A FEDERAL PRISON FOR WOMEN IS STRUGGLING TO ACCOMMODATE ITS FIRST MALE INMATE — A MURDERER WHO NOW IDENTIFIES AS FEMALE AND WHO WANTS GENDER RE-ASSIGNMENT SURGERY.
The Grand Valley federal prison for women received its first male inmate last week, a 54-yearold man who is still a fully functional male who hasn’t yet undergone re-assignment surgery.
While it isn’t a Canadian first, it is for the 215-bed prison in Kitchener, Ont., about 100 kilometres from Toronto.
And it appears that Correctional Services Canada (CSC) is handling the challenge posed by Christopher Bellmore, who now identifies as female, with its usual dexterity.
Correctional officers at Grand Valley, for instance, have been told they must conduct two-stage strip searches on Bellmore.
As CSC directives note, “a male officer will conduct the strip search of the bottom half of Offender Bellmore and the female staff will strip search the top half.”
This is in direct contradiction of CSC policy, which says that male guards can’t strip-search females.
Bellmore was convicted in 2002 of two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of her former inlaws, whom she believed had molested her then-wife and daughter.
Though she was a suspect in the slayings, she turned herself in rather than wait to be arrested, pleaded guilty and went to trial within four months. She was released on day parole about two years ago.
Her move to a women’s facility is also rich with irony.
Male correctional officers at Grand Valley aren’t even allowed to patrol the units without a female CO at their side, the underlying presumption apparently that they might pillage and assault the inmates, and the rules stipulate that the female CO must be first down any hall or to enter the room.
Yet Bellmore, who still has the requisite male gear, is in a so-called “living unit” with as many as 11 other women. She has a single cell, and will shower alone, as other inmates also do.
Even Bellmore’s return to prison is unusual.
Postmedia sources say that after being released on parole in 2015, she lived in the community without any supervision concerns; she’s deemed a low-to-moderate risk of re-offending.
Indeed, she was doing so well that her case management team was considering supporting a move to full parole.
She hadn’t violated any parole conditions, but began to “present as emotionally volatile,” a “behavioural deterioration which seems to have coincided with the start of hormone therapy,” CSC documents suggest.
At some point, Bellmore’s parole was suspended after staff at the halfway house discovered female clothing in her room; Bellmore then admitted she was wearing lingerie and now believed she was born a female or had gender identity issues.
She was deemed no longer manageable in the community.
She now dresses as a woman, wears makeup and wants gender re-assignment surgery, which hasn’t yet been scheduled.
CSC hasn’t yet updated what are called “commissioner’s directives” to follow new human rights legislation, which includes protections for transgendered people.
And as usual, it’s been left to the COs to find a humane way to deal with inmates like Bellmore, a place between the outdated directives and confusing and sometimes internally inconsistent policies.
“GVIW staff are expected to interact in a professional and diligent manner and housing an offender who is pre-operative is a significant and challenging culture shift … The staff may have some difficulty with understanding and taking direction that is in contravention of the current policies,” documents acknowledge.