Former top official decries lack of action on proposed reforms
The former top official overseeing female corrections in Canada says she is “shocked” that the government has not formally responded to recommendations from an inquest held one year ago into the high-profile death of Ashley Smith.
Speaking publicly for the first time since her retirement as deputy commissioner for women earlier this year, Jennifer Oades also says she is dismayed at the continued “hardening” and “loss of humanity” within federal corrections and a seeming pre- occupation with security matters over rehabilitation.
“The analogy is if you had a dog in a cage and you kept poking it and poking it, when you open that cage that dog is probably going to come out and bite you,” she said.
Her comments come as the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies is set to hold a news conference on Parliament Hill on Wednesday to decry the lack of action by the government on more than 100 recommendations stemming from the Smith inquest.
Smith, a troubled 19-yearold from Moncton, N.B., choked to death in October 2007 after tying a piece of cloth around her neck in a segregation cell at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., in plain view of prison guards.
“I’M NOT SURE THAT THIS GOVERNMENT REALLY CARES THAT MUCH ABOUT IT.”
JENNIFER OADES
The Ontario coroner’s jury recommended mandatory mental health assessments for female inmates within 72 hours of admission to a prison; the placement of female inmates with serious mental health problems or chronic self-injury in specialized treatment programs outside prison; and an end to indefinite or long-term segregation for female inmates.
The Correctional Service of Canada will be responding to the recommendations in the “near future,” a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Veronique Rioux said that almost 90 per cent of female offenders already complete mental health screening at admission and there have been no suicides among that group since 2008.
Rioux said the agency has increased bed capacity at women’s institutions, trained more than 10,000 staff on fundamentals of mental health, and recognizes that it needs to continue to “reach out” to external mental health experts.
The agency has access to 32 psychiatric beds at community hospitals in Saskatoon and Montreal and agreements in principle to make more such beds available in Brockville, Ont., and Dartmouth, N.S.
But Oades said the pace of change has been too slow. “I’m not sure that this government really cares that much about it. Because I think if they did, if the minister or the government really cares, they’d make something happen,” she said.
On segregation, Oades said lessons were learned from the Smith case and that female offenders in segregation are kept an average of seven days today.
Oades is not convinced that putting limits on length of segregation is necessarily the right approach as “we need to ensure we keep flexibility.”
Critics often confuse segregation with solitary confinement, she said.
In Canada, an inmate can be placed in segregation but still have access to programs and services, just not when other inmates are around.
Still, Oades, who served as deputy commissioner for women from 2010 to April of this year, said she is troubled by a seeming air of indifference among senior executives and the Conservative government over the management of female offenders, who make up about four per cent of the prison population.
During her tenure, she didn’t have a single meeting with the public safety minister, she said.
And despite her senior role, she lacked “line authority” — the power to allocate money — and, as a result, money that should have gone to women’s institutions sometimes was diverted to fight deficits, she said.
Further, a number of policies have been introduced that run counter to the goals of respect and empowerment, she said, such as increased costs of making phone calls, no increases in inmate pay (the maximum is $6.95 per day) and reductions in parole releases.