Judge rules two-year segregation ‘offensive’
An Edmonton youth jail violated the Charter rights of a young person who was held in solitary confinement for nearly two years, an Edmonton judge ruled in a decision filed Tuesday.
Provincial court Judge Geoffrey Ho stayed an earlier finding of guilt for an assault with a weapon charge after ruling that the minor, identified in Ho’s written decision as CCN, had been unlawfully kept in segregation both before and after the offence that brought him to court.
The identities of people under age 18 charged with crimes are protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
“The actions of corrections officials in placing CCN in solitary confinement for approximately two years, without lawful authority, is offensive to societal notions of decency and fair play,” wrote Ho in a decision filed.
According to Ho’s decision, CCN was already incarcerated at the Edmonton Young Offenders Centre when he struck another inmate over the head with a meal tray on July 30, 2016.
Though he was still serving a youth sentence, his request to be transferred to the Edmonton Remand Centre in 2017 was granted.
Ho found CCN guilty of assault with a weapon on Dec. 12, 2016, but the youth filed for a stay of proceedings on the basis that he had suffered physical or psychological abuse while being subjected to ongoing solitary confinement.
CCN’s defence lawyer Karen McGowan argued in a notice of motion that by placing her young client in 23-hour-a-day lockup with two 30-minute breaks, he was being deprived of rehabilitative opportunities, as well as access to socialization, education and physical recreation.
The result of the segregation was “severe psychological and behavioural problems” that caused him to commit the assault he was found guilty of, McGowan argued.
His behaviour included assaulting and threatening guards and inmates, and hitting a fellow inmate with a tray on more than one occasion.
Court also heard that the youth was made to miss meetings with his case worker and youth facilitators because he was being held in segregation.
Ho wrote that keeping CCN in a “prison within a prison” contravenes Canada’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child, as well as the purposes and principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, and that segregating the teen made him a greater risk to the public.
“This is not a momentary detention or an isolated issue. It is systemic. Proceeding with the sentencing under these circumstances would be harmful to the integrity of the justice system,” Ho said. “In my view, this is the clearest of cases for which nothing short of a stay of proceedings will suffice for the justice system to disassociate itself from the practice of unlawfully placing youths in solitary confinement.”
Court heard evidence from a psychologist who testified that keeping a young person in solitary confinement would not improve their behaviour, and that taking away the young offender’s opportunity to participate in rehabilitation and reintegration programs will likely increase the risk the young person poses to the public.