Ford making scapegoats of Ontario’s prisoners
Barton Street facility one of many where COVID outbreaks are a constant, growing risk
BARTON PRISONER SOLIDARITY PROJECT
On Jan. 6, Premier Doug Ford chose to draw attention to a federal program to provide the COVID-19 vaccine to certain prisoners in federal facilities as part of a strategy to prioritize those living in concentrated settings. Ford objects to this program, claiming that these 1,200 doses for incarcerated people will create delays for others he considers more deserving.
However, this week The Spectator and other media outlets have been reporting that nearly 100,000 doses of vaccine have been left sitting in freezers since Dec. 21. The Ford government is simply scapegoating prisoners in an attempt to deflect frustration over the slow rollout. Instead, it should follow the federal government’s example and include provincial prisons in its list of prior- ity locations for vaccination.
Scapegoating prisoners is a constant in politics, from stoking fears of crime during elections to justifying the untouchable status of police budgets. Access to medical care, though, touches on a fundamental tenet of Canada’s justice system — that incarceration itself is the punishment for crimes, and that prisoners should not be subjected to additional punishment while incarcerated. They should not be withheld medical care, such as vaccines, because they were convicted of crimes. The federal government is correct that prisons are no different than group homes or long-termcare facilities when it comes to the pandemic.
At any given time, about 9,000 people are held in Ontario’s prisons. In theory, provincial prisons are meant to hold people for short times. In practice, even those convicted of crimes considered the most serious will often serve most or all of their sentence in provincial facilities, due to Ontario’s habit of denying bail and to incredible delays in the courts. And this was before the justice system all but ground to a halt during the pandemic.
Provincial prisons were not built to incarcerate people for years on end and are extremely overcrowded — much more so than federal prisons. In the Barton Jail, cells built for a single person now hold three. Social distancing is impossible, and sanitation is nearly so, even at the best of times. Through our work monitoring conditions in Barton, we know there is not even reliable access to soap, let alone to disinfectant, and prisoners are not provided masks.
The Barton Jail has implemented quarantines, greatly reduced yard time (to 20 minutes every few weeks), cancelled all programs, further reduced access to books, and imposed new restrictions on mail. All visits are cancelled, even though they occur through Plexiglas with no risk of transmission. These are not public health measures. They are punitive and worsen the underlying issues of overcrowding, poor sanitation, mental health and isolation from loved ones. And such measures have not stopped the spread of the virus in Canada’s prisons, where it is only picking up steam.
From March to July 2020, only 600 prisoners tested positive for COVID-19, according to Justin Piché, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa and an organizer with the Criminalization and Punishment Project. But in the past two months, there have been over 1,000 reported cases. Seventyfour per cent of the outbreaks in Canadian prisons since the start of the pandemic have happened since Oct. 1. We don’t have to look far for examples.
Joyceville, a federal prison in Kingston, is dealing with an outbreak of at least 139 cases. Toronto South provincial prison had a major outbreak last month with 61 cases. Prisoners there have bravely organized at least eight hunger strikes over conditions since the spring. The Barton Jail has had several COVID cases that could have easily turned into full-blown outbreaks, and prisoners there have also engaged in hunger strikes and collective action to take care of each other when it seems no one else will.
Because of overcrowding, provincial prisons were a potential public health crisis even before the pandemic. This overcrowding is a direct consequence of Ontario’s restrictive bail system — upwards of two-thirds of prisoners in this province have not been convicted of a crime. Intervening in the bail system to reduce the prison population would make a huge difference, but until then, prisoners need speedy access to the coronavirus vaccine, as do all others living in concentrated settings.
Those being held in Ontario’s prisons are our friends, families and neighbours — they are not disposable political pawns. Premier Ford should work to keep incarcerated people safe, rather than scapegoating them for his government’s botched vaccination rollout.