Abolishing segregation is the only answer

There is no institution more impenetrable than a jail. We so rarely get a glimpse of what really goes on behind the steel doors of our correctional facilities. It is, therefore, incumbent on us to pay close attention when one of the overseers of our jails sounds a shrill and insistent alarm, as Ontario ombudsman Paul Dubé has done in a report released last week.

After looking at hundreds of complaints about the use of solitary confinement in the province’s jails, Dubé catalogues an embarrassing litany of problems: prison officials who don’t know what segregation means, a failure to track who is in segregation and for how long, a lack of adequate reasons for putting or keeping someone in segregation . . . the list goes on.

Perhaps the most troubling findings are that the mandatory review mechanism in place to prevent prolonged use of segregation is often ignored and when segregation decisions are reviewed, it is nothing more than a “rubber stamp” by a senior correctional official.

Sadly, Dubé’s report is just the latest in a cluster of reviews and reports that make it abundantly clear that solitary confinement is a shameful blot on our reputation as an advanced society.

The ombudsman issued 36 recommendations. Unfortunately, the recommendations simply tinker around the edges of this intolerable practice. The recommendations focus on strengthening safeguards and procedures around the use of segregation and ensuring accurate information is kept about each segregation decision. But we must not be satisfied with better record keeping and better review mechanisms. We should accept nothing less than an outright abolition of the practice of segregation.

Under the current policies, segregation, or solitary confinement, is to be used as a last resort. The ombudsman found that it is, in fact, used as the first and only resort. This is hardly surprising.

Correctional culture is singularly focused on security and order. Guards and prison administrators are addicted to separating and confining problem inmates: their automatic default solution to any problem. Locking a nuisance, an agitator or a vulnerable inmate in a cell for 22 to 24 hours a day is easy. And that is how we end up with 560 of 8,000 inmates in provincial correctional facilities in solitary confinement each and every day.

As long as our system allows prison officials to segregate inmates, they will continue to do so. It will continue to be the default response for disruptive or violent or challenging or mentally ill inmates.

As long as solitary confinement is sanctioned as a management tool, there will be no incentive for the correctional culture to change or for the policies and programs needed to replace segregation to be implemented. And the system will continue to find ways to work around any procedural safeguards put in place to protect the inmates from this inhumane practice.

Of course it costs more to transfer mentally ill inmates to appropriate health-care settings or to provide mental-health services to keep inmates from deteriorating in the first place. It also costs money to offer meaningful programs that promote their rehabilitation and ward off the deleterious effects of boredom and indolence to inmates. And it takes more training and expertise and effort on the part of correctional officers to interact with inmates and develop relationships with them so they can anticipate and prevent unrest or potential violence.

But if we want a humane system that reduces recidivism, the investment is essential. We can no longer ignore the reality that segregation creates a whole host of problems: it creates and exacerbates mental-health problems for some inmates, it increases the risk of suicide for others, it frustrates rehabilitation and it disrupts reintegration efforts. It has been found to constitute torture.

I have no doubt Dubé’s report was well intentioned. It is clear that he is deeply troubled by the use of segregation in our prisons. However, the problem with Dubé’s recommendations is that they are enticingly simple.

The risk is that the government will implement the superficial changes suggested by Dubé and will get distracted from the real issue — abolishing segregation altogether. Carefully documenting and tracking an oppressive, inhuman practice does not make it any less oppressive or inhumane.

We must not congratulate the province if it simply changes the process by which we segregate thousands of people each year. We must insist on more — solitary confinement must finally be outlawed in Canada.