FELDSTED: The idea that solitary confinement is always a form of punishment is simply not true

Liberals set to amend solitary confinement rules in wake of dual court calls for action

Amanda Connolly ~~ National Online Journalist / Global News ~~ October 15, 2018

Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and

Emergency Preparedness, Ralph Goodale,

is the MP for the Regina- Wascana riding

The federal Liberals are set to introduce a new bill tackling the issue of administrative segregation, more commonly known as solitary confinement.  A bill was put on the notice paper on Oct. 11, which is how the government gives notice that it intends to table legislation in the House of Commons…

… it is not clear at this time what new limits or bans the new bill could put in place on the use of solitary confinement.

The federal government introduced a bill in June 2017 … however, that bill never made it past first reading and has wallowed in legislative purgatory ever since… a series of legal challenges that came after it have resulted in court rulings that strict limits are needed and that using solitary confinement long-term is unconstitutional.

A government official …  acknowledged there have been concerns raised repeatedly by justice advocates over the last year and a half that the language in the existing bill does not fully address the concerns raised in two significant court rulings that have come since.

… an Ontario Superior Court judge also deemed the long-term use of solitary confinement in federal prisons unconstitutional.

He called for much stricter limits of no more than five days in order to prevent psychological harm to the offender.

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I don’t suppose the jurors have ever considered that they are not legislators, or that prisoners are not the most reliable judges of what constitutes psychological abuse.

Some prisoners are isolated due to their crimes; for example, child molesters are unlikely to survive in general population and will be most likely be killed. Others are in debt from gambling, or from illicit drug use, and will meet an untimely death if not protected.

Then there are the psychopaths who gain separation by attacking and harming other inmates. We also have dangerous criminals who will not hesitate to murder again. Once they are sentences to life without parole for 25 years, they have little to lose, and are thus more dangerous than most.

There is considerable difference between provincial jails, where convicted persons serve sentences less than two years, and federal prisons where convicted persons serve sentences of two years or more. That is where the sentencing term “two years less a day” comes from – the judge is deciding to send a convicted person to a provincial jail rather than a federal prison.

The proposed legislation has numerous unintended consequences, and if passed will see some lives lost when prison officials are required to release an inmate from solitary confinement. The idea that solitary confinement is always a form of punishment is simply not true.

There are instances where tempers flare, a fight breaks out and combatants are temporarily confined to allow tempers to cool, and second thoughts to rule. Those confined are likely to consider the confinement to be punishment, but without intervention and serious harm taking place, one of the combatants would face assault charges and most likely an extension of his sentence.

Others, as cited above, will kill or be killed with whatever devices are available. It will not be humane or pretty. Of course, judges never have to deal with a prisoner stabbed multiple times with home-made knives, or strangled with an appliance cord, or gang raped, or simply beaten to death.

This is a case where ideology and reality clash and pushing ideology will have dire consequences.

John Feldsted

Political Consultant & Strategist

Winnipeg, Manitoba