Excellent. Thank you.
The presentation from Professor Sprott was really to give you an overview of some of the findings we had in the four reports that we wrote using Correctional Service of Canada data. Rather than describing what she, I hope, will be able to describe, I'd like to concentrate on the issue of the oversight of our system of solitary confinement.
One body said to be providing oversight are the independent external decision-makers, or IEDMs. In our fourth report, we document, using CSC data, that there are prisoners who are ordered by the IEDMs to be released from SIUs but who remain in SIUs for at least 61 days after their case is referred for review. We report that there are others who have been in SIUs for long periods of time without review.
As you know, if you look carefully at stays in SIUs, you will see that many of the stays fall into internationally recognized categories of solitary confinement and torture. I find it disturbing that in Canada we could have a discussion of why the rate of torture in CSC facilities in the Pacific region is so much higher than in Ontario. I never thought that in my career as a criminologist I would be comparing torture rates in institutions under the control of the Government of Canada. This is happening while oversight is being provided by these external decision-makers.
Let's talk about another form of oversight. I chaired the SIU implementation advisory panel that was established in mid-2019. We were a volunteer panel. In order to get an overview of what was happening, we asked CSC in November 2019, before the SIUs were to open, to provide us with certain administrative data that they routinely collect. In February 2020 we were told that CSC might not give us this data. No adequate justification was given. Only when the panel released its first and only report in August 2020, after its mandate had expired, did anything happen. To his credit, Minister Blair at that point apparently told CSC to provide me with the data that the panel had requested. By then the panel did not exist.
Professor Sprott and I received this data on September 30, 2020. We went to work finding out what this data told us about the operation of the SIUs. We provided a draft of our report to CSC for comment 16 days later. We released it publicly at the end of October. Professor Sprott, if she is able to get back on, will tell you some of the findings.
In our report, we were influenced by a statistician who suggested that in policy areas like this, the motto should be, “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” Our four reports total 111 pages and contain 87 tables of data, most of which provide details of the serious problems in the operation of the SIUs. We trust the data. We're skeptical of those in CSC who question the validity of our research findings, which are based on CSC data, when these same people fail to provide any evidence of their own. We need to have adequate oversight of CSC's operations of the SIUs.
Let's consider the basis for the decisions made by these IEDMs. They are almost completely dependent on CSC's accounts of individual cases. We have at this point no information about what they base their decisions on, or even what information they are given by CSC. We're not criticizing the IEDMs as individuals. It's a problem of the structure in which these people are being required to make decisions.
We also know that there is significant and substantial variability in the pattern of decisions made by these independent decision-makers. You are much more likely to be ordered to be released from the SIU by some of these IEDMs than by others. Our fourth report provides a substantial amount of data demonstrating that the IEDM system is not adequate. We also need broader oversight of penitentiaries to determine whether solitary confinement is being practised elsewhere in the institutions, not just in the SIUs.
Remember, solitary confinement is a practice, not a place. Our prisons are—