- 1 - CLASS ACT ION! NEWS PRISONERS J USTICE DAY ISSUE #10 SUMMER 2018 2 > CAN-#10 < Editor’s Note > < Contents > It is Summer & Issue Letters ……………………….…... 3 #10 of ‘Class Action News …………………... 4-7, 10-13 News’. Poems …………………………. 8-9 This magazine is by & Health & Harm Reduction …..…. 14 for the Prisoner Class in Resources …………………... 15-16 Canada. In every Issue we provide a safe space for < Artists in this Issue > creative expression and literacy development. These zines feature art, poetry, stories, news, Cover: Rocky Dobey observations, concerns, and anything of interest Prisoner Justice Day – August 10 – ‘13½’ to share. 12 Jurors + 1 Judge + ½ a Fucking Chance Health & Harm Reduction info will always be provided – Be Safe! Page 7: Gord Hill – Prison Justice Day Quality & Quantity: Items printed are those that are common for diverse readers, so no religious items please. Artwork: Black pen (tat-style) works the best. Cover Artist will receive a $25 donation. Writings: only short poems, news, stories, … Items selected are those that fit nicely & allow space for others (½ page = 325 words max). For author protection, letters & story credits will all be 'Anonymous'. ‘Class Action News' is published 4 times a year & is free for prisoners in Canada. If you are on the outside or an organization, please send a donation. We do not have any funding so it really helps to get this inside ! Editor: Tom Jackson Publication: Class Action News Publisher: PrisonFreePress.org PO Box 39, Stn P Toronto, ON, M5S 2S6 Email: [email protected] Circulation: 350+ Recirculation: ???? All original artwork, poems & writings are the sole/soul property of the artist & author. Fair Dealing & the Canadian Copyright Act Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty Sections 29, 29.1, 29.2: “Fair dealing for the purpose of research, when the state becomes lawless or corrupt. private study, education, parody, satire, The first step in fighting injustice is to make criticism, review, and news reporting does not it visible. infringe copyright.” - Mahatma Gandhi Summer 2018 Class Action News Issue #10 #10-CAN < 3 < Letters > Health Care – Medication Health care is both changing and denying our Access to Computers medications. This has resulted in pain and CSC has restricted computer access and suffering. I would like to see health care eliminated most of the remaining prisoner- professionals act as such, not as CSC enforcers. owned computers. This has made things such as resolving disagreements with staff on legal Institutional Services issues impossible. I would like to see CSC allow Institutional Services are not issuing enough the use of tablets on wireless networks to allow clothing for release. This has affected me us to do legal and other work. because I have no effects on release and all money that I possess is needed for incidentals, Prison Farms not including rent. I would like to see The prison farms have been closed. This has Institutional Services issue enough proper degraded our food supply quality and eliminated clothing for release. the valuable experience of working on the farms. I would like to see that they rebuild the Grievance/Complaint Process farm camps, preferably, even better than before The grievance/complaint process has changed. in an effort to expand available jobs. This has resulted in massive delays in CSC responses. I would like to see an independent Pay Deductions process and complaint procedure. This would The introduction of the additional 30 percent ensure consistency across the system. pay deduction has reduced my ability to save for release. I would like to see that the pay Prisoner Purchasing deduction be rescinded and that the pay CSC now forces all prisoner purchasing to be increase recommended by the Office of the done through one supplier nationally. This policy Correctional Investigator over a decade ago be took effect on 1 April 2016. As a result, the implemented. supplier now has a monopoly and we are given trash quality items at prices that we cannot ION Scanners afford. This is a rip off. For example, a pair of The ion scanners are not reliable. This often size 13 poor quality socks now costs $11. I results in visitation being terminated. CSC needs would like to see that the monopoly be to evaluate and implement alternative visitor eliminated, and that prisoners be allowed to screening processes that are more reliable and resume making purchases from the local do not contribute to the dehumanization of suppliers with competitive prices and good prisoners’ loved ones and volunteers from the quality items. community. Access to Programs Prisoner Pay CSC is not allowing programs to be accessed In October 2013, CSC cut incentive prisoner before a third of a sentence is served. They are pay. They are also now double dipping by timing access to programs to coincide with charging us for “room and board” when our statutory release at two-thirds of our sentences, previous pay levels already accounted