A flawed Compass: a human Rights Analysis of the Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety

1. The Committee recommends that CSC revisit the women’s corrections governance structure in order to have the Wardens of the women offender institutions report directly to the Deputy Commissioner of Women.

2. The Committee recommends that CSC put a human resource strategy in place to support its women’s corrections workforce needs.

3. The Committee recommends that CSC make women’s community corrections a higher priority in order to increase opportunities for successful reintegration into the community.

4. The Committee recommends that CSC dedicate full-time Elders to the secure units at Edmonton and Fraser Valley.

5. The Committee recommends that CSC incorporate the need for an Aboriginal women’s healing lodge facility in its long-range accommodation plan on a priority basis for Eastern Canada.

6. The Committee recommends that if CSC decides to discontinue operations at Isabel McNeill House every effort be made to retain the existing resources so that they are proportionately distributed to the women’s regional facilities and used to support the orientation of newly arrived women

372 The Panel’s recommendations were:

26. The Panel, overall, endorses the recommendations contained in the report “Moving Forward with Women’s Corrections.”

27. The Panel recommends that a strong functional role for the Senior Deputy Commissioner, Women be maintained.

28. The Panel endorses the approach used for women with mental health issues and was impressed by the Structured Living Environment (SLE) and recommends that the model should be considered for adaptation to men’s corrections.

29. The Panel recognizes the importance of an independent review of the status of Women’s Corrections in Canada and recommends that the recommendations of the Glube Report should form the basis of a formal review in five years.

373 Moving Forward with Women's Corrections

374 CAEFS Annual Report 2007-8

375 Following an escape from the new Edmonton Institution for Women all women classified as medium and maximum security prisoners were temporarily transferred into segregated maximum security units in prisons for men. These temporary measures were supposed to exist for 18-24 months, but it would be 8 years before separate maximum security units were constructed and operational in all the new women’s institutions.

376 http://www.elizabethfry.ca/secunit/4.htm (emphasis added)

377 Report on announced inspection in Canada by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales:
Grand Valley Institution for Women, 2005 paras 6.23 and 6.42, online at http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/prgrm/fsw/wos25_GrandValley/tableOfContents-eng.shtml . In March 2001, the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) agreed to undertake a broad review of the treatment of federally sentenced women, following concerns expressed by a number of organisations, particularly about the treatment of incarcerated Aboriginal women and those with cognitive and mental disabilities. The CHRC’s report, published in December 2003, made 19 recommendations for change, including one (Recommendation 19) which called for an independent external redress body for federally sentenced offenders. The CSC did not accept Recommendation 19 as such; but, as part of its action plan to implement the CHRC’s report, in 2005 it asked the Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales to carry out a full inspection of two federal women’s institutions, Nova (in the Atlantic region) and Grand Valley (in Ontario). Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) is an independent statutory body, set up in 1981 to inspect and report on conditions in prisons and the treatment of prisoners.

378 Significantly CAEFS first received a copy of the proposed protocol printed on the letterhead of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers (UCCO). Since then, such other UCCO suggestions as secure interview rooms and the use of full body restraints and handcuffing the women to the back whenever they are out of their cells have been adopted as part of the protocol.

379 Journal of R.A. 2008 (written contemporaneously in crayon and from memory)

380 A Preventable Death, Report of the Correctional Investigator , June 2008, released to the Public March3,2009, online at http://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20080620-eng.aspx

381 This summary is taken from “A Preventable Death”.

382 A Preventable Death, para. 86

383A Preventable Death, paras 22-32(emphasis added)

384Commissioner's Directive 843 - Prevention, Management and Response to Suicide and Self-Injuries; A Preventable Death, paras 56-60

385 A Preventable Death, para. 61(emphasis added)

386A Preventable Death, paras. 38-43(emphasis added)

387 A Preventable Death, paras. 62-73 (emphasis added)

388 Introduction to the Mission Statement, reproduced in Our Story: Organizational Renewal in Federal Corrections, Ottawa: Correctional Service of Canada, 1991, p.237

389 Globe and Mail March 11, 2009

390 McCann v. The Queen [1976] 1 F.C. 570

391 Prisoners of Isolation, p.53-4 online at http://justicebehindthewalls.net/book.asp?cid=772&pid=845t

392 Prisoners of Isolation, p.72, http://justicebehindthewalls.net/book.asp?cid=775&pid=856

393 Prisoners of Isolation, p.72

394 Globe and Mail March 10, 2009

395 Arbour Report, p.139 online at http://justicebehindthewalls.net/book.asp?cid=142

396 Arbour Report, p. 141-43

397 A Preventable Death, para. 93

398 CCRA s.90

399Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator, 1994-95, p.57

400Arbour Report p. 150-1. With respect to the effectiveness of the CSC's Offender Complaints and Grievance System, the Canadian Human Rights Commission concluded in 2003 that ‘Federally sentenced women currently lack an effective means to grieve inadequate correctional services or treatment thus increasing their sense of disempowerment and lack of control over their lives.  Although section 90 of the CCRA sets out the Correctional Service's duty to provide a grievance system that fairly and expeditiously resolves offenders' grievances, our review indicates that women inmates perceive the system as ineffective....The majority of the women who were interviewed described the redress system in negative terms such as "slow and not very effective," "takes forever" and "useless." With respect to the timeliness of the CSC's Offender Complaints and Grievance System, the CHRC found that:“More than 4 of 10 priority complaints (i.e., those considered to have a significant impact on an offender's rights and freedoms) were not processed within established time frames”. A Preventable Death, paras. 95-6

401A Preventable Death, paras. 44-55 (emphasis added)

402 Arbour Report, recommendations 4(a) and (c)

403 A Preventable Death, paras. 101-104

404 A Preventable Death, paras. 105-8

405 Roadmap, p. 79

406 A Preventable Death, paras. 117-8

407 Nils Christie, Crime Control as Industry: Towards Gulags, Western Style, 2d enlarged ed., [London: Routledge, 1994] at 185-86

408 Globe and Mail March 10, 2009

409 Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution 1750-1850, p.9

410 Backgrounder Bill C-43, June 16, 2009