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Women's Prison Network Issue #17 Winter 2019-20

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Women's Prison Network Issue #17 Winter 2019-20 -------------------------------------- WOMEN’S PRISON NETWORK -------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- ISSUE #17: WINTER 2019/20 -------------------------------------- Winter 2019 Women's Prison Network Issue #17 Editor’s Note: Contents: Welcome to Issue #17 of Women’s Prison News …………………..………... 3-7, 10-11 Network, a magazine by and for women, Poems …………………………….……. 8-9 trans and youth prisoners in Canada. Resources…………………….…...….. 12-16 This is a safe space to share art, poetry, Cover Artwork: news, thoughts, conversation, connections ... - Unknown - We send copies into all Women & Youth prisons in Canada. Artists: Send your art, poems, short stories, Cover Artists will receive a $25.00 donation. comments, articles, etc, to Women's Prison Thank you so much for your work! Network if you would like to be a part of the Let us know how & where you would like next Issue. - Thanks! the donation sent to & where you would like your art returned to. Women’s Prison Network Please note: this magazine is for women, PO Box 39, Stn P trans and youth from all cultures, so please Toronto, ON, M5S 2S6 do not send religious imagery. Thank you for your art! Writers: ‘Women's Prison Network' is produced One column is only 300 words, so do choose 4 times per year. your words carefully. It is sent out for free to Women, Trans & It must be short & to the point. Youth in Prisons in Canada. Poems that are tight & give space for others are the first in. If you are on the outside or part of an Thank you for your words! organization, please consider a donation!!! Editor: aliyyah Funding for this Issue: Publication: Women’s Prison Network Publisher: PrisonFreePress.org Very special thanks to: PO Box 39, Stn P Daumier Register ‘1293’ Toronto, ON, M5S 2S6 “Actually, I am quite content with our prison Circulation: 350+ system. Maybe the prisoner has gone crazy, but ?,??? Recirculation: all he needs now, is a little education!” [email protected] Ancestral Territorial Acknowledgment: All original artwork, poems & writings are We respectfully acknowledge that the land on the sole/soul property of the artist & author. which Prison Free Press operates is the Traditional Territory of the Wendat, the Fair Dealing & the Canadian Copyright Act Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, and the Sections 29, 29.1, 29.2: Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. “Fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review, and news reporting does The walls are the publishers of the poor. not infringe copyright.” - Eduardo Galeano - 2 - Issue #17 Women's Prison Network Winter 2019 NEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSNEWS (partly because the majority blamed KJM and his lawyer for some of the delay). The Alberta Court No need for new rules to ensure timely of Appeal upheld KJM’s conviction, but of the youth trials, Supreme Court rules three appeal judges, one said the adult limits apply, one said they don’t, and one would have The Supreme Court of Canada says 18-month shortened them to 15 months. time limits for adult trials also apply to the youth The three dissenters on the Supreme Court wrote justice system, but three dissenters said the ruling a stinging rebuke to the majority, saying that leaves accused young people worse off than before the Jordan ruling, courts deemed young before. people to be entitled to trials in much less than The dissenters - Justice Rosalie Abella, Justice 18 months. Russell Brown and Justice Sheilah Martin - would “Applying the adult Jordan ceilings to young have set the ceiling at 15 months, saying that persons erodes this standard,” Justice Abella and young people are harmed more than adults by Justice Brown wrote, supported by Justice Martin. delay. “And it - bizarrely - leaves young persons worse The majority said, however, that young people off than they were, since the adult Jordan ceilings may seek a trial in less time than 18 months, for potentially allow for more pretrial delay for young special reasons - “for example, if an accused can persons than the system previously tolerated.” show that he or she is struggling in school due to (Emphasized words in the original.) This, said the anxiety over the outstanding charges” - and dissenters, turns the Jordan principles into “a might still have their charges dismissed if the hollow promise” for young people. prosecution does not take reasonable steps to The Jordan ruling in the summer of 2016 expedite the matter. criticized the criminal-justice system for a The ruling came in the case of KJM, a 15-year- “culture of complacency” among all parties, and old boy from Fort McMurray, Alta., accused of set time limits of 18 months for proceedings in using a boxcutter to stab and seriously injure a Provincial Court and 30 months in superior court. 