WEST COAST PRISON JUSTICE SOCIETY SOLITARY a case for abolition West Coast Prison Justice Society Solitary: A CASE FOR ABOLITION November 2016 Dedicated to Chris Roy. Acknowledgements This report was produced by the West Coast Prison Justice Society/Prisoners’ Legal Services with funding from the Law Foundation of British Columbia. The West Coast Prison Justice Society operates Prisoners’ Legal Services, a legal aid clinic for federal and provincial prisoners in British Columbia. This report was written by staff at Prisoners’ Legal Services and was developed with input from our clients. We thank our clients for sharing their experiences with us in support of this report and we hope that in doing so, they may help others to avoid their suffering from being placed in solitary confinement. We also thank Professor Michael Jackson for his invaluable contribution to this report. CONTENTS Executive summary ......................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 6 Deinstitutionalization .................................................................................................................................... 10 The origins of solitary confinement ................................................................................................................ 11 Solitary confinement in the federal system .................................................................................................... 13 The history of solitary confinement in Canada ...................................................................................................... 13 The Corrections and Conditional Release Act.........................................................................................................15 . The Arbour Report ................................................................................................................................................. 15 The Task Force on Administrative Segregation ....................................................................................................... 17 A Work in Progress report ...................................................................................................................................... 18 The death of Ashley Smith ..................................................................................................................................... 18 The death of Edward Snowshoe ............................................................................................................................. 19 The death of Christopher Roy ................................................................................................................................ 20 The Correctional Investigator’s 2014-2015 Annual Report .................................................................................... 20 The Correctional Service of Canada’s current scheme ........................................................................................... 22 Alternatives to solitary confinement attempted in the federal system .................................................................. 23 Federal prisoner accounts ...................................................................................................................................... 27 Solitary confinement within British Columbia Corrections ............................................................................. 41 The history of solitary confinement in BC prisons .................................................................................................. 41 BC Corrections’ current scheme ............................................................................................................................. 42 Alternatives to solitary confinement attempted within BC Corrections ................................................................. 46 Provincial prisoner accounts .................................................................................................................................. 46 The consequences of solitary confinement .................................................................................................... 54 Mental and physical health effects ........................................................................................................................ 54 The safety and security justification for solitary confinement ............................................................................... 56 Fiscal cost implications ........................................................................................................................................... 57 Canada’s obligation under international law .................................................................................................. 59 Lessons learned from other jurisdictions and contexts ................................................................................... 62 United States .......................................................................................................................................................... 62 United Kingdom ..................................................................................................................................................... 67 Forensic psychiatry – seclusion rooms ................................................................................................................... 69 Legislative and policy transformation needed to abolish the use of solitary confinement .............................. 71 Reducing the number of prisoners in custody and in high security ....................................................................... 73 Procedural fairness and oversight .......................................................................................................................... 75 Prisoners with mental health concerns .................................................................................................................. 78 Mental health support ........................................................................................................................................... 80 Staffing ................................................................................................................................................................... 83 Increased use of dynamic security ......................................................................................................................... 84 Mediation and short-term cell lock-up ................................................................................................................... 85 Work, programs and education .............................................................................................................................. 86 Voluntary segregation ............................................................................................................................................ 86 Trauma-informed corrections ................................................................................................................................ 87 The role of medical professionals in prisons .......................................................................................................... 89 Solitary confinement of youth ....................................................................................................................... 94 Recommendations .......................................................................................................................................... 96 Endnotes ..................................................................................................................................................... 101 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “[Solitary confinement is]…the most individually destructive, psychologically crippling and socially alienating experience that could conceivably exist with the borders of a country.” Michael Jackson, Q.C. vidence shows that solitary confinement both human and financial, its efficacy and its makes prisoners with existing mental compliance with domestic and international law. disabilities worse, and can cause severe E Although the Correctional Service of Canada psychological symptoms, including self-harm and suicide, in prisoners without existing mental and BC Corrections have taken some measures disabilities.1 Its use on prisoners with mental to limit the use of solitary confinement over the disabilities is considered cruel treatment by years, our clients continue to be held in long- the United Nations, and its use on prisoners term isolation and continue to report disturbing without pre-existing mental disabilities is examples of staff misconduct and conditions considered torture or cruel treatment after only of confinement that violate basic standards of 15 days.2 Solitary confinement does nothing to human dignity. In our view, any scheme that rehabilitate prisoners – in fact, it makes their continues to allow for the solitary confinement successful reintegration back to society more of prisoners for any amount of time would difficult. allow such abuses to continue. Inherent in a scheme that would allow for the isolation of Prisoners’ Legal Services calls for the people without daily meaningful human contact abolishment