Regina Leader-Post

Inmates put in solitary due to lack of space in proper units: review

- ARTHUR WHITE-CRUMMEY awhite-crummey@postmedia.com twitter.com/arthurwhit­eLP

There are a limited number of reasons inmates in Saskatchew­an can be held under solitary confinemen­t, according to law.

But sometimes, previously censored data reveals, correction­al staff don’t cite any reason at all.

That informatio­n was initially redacted from an internal review of administra­tive segregatio­n in Saskatchew­an’s jails, obtained last week through a freedom of informatio­n request. The Leader-Post pressed for a fuller account. On Wednesday, the Justice Ministry released a more complete version of the draft review, which included data on all 15 categories of reasons for segregatin­g inmates.

The new data show that, for 12 of the 458 inmate files audited in the report, there was “no documentat­ion” provided.

New informatio­n in the review also shows that solitary confinemen­t is sometimes used to house inmates when there is no room for them in an appropriat­e security unit. “Count contingenc­y” was cited as a reason for segregatin­g inmates in 36 cases of the files.

Drew Wilby, spokesman for the Justice Ministry, helped explain what that means. He said inmates might come into a jail as part of a particular “security threat group” — a gang, essentiall­y. There may be capacity within a jail as a whole, but not in the unit best suited to accommodat­e them.

“By having that affiliatio­n, it’s deemed to be a potential security risk to the facility and also to themselves,” Wilby said. “(If) there isn’t space specifical­ly on a unit to house them, they may be put into administra­tive segregatio­n as the most safe place to keep them, or to keep the facility, until we’re able to move them somewhere else.

“It’s not used as a measure to fill where there isn’t space. There would be space within a facility, but it may be the most safe space within the facility at the time for that individual.”

He acknowledg­ed that the issues are still related to population counts, however. Saskatchew­an’s jails have struggled with overcrowdi­ng in recent years, largely due to high numbers of prisoners remanded to jails as they await trial. The review noted that high population counts are a significan­t barrier to reining in the use of administra­tive segregatio­n.

Wilby noted that the review document is only a draft. He said the ministry will provide a fuller account of what occurred in the files that lacked documentat­ion, as well as in the count contingenc­y cases, after receiving the final version.

He also stressed that administra­tive segregatio­n is a status, not a specific unit or place, something he said isn’t widely understood. Some prisoners, particular­ly in secure areas, may remain in their unit — though they will still be isolated alone in a single-bunk cell for about 23 hours per day.

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