The misuse of solitary confinement in Canadian prisons has reached a new low. The abuse is now so painfully obvious that four inmates in Alberta who filed a challenge to their placement in solitary from within their tiny cells – and did so without lawyers – were able to win their release from a judge.
The four men were thrown into solitary at the Edmonton Institution, a federal maximum security prison, on June 28. Prison officials ordered their segregation on the grounds that they were planning to attack prison guards in an orchestrated fashion.
But the officials never presented any evidence to the four men, nor laid any criminal or institutional charges against them. They simply tossed them in the hole and left them there.
The four filed an application of habeas corpus and forced a judicial review of the decision to isolate them. The judge ordered them released back into the general population on Aug. 9, saying the prison had ignored proper procedure.
Most telling for the judge was the fact the prison didn't lay internal or criminal charges against the men. Had that been done, the four would have been given a hearing and presented with the evidence. And if they have been found guilty, the maximum time in solitary the prison could have imposed was 30 days.
Instead, they were put away for at least 44 days without hearing. As a result, according to the judge, "they had already suffered more than the most serious punishment that could have been imposed for the most serious disciplinary breach."
Once again, a prison failed to act humanely. And once again a court had to step in. The same thing happened in December when a Nova Scotia prison put two inmates in solitary because of overcrowding. In Ontario, an investigation by The Globe this year found that mentally ill inmates are routinely put in solitary.
Prisons can be dangerous places, and the people inside them are there because they committed crimes. Some inmates are violent; some fight gang battles behind bars. But to reduce those dangers, and protect guards and other prisoners, the widespread application of solitary is not the answer. It has been proven to be extremely harmful to the mental health of those subjected to it.
The Trudeau government promised to reduce the use of solitary, though as yet it has done nothing. Nor have provincial governments. At this point, the inmates' best allies are the courts that sentenced them to prison in the first place. Bizarre, that.