Inmates struggle to communicate
Behind bars, Dale Monforton went months without speaking with his family.
The 42-year-old Windsor man whose litany of arrests exceed his memory prefers not to receive visitors when he’s in custody.
They remind him of lost freedoms.
During the COVID-19 crisis, no one would have been able to visit him if they wanted to.
The province suspended in-person visitation at all of its adult correctional facilities in March to keep the virus out.
In lieu of visitors, Monforton would have, however, called his relatives if the telephone system in Ontario correctional facilities had allowed it.
“I haven’t talked to my mother because she has a Cogeco phone line and not enough money to switch it over. It’s a huge issue,” Monforton said.
Monforton was speaking, at the time, to the Star by phone from the South West Detention Centre in Maidstone before his release earlier this year.
Bell Canada now holds the contract for phone service to provincial jails. It limits inmates to expensive collect calls to local Bell land lines, rendering anyone with a cellphone or long-distance number unreachable by phone.
Monforton was able to call the Star because it uses Bell land lines, but he cannot call his mom.
“When I’m here I can’t contact anyone,” inmate Kyle Everett wrote in a pencil-printed letter to the Star.
The 38-year-old Windsor man has five children.
“It makes me feel helpless and stuck in the system.”
In an email to the Star, a spokesperson from the Ministry of the Solicitor General said it is working to complete the procurement process “for a new, modern inmate telephone system.” That system will align “with the ministry’s policy and operational objectives,” which it says are to protect victims of crime, witnesses and other members of the public from harassment and intimidation from inmates in correctional institutions; to restrict inmates from conducting criminal activity while in custody; and to provide inmates with access to telephone services at reasonable rates.
With the new system, spokesperson Kristy Denette said, inmates will be able to call cellphones and international numbers — two things they cannot do now.
Amid COVID-19, inmates have been given calling cards that allow them to call cellphones, since inmates are not currently allowed to receive visitors.
Windsor lawyer Maria Carroccia, president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Windsor and Essex County, told the Star her clients are unhappy they can’t visit with family, but the calling cards help to offset that disappointment.
Under normal circumstances, visiting inmates before the pandemic presented challenges, too.
To arrange a visit, an inmate must first add someone to his or her visitor list by providing the individual’s name and phone number to the jail. The individual receives no notice if he or she has been added to the list successfully, and inmates only find out if their visitor has arranged to see them the morning of the visit.
Those looking to take the bus to visit an inmate have a hike ahead of them. The closest Transit Windsor bus route to the South West Detention Centre drops off riders at Silvercity Windsor Cinemas on Walker Road. From there, visitors have to walk nearly three kilometres east, most of that along roads without sidewalks.
Once a person is approved to visit, he or she can call the jail and choose to spend 25 or 50 minutes speaking to the inmate through one of several video screens and attached telephone receivers by the facility’s lobby. The Star arranged a 50-minute visit with Monforton that was cut short due to “space issues,” a jail staff member said. Only one other inmate was participating in a video visit at the time.
During the visit, an orange-clad Monforton appeared on the screen, seated in front of a white-painted cinder-block wall. The commotion of other inmates moving around the common room space carried over the phone line.
No cellphones or cameras are allowed in the visitation area, so visitors cannot take photos or hold up screens for the inmate to see.
When the countdown reached 00:00, the video call abruptly ended, cutting off Monforton mid-sentence.
Since those on the outside cannot make calls to inmates or visit them without pre-approval, estranged friends and family could be trying to support those in custody without them ever knowing it.
“What if your family wanted to reach out and help you? They’re not allowed to. That’s kind of sh---,” Monforton told the Star.
He doesn’t ask for financial help from his family, he said, and he hasn’t spoken to his father for 15 years. But other inmates would benefit from a connection to the outside world.
“You’re a prisoner at the moment, and if there was going to be a turnaround in my life, I wouldn’t even know it. I’d get out to the same sh-- when I could have been invited home, or given a ride,” he said. “Maybe someone’s setting an apartment up for me. You never know.”
Inmates can receive mail once it undergoes heavy scrutiny for contraband and unauthorized items. The Star’s first attempt at corresponding with an inmate via letter was rejected because it had been printed “on a home printer,” the ministry said. Its list of unauthorized mail items includes anything “painted” with gel pen, homemade items like arts and crafts, anything photocopied, anything with monetary value, and more.
A letter handwritten in pencil on lined paper was acceptable.
“Within a correctional facility, it is necessary to ensure that normally harmless items are not received into the facility,” the ministry wrote in its rejection of the Star’s first letter.
“I am sure that you can appreciate our need to ensure that illicit drugs and other contraband/unauthorized items are not introduced into the institution.”
The ministry “cannot accommodate photos of the interior (of the jail) with inmates and staff present,” Denette said. Inmates serving two years less a day are prohibited from mailing a photo of themselves to loved ones.
Monforton said he’s seen “tons of guys who are really lost” because of the isolation. He tries to direct those inmates to helplines for mental health support or bail applications listed on a bulletin board inside.
“It’s a jail-slash-mental ward,” he said, noting that he was nevertheless managing. “I’m doing all right. I remain strong. I’ve gotten to keep my sanity.”
The only fresh air inmates have access to comes through high-up windows along one wall of the South West Detention Centre’s “yard” — an indoor, concrete room with high ceilings that looks onto a patch of grass and barbed wire fencing. Inmates are not allowed outside, Monforton said.
Jason Stroud, a correctional officer at the South West Detention Centre and president of OPSEU Local 135, said the guards have never received formal mental health training through the province.
He and other correctional officers have expressed interest in taking mental health training “conducive to the environment of working with inmates” for years, he said.
Correctional officers referred inmates to medical personnel, and try to listen and recognize when inmates need help with their mental health, he said.
For inmates, however, seeking help from the outside world remains largely a dream — as inaccessible as the facility’s only windows.