Public Safety Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2018

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Okay. That's great. I think we're all working towards the same thing on this. It's just getting the wording right in the legislation.

There's another thing. You've talked about this a bit, but I wonder if you could reinforce the importance for indigenous women in particular and for all indigenous people in prison of the misuse of the Gladue reports or the history. We've heard that women are classified as maximum-security prisoners—the majority of them—when their past history is taken into account.

Despite the best intentions of this legislation in saying that these must be considered, the first thing I thought of when I read that was, but they're being misused right now. How do we ensure that this history is taken into account? You've suggested that it be used to assess needs. I wondered if you could speak a bit more to the importance of ensuring that it is included.

[Elana Finestone]

Certainly. It's important because it is misused and indigenous women are overclassified. Maximum segregation is composed of 50% indigenous women, and 50% of the population in segregation in women's prisons is indigenous women. I know that Aboriginal Legal Services is not providing their Gladue reports to prisons in fear that they will be used to increase their risks. That's why it's really important to focus on needs. I would also echo Aboriginal Legal Services' call to have independent oversight to ensure that this is in fact the case on the ground.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Professor Parkes.

[Prof. Debra Parkes]

I'll just say one other thing about that. The other way that there's a failure to consider Gladue factors—or the misuse that I think Ms. Finestone was talking about—is in setting the correctional plan itself. If you are assessed as having all these needs and they translate into risks, that means you have to do all these additional things in your correctional plan to be able to get released. We know that indigenous people—and indigenous women in particular—are more unlikely than other prisoners to meet their release date, their eligibility date. That's in part because of a correctional plan that has many elements to it that have to be addressed, due to the way the Gladue factors can actually hurt instead of help.

[Jonathan Rudin]

If I might add to that, the other thing is that it's not just Gladue reports. CSC—

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Gladue reports aren't actually mentioned in the bill.

[Jonathan Rudin]

Right, but CSC takes an aboriginal social history of people when they come in and they use it in a risk assessment mode. That's the problem.

The Supreme Court of Canada in Ewert said that “relative to non-Indigenous offenders, Indigenous offenders are more likely to receive higher security classifications, to spend more time in segregation, to serve more of their sentence behind bars before first release”. That's all tied to CSC's insistence on risk measurements that don't actually address indigenous needs.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I only have 20 seconds left, and this is actually more to make sure all of you are aware that, along with this bill, CSC yesterday committed $448 million over six years to corrections. Much of the concern around how the SIUs will work has to do with resourcing. It's a significant amount of money that was committed in yesterday's fall economic statement, which will help to provide the resources, such as aboriginal liaison officers, program officers and everything else, for corrections.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Damoff.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have seven minutes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'll start with Mr. Pink or Ms. Finestone.

The Elizabeth Fry Society states that administrative segregation isn't necessary, whereas the John Howard Society, the correctional officers and the Correctional Service of Canada maintain that it's sometimes necessary.

In your opinion, does Bill C-83 seek to eliminate segregation or to ensure the safe and secure implementation of segregation?

[Elana Finestone]

Thank you very much.

Yes, we would echo the Elizabeth Fry statement that it should be abolished in women's prisons. As I hoped to illustrate, the women who come in have very different circumstances and needs than the men do. Right now, there are only eight women who are in segregation. We don't need it. There are other ways to support their needs and manage risk.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

If a person poses a threat to themselves or others, how else should their case be handled if segregation is eliminated?

[Elana Finestone]

There are other places to put them. As Jonathan Rudin mentioned, a lot of the issues stem from mental health, and they should be put in appropriate facilities that can address those needs.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I agree that they're often people who have mental health issues, and that's why they engage in aggressive behaviour. We need a place in prison to treat them. If we eliminate segregation, how do you think we can treat them? I don't understand.

[Elana Finestone]

They need to be put in different areas outside of the prison to manage it. Courts across Canada have found that CSC is not able to manage this, so I don't think they should be in the prison setting.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Okay.

On a similar note, we've been told by health care professionals that, when a decision is required in a mental health case, the decision should be taken out of the director's hands. The director of corrections shouldn't make the decision to take someone out of segregation. The decision should be left to the people in the health care service.

Do you agree?

[Jonathan Rudin]

This is the point of having independent oversight. The decision of the head gets reviewed, and there is an opportunity to raise questions about where the appropriate placement of the individual is. There may be a need to call upon mental health professionals, but the important thing is that there be independent oversight and a place for people to bring that information before someone who can make that decision, as opposed to simply someone working for CSC.

[Elana Finestone]

It's important to place indigenous women in the context of the crimes they have committed. Often indigenous women are very much construed as violent, but a lot of their crimes are self-defence against spouses who have battered them. They fear for their lives or those of their children, and that should be informing how we are “managing” indigenous women in prison.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Rudin, you already spoke here in 2013. You talked about the issue of violence caused by fetal alcohol spectrum disorder among Indigenous people.

Do you currently think that Indigenous people are more likely to be placed in segregation as a result of this factor?

[Jonathan Rudin]

You've raised an important point. People with FASD are often much more sensitive to external stimulation, so they often overreact. I am regularly in touch with a particular inmate with FASD. He said he was in an institution where, when the guards came in, they said, “Okay, we're coming in. This is what we're doing,” and everything was fine. He was in another institution where guards would come in and just grab him, and he reacted inappropriately. Those are the sorts of things that will put you in solitary.

The other problem is that people with FASD are often highly subject to manipulation. They will also end up there for disciplinary charges, often because they will take responsibility for the acts of other people. Certainly, we know we have a lot of people in the prison system with FASD and other cognitive deficits. They're being put in solitary and that is just exacerbating their problems.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Eglinski, do you have anything to add?

[Jim Eglinski]

I have a really quick question for Professor Parkes.

In one of the reports you put out a few years ago on solitary confinement, prisoner litigation, etc., you stated that out of approximately 8,300 prisoners who had two-year sentences or greater, almost 5,000 were put into administrative segregation. When you were doing that study, was there an indicator as to why that happened to so many? That's well over half. I wonder if you saw a pattern.

[Prof. Debra Parkes]

Yes. Those data come from the Corrections itself and through the correctional investigator. They show a whole range of reasons. Some are mental health reasons. People are engaging in self-harm or are seen as a threat to themselves. It's essentially for their own safety. Sometimes they're in a dispute with another prisoner. They might need it for safety for that reason.

There's a whole range of reasons, but CSC's own reports and literature—I'm looking at one of the reports over the years from the correctional investigator—show that a lot of the placements and security incidents that cause people to be placed in segregation result from poor interactions between staff and prisoners or from limited interactions between staff and prisoners. Research shows that better dynamic security and relationships between prisoners and staff can really radically reduce the number of behaviours that would cause someone to be placed in an isolating situation in the first place.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We have to leave it there. Mr. Eglinski and Mr. Paul-Hus managed to be well over their time.

Mr. Dubé, you have seven minutes, please.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

Having been on this committee for as long as I have, I imagine I should stop being surprised by these statistics. I want to make sure I heard you correctly: 50% of women in solitary, as I still call it, are indigenous. Is that correct?