Aug. 10, 1993: Singer-activist risks arrest to protest prison system
Prisoners at the maximum-security Edmonton Institution took the day off — many of them fasting and not reporting to their institutional jobs.
But they wouldn’t get into trouble for it because Aug. 10 is International Prisoners Justice Day, a day of mourning, protest and remembrance of inmates who have died unnatural deaths behind bars.
Federal authorities are OK with the protests — inmates just don’t get paid the $1 to $6.99 they make per day if they work.
Levels of pay range from the $1 per day basic allowance up to $6.99 depending on what programs an inmate participates in.
Offenders in custody in provincial facilities are also allowed to observe the day by fasting.
Canadian singer-activist-author Kathleen Yearwood risked arrest on this day in 1993 when she symbolically placed a bouquet near the perimeter fence of the Max.
“That fence represents oppression as much as the Berlin Wall or the walls around the Warsaw Ghetto ever did,” she said. (The Polish ghetto was the site of a Jewish uprising against German occupiers during the Second World War.)
Yearwood committed an act of civil disobedience. It’s illegal for civilians to approach within three metres of the fence. Yearwood and her supporters could have been charged with trespassing.
“We want to challenge the prison mentality,” she said. “There has to be alternative ways to make our society safe.”
Before taking on international status, Prisoners Justice Day was first observed in 1975 by inmates at the maximumsecurity Millhaven Institution in Bath, Ont. They went on a one-day hunger strike and held a memorial service, though it would mean a stint in solitary confinement.
They were protesting the way they thought prison authorities had botched their treatment of Eddie Nalon, who was serving a life sentence, but slashed his arm and bled to death on Aug. 10, 1974, while in the segregation unit for refusing to work.
Between 2001 and 2011, 530 offenders died in federal institutions and 327 offenders died in provincial facilities. The total includes all deaths, such as natural causes, suicide and homicide.