Do rules render jail segregation useless?
Segregation in Ontario prisons used to be a form of punishment — versions of “the hole” — to deter or punish bad behaviour or serve as a means of protecting vulnerable inmates.
Not so anymore, says a union leader representing correctional officers at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.
“It’s changed, with the new segregation, to the point where it’s a joke,” says Scott Forde, 44, a guard for 17 years and vice-president of Local 411 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
“They’ve got their canteen, their TV, their books, their phone privileges. And they have access to recreation.”
The result, said Forde, is that segregation units, which can be solitary or double cells, are always full because inmates request transfers there. “It’s gone from a major deterrent to, I would say, a minor deterrent. The repeat offenders see it as a mini-break.”
Segregation at OCDC, in fact, has leaped from five per cent of the population in 2013 to 13 per cent in 2016, according to an independent review of Ontario’s prison system.
The unintended consequence, said Forde, is that when violators need to be dealt with, there’s nowhere to put them but with the general population.
Last weekend is a good example, he explained in an email and followup interview.
He estimated there are 40 to 80 inmates admitted on weekends to serve intermittent sentences. They are required to pass through a $750,000 body scanner that checks for weapons or contraband. So-called “dirty scans” — or those who test positive for a suspicious or foreign object — are supposed to be kept segregated from other inmates in case they have drugs or weapons hidden on their person or in a bodily cavity. They are to be monitored, separately, until the contraband is found or secreted.
There were between seven and 12 “dirty scans” last weekend, Forde said. With nowhere to put them, they were released into units where they could mix with other inmates.
“You’ve completely defeated the purpose of the scanner in the first place,” said Forde. “The purpose of the scanner is to make the institution safer for inmates and staff.
“By allowing dirty scans to mix with clean scans, all you’ve done is you’ve dirtied an entire area, and anywhere they’ve walked to on the way there should they be able to drop something along the way.”
Forde said this was not the first weekend this has happened and the union believes it’s only a matter of time before a serious incident — such as a fentanyl overdose or violent act — occurs because the red flag from the scanner was not dealt with properly.
“Can you imagine if the courthouse, or a facility hosting presidents or prime ministers, ignored or downplayed dirty scans? Imagine if airports did this?” Forde asked.
“It puts the inmates and staff at massive risk.”
The community safety and correctional services ministry, meanwhile, won’t comment directly on the cases Forde mentioned but responded:
“If ministry security screening indicates that an inmate has hidden contraband on their person, the inmate is provided an opportunity to surrender the suspected contraband. If the inmate refuses, they are assessed for any internal medical concerns. If there are no immediate medical concerns, the inmate would be placed in a dedicated cell to monitor if the inmate surrenders the suspected contraband through natural body processes.”
In October 2016, the ministry enacted a number of changes related to segregation, among them: it is to be used as a last resort and in the least restrictive, safe conditions; a limit of 15 days; a weekly review; and eliminating “loss of all privileges” penalties.
Making segregation a more humane place where privileges are not revoked means correctional officers have lost their most important, if not only, disciplinary tool, Forde added.
“They don’t care about assaulting another inmate for territory, or threatening or attacking the staff.” The result is a higher increase in violence against guards and a difficulty in keeping new recruits, he added.
Segregation — and solitary confinement in particular — has been increasingly discredited in recent years for the psychological damage it causes in the long term, especially for those with an existing mental illness. There have been widely reported cases of vulnerable inmates being left in isolation for years.
In 2017, Ontario’s Ombudsman produced a report on the “soulcrushing” use of segregation in the province’s institutions. It said about seven per cent of inmates, roughly 560 of 8,000, are in segregation on any given day.
An independent review of Ontario’s prisons found the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre had the longest placements in 2016, with an average segregation stay of 26 days.
Forde pointed out another anomaly. When he began his job in 2000, he said, OCDC was only half its current size and the eight segregation cells were rarely full. Across Ontario today, there are fewer inmates in provincial institutions but the segregation numbers are much higher.
The percentage in segregation has jumped, with slight exceptions, every year from 2007 to 2016. In 2017, the ombudsman made 32 recommendations on better use of segregation to the Ministry of Corrections, which said it accepted them all.