the rate of the Indigenous inmate population.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even still, the decline in population\u00a0led Zinger to recommend\u00a0that Ottawa should consider \u201cclosing a number of prisons and reallocate staff and resources to better support safe, timely and healthy community reintegration.\u201d The Trudeau government has made no indication that it intends to follow that advice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe promised significant criminal justice and prison reform and we haven\u2019t seen that reform come to fruition in a real way,\u201d Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, a Liberal Member of Parliament, told <em>Maclean\u2019s<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In February, Justice Minister David Lametti introduced new legislation to finally repeal some mandatory minimum penalties. The legislation also expanded the use of alternatives to incarceration, and created new principles to encourage police and prosecutors to avoid pursuing drug charges\u2014essentially adopting legislation previously introduced by Erskine-Smith.<\/p>\n<p>While the legislation was lauded for what it did, it was also\u00a0pilloried\u00a0for what it didn\u2019t do. Pate, who was appointed to the Senate by Trudeau in 2016,\u00a0calls the legislation \u201cjustice for some, not all,\u201d saying that by leaving the majority of mandatory sentences on the books, it \u201cstopped short of taking the kinds of bold steps we need right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s prisons are antiquated, inhumane, violent, and expensive. They don\u2019t even work. Two decades ago, researchers from the University of New Brunswick did a meta-analysis of 50 studies on incarceration, spanning a half-century. They could not find \u201cany evidence that prison sentences reduce recidivism\u201d and that \u201cprisons should not be used with the expectation of reducing criminal behaviour.\u201d They revisited the study two years later, looking at 100,000 inmates. They found the same result: Prisons do not reduce crime, they increase it.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve been warned about this time and time again. \u201cThe constituency in favour of prison reform and\u2014where practicable, decarceration\u2014is always small,\u201d Ignatieff told <em>Maclean\u2019s<\/em>. He tried, just like Agnes MacPhail, to fix it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolitically, it all went nowhere.\u201d<br \/>\n<span class=\"ctx-article-root\"><!-- --><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/news\/canada\/houses-of-hate-how-canadas-prison-system-is-broken\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Houses of hate: How Canada&#8217;s prison system is broken&#8221; Michael Ignatieff was staring right at the Prime Minister. \u201cI worked in a prison when I was a younger graduate student,\u201d he said. \u201cI worked with lifers. I\u2019m utterly unsentimental about criminals, but one thing I know about prison: It\u2019s that prison makes almost everybody worse&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":190866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/PRISONS-CANADA-LING-JAN27-03-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22974,67806,73111],"class_list":["post-190865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-canada","tag-editors-picks","tag-prison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}