16-year-old boy at a house party. It was the first It sent shock waves through the system. Within opportunity for the Supreme Court to consider months, two murder charges were thrown out for whether the time limits it set in a 2016 case unreasonable delay. The provinces asked for an known as Jordan applies to young people. KJM’s emergency meeting with the federal justice criminal proceedings lasted 19 months, from the minister. In the end, the federal government time he was charged until he was convicted. passed a host of new measures to speed up the Graham Johnson, a lawyer for KJM, had urged system. the court to set a 12-month limit. He said the Justice Michael Moldaver was a co-author of the majority had shown a “fairly shocking lack of Jordan ruling. A decade earlier, while a member understanding” of Youth Court. of the Ontario Court of Appeal, he had given a “They’ve essentially said the onus is on the youth, speech in which he said he was “mad as hell” some of the most vulnerable participants in the about a legal culture that tolerated needless criminal-justice system, to demonstrate their own complexity and delay. But in KJM, he said the vulnerabilities on a case-by-case basis,” he said in Jordan ruling had succeeded in creating a faster- an interview with The Globe and Mail. “It’s odd, moving justice system, and the benefits would be because it’s enshrined in [the Youth Criminal felt in Youth Court. (Justice Brown, a Jordan co- Justice Act] that youth have a different author, split with him on KJM.) perception of time and suffer heightened “First and foremost," Justice Moldaver wrote for prejudice from delay.” the majority, “it has not been shown that there is He said that accused youth tend to be from a problem regarding delay in the youth criminal disadvantaged backgrounds and often have little justice system.” family support, making it difficult to abide by conditions of release, such as a curfew, which can Sean Fine lead to more trouble with the law. Globe and Mail The court voted 6-3 to extend the adult time Nov 15, 2019 limit to youth, and 5-4 to uphold KJM’s conviction - 3 - Winter 2019 Women's Prison Network Issue #17 Criminal (In)Justice: women. In Canada, rates of imprisonment for An interview with Gillian Balfour Indigenous women have been increasing faster than those for Indigenous men. BM: Indigenous women are vastly over- Some of the work that I’ve tried to focus on is represented in the prison system in Canada, what I call conditions of endangerment in particularly in the prairie provinces. Could you Indigenous communities, which have a particular discuss the reasons behind this? gendered experience in terms of lack of GB: It is absolutely critical to connect the over- affordable and safe housing, the configuration of incarceration of Indigenous women back to the power on reserves and within band councils, and issue of missing and murdered women in the limited success of so-called mandatory Canada. Incarceration is a form of state violence charging in cases of domestic violence. In all of against Indigenous women that needs to be these areas of social policy and law reform, placed on a continuum along with the high rates Indigenous women have fallen between the of interpersonal violence against women, and the cracks. horrific violence against Indigenous women who BM: Some people argue that prisons have have gone missing or been murdered. replaced slavery as a means of confining the Numerous feminist historians and legal scholars African-American population in the United States. have pointed to how criminalization has become These are different historical legacies, but there the new manifestation of colonialism, and are also parallels. Could you speak to the specifically, how the correctional system has connection between Canada’s legacy of become the new residential school system - residential schools, its continuing theft of particularly for Indigenous women. Indigenous territory, and the incarceration of If we’re looking at the prairie provinces, Indigenous women? anywhere between 70 and 80% of the female GB: I think the parallels with the African- prison population is Indigenous. It’s a gross American experience are significant, but they are overrepresentation, from about 10% of the deeply fragmented and complex ones to make. general population. As you point out correctly, the different faces of We are asking questions as to why legal reforms, colonialism need to be taken into account. especially in the area of sentencing, have failed One of the struggles that Indigenous women Indigenous women so desperately. For example, face, especially in the area of ongoing treaty land the Criminal Code of Canada allows for special claims, is their displacement and dislocation in consideration of Indigenous experiences of negotiations with the state. This is itself a by- colonialism such as cultural dislocation, family product of the Indian Act.
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