Public Safety Committee on Dec. 8th, 2011

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

How can the government help to improve treatment for drug abuse in prisons? What more can be done?

[Dr. Jan Looman]

I think one of the biggest things is infrastructure. As I said, the treatment centre I'm working in is appalling. The infrastructure we have makes it difficult to adequately address a lot of the needs the offenders have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Ms.Young, please, for seven minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you, Dr. Looman, for coming, and thank you so much for your amazing presentation. You're one of the first witnesses I've heard who has so directly linked drugs in prison with an inmate's well-being. I want to ask a question about that later, but I've only got five minutes, so I'm going to be fairly quick—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Actually, Ms. Young, I'll give you seven, because you're still on the first round.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I'm still on the first round. That's wonderful. Our chair is fantastic.

Anyway, Mr. Sandhu was trying to imply that our jails are mainly warehouses for the mentally ill, and I guess you refuted that when you said “not really”.

There are these other more hospital-like institutions in the Pacific area, and I've heard from my colleagues that in Saskatchewan there's something like a healing lodge, outside of Saskatoon. They work quite closely with the local hospital and local university. In addition to being a treatment facility, and a very high-level one, more like a hospital, it's also a training facility.

Can you speak a little bit about that? I have not been there, and I don't know how that differs from the dungeon you currently work in.

[Dr. Jan Looman]

There are five regions across Canada, and each of them has a treatment centre building. The one in Saskatoon was built in 1981-82, and the one in the Pacific region was built in the late 1990s. The one I work in was built in the 1860s and it was renovated, to some extent, in 1990.

I haven't seen the ones in Quebec and Atlantic region, but the Atlantic region treatment centre is a wing of Dorchester Institution, which is also a very old maximum security prison. I'm not sure about the one in Quebec.

There's a lot of variation across the country in terms of what the facilities are like. I worked in the one in Saskatoon in the late 1980s, and it's a beautiful building. It looks like a modern hospital.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Would you say that is a warehouse for the mentally ill? Is that how you would describe that particular institution?

[Dr. Jan Looman]

I'm not sure that was the implication that Mr. Sandhu was getting at when he used the word “warehouse”. It's an—

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Or an institution of last resort, if you know what I mean.

[Dr. Jan Looman]

It's a nice building.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

There's a point of order here.

Mr. Sandhu.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Chair, I want to clarify that it's not Mr. Sandhu saying this. I'm quoting from an article in The Globe and Mail that said our prisons are becoming warehouses for the mentally ill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right, point taken.

Continue, please

[Dr. Jan Looman]

As I said, the one in Saskatoon and the one in B.C. are nice modern buildings. They're well designed for the treatment of mentally disordered offenders. They're well designed for the function that is intended. Some of the other ones weren't designed for the function for which they're being used, and that is an issue.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Yes, and certainly that is something we've already identified in saying we need to modernize and spend more money on building new prisons and upgrading our prisons. We recognize that Kingston and some other institutions are old and they do need to be upgraded and/or replaced.

Would you say then that this kind of infrastructure and building these kinds of prisons would be a good use of federal taxpayer dollars, and absolutely needed?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I appreciate the question, and again, if the advice for one side is given, it has to be given for the other side. If both sides would try to keep their focus on the drugs and alcohol that are in prisons, instead of—

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I'm getting there, Mr. Chair.

Ultimately you're here because of your role in being the clinical manager for your institution, and obviously you care about the well-being of your inmates. I want to link this facility situation with the care of the inmates. Why do you think that upgrading or building a new prison is important for the well-being of the inmates?

[Dr. Jan Looman]

There are a number of reasons. The most important reason is that to provide treatment, you need adequate space and adequate facilities to provide the treatment. We need rooms we can deliver groups in. We need private interview rooms. We need to be able to access the offenders for more than an hour and a half a day to provide the treatment we're trying to provide. Some of the older, not purpose-built facilities don't have adequate group rooms. They don't have interview rooms. Because it's a maximum security environment, we fall into the routines of maximum security. An officer comes to a post for a certain period of time but then has to go off and do something else. You can't access the offenders when there aren't officers.

The design of the building has to be conducive to the purpose you're there for. You can't use a building designed for confining offenders to provide treatment, and that's what a lot of the institutions are doing.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Okay.

On page 7 of your presentation you say:

The drug subculture is often associated with gang activity and violence.

This destabilizes institutions and makes it difficult for offenders to focus on self-improvement, when they fear for their own safety.

Drug activity also leads to muscling behaviour, and the use of weaker offenders to hold or transport drugs.

We've heard a lot about this from the Corrections officers' perspective. Can you tell us a little bit about this from an inmate's clinical psychological perspective?

[Dr. Jan Looman]

As I was saying, when the offenders are under pressure from gangs or from bigger, stronger offenders to carry drugs in the institution or to hold them in their cells or whatever, it's very intimidating. Some of them get beaten up. They end up in segregation. They don't want to come out of their cells, because if they come out of their cells they're going to be pressured into taking part in these activities they don't want to be part of.

If a guy is there and he wants to participate in programs, but he's under pressure from the gangs or the bigger, stronger offenders, he either doesn't participate in the programs, or when he does participate, he's preoccupied with who's going to approach him when he leaves the building and goes out into the yard. It makes it very difficult to take part in the treatment programs, because he's so preoccupied with these other things.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Therefore, how—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No, your time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Looman.

We'll now move to Mr. Scarpaleggia, please, for seven minutes.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to follow up on what you were saying about how the inmates who want treatment or don't want to have anything to do with the drug subculture feel constrained to remain in their cells and therefore become isolated from the general population. Is there no way to factor that into specifically where inmates are housed within the institution? What we're hearing from you and others is that you can identify these inmates who really want to take part in the programs and who are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of muscling. Is there no way they can be put in an area of the facility where they are with other like-minded inmates? Is there nothing that can be done in that respect? If they're generally weaker, or more vulnerable, I should say, than other inmates, why are we putting them in areas where they're going to be intimidated?

[Dr. Jan Looman]

That's a complicated situation.

In maximum security prisons, like in Kingston Penitentiary, they do that to some extent. They have a range that's gang members, and they have a range that's the lower-functioning, less capable guys. They have sub-populations. They try to keep those sub-populations separate—separate movement times and separate yard times. They do that, but that's possible because it's a maximum security prison. They're able to have that sort of control over movement.

As soon as you move down into the medium security institutions, which are more open environments, it becomes more difficult to keep those sub-populations separate. Even within sub-populations, you get men who are.... Any time you get a group of men together, there's the top of the chain, right? Even within the sub-populations, you have a range of 30 cells filled with offenders, and one of them is going to be stronger than everyone else. So they end up with some of the same problems, but to a lesser extent.

Back in the nineties, Warkworth Institution was the institution that the sex offenders and the lifers went to, and Joyceville Institution was where a different type of population went to. Collins Bay was the institution that was all the gang members and really violent guys. Now that the prison populations are increasing, it becomes a lot harder to do that sort of pen placement, and you do more, “Where's the bed available? Send the guy there.”

Some of the dynamics within the medium security institutions are changing as a result of that. There are attempts made to set up institutions, or areas of institutions, so that you're protecting people that need protection, but it's difficult.