for such which makes parole eligibility meaningless. This expenditures. This policy change has made the makes parole at the one-third mark next to purchase of food and vitamins unaffordable so impossible and allows the parole officers to one cannot compensate for the cuts to food force the waiver of hearings. This is changing quantity and quality. One can also no longer and worsening the sentence imposed by the save to hire lawyers and get medical care. I judge. I would like to see that CSC schedule would like to see that the pay cuts be reversed program completions before the earliest parole and that instead prisoners be given a pay eligibility date. increase as has been recommended by the Office of the Correctional Investigator and many Not everything that is faced can be changed, others. but nothing can be changed until it is faced. - James Baldwin Issue #10 Class Action News Summer 2018 4 > CAN-#10 < News > even if it's carefully tapered off, the lack of treatment can lead inmates to turn to the illicit Human rights complaint filed over market, raising the risk of accidental poisoning federal inmates' access to opioid from fentanyl-laced drugs, and HIV and hepatitis treatment C infection. Paul Quick, a lawyer with the Queen's Prison A complaint filed with the Canadian Human Law Clinic in Kingston, Ont., said his group Rights Commission (CHRC) claims federal wasn't involved in filing the human rights prisoners face "inhumane" waiting lists for complaint, but he's familiar with it, and says opioid addiction treatment - amounting to from his experience in Ontario, "it is certainly discrimination on the basis of a disability - and well founded." that inmates in Correctional Service Canada "Sadly, it seems to me that the ultimate source (CSC) institutions experience involuntary of this problem is that prisoners' lives are simply tapering or sudden termination of their not valued as other lives are," Quick said in an medications as punishment. email to CBC News. The complaint has been filed by the B.C.-based "Our legal clinic is frequently contacted by Prisoners' Legal Services (PLS) on behalf of all prisoners who are in distress due to being federal inmates dealing with opioid use removed from OST," he said. addiction, and follows a number of similar "It is profoundly dangerous to cut a patient off complaints to the CHRC from individual OST, particularly given the current fentanyl crisis prisoners. in Canadian prisons. Unfortunately, it appears "We're really concerned that there's a real that such choices are at times made for punitive acute and urgent medical need that's just not reasons (to deter diversion) rather than health- being met," said PLS legal advocate Nicole Kief, related reasons." who says he has personally talked to about 75 'Persistent noncompliance' inmates who described struggles getting opioid CSC declined an interview request, but substitution therapy (OST) like methadone or spokesperson Stephanie Stevenson provided a Suboxone to treat their addictions. statement which says that since October 2016, "There's really no access to quality harm there has been a 25 per cent increase in the reduction and there's very little access to mental number of inmates on opioid use disorder health supports, to addictions counselling, that treatments. sort of thing," said Kief. "Involuntary tapering is not to be used as a form In May, CSC announced it would begin needle of discipline and is only to be considered as a exchange pilot programs at two federal last resort in situations of persistent institutions, with plans to expand the program to noncompliance with the methadone/Suboxone other facilities next year. Maintenance Treatment Agreement with the "PLS has spoken to numerous prisoners who offender," said Stevenson. have waited months - and some more than a Kief said that in the past year, there has been year for OST while in custody," the complaint plenty of progress getting proper treatment for claims. inmates, but engagement in the issue "The inability to obtain treatment can from CSC appears to have stalled, and outside compromise a person's ability to meet the goals B.C. the problem is still especially bad. of their correctional plan, achieve parole, and be She said the Human Rights Tribunal doesn't successful upon release into the community," it hear many cases, and this complaint could be continues. dismissed entirely, but her hope is it will lead to "PLS has heard from prisoners who were a meaningful conversation with CSC and released to the community without OST, only to improved access to treatment for inmates. find themselves returning to prison for reasons related to their addictions." Rafferty Baker 'Profoundly dangerous' withdrawal CBC News According to Kief, the experience of prisoners Jun 04, 2018 whose OST medication is suddenly stopped can include painful and dangerous withdrawal, and Summer 2018 Class Action News Issue #10 #10-CAN < 5 Inquest makes 60 sweeping In the days before his death, Mr.