NEWS
10 Obiter Dicta
Solitary confinement
» continued from cover
one hundred days in solitary confinement as the
guards stood by and watched. She was 19 years
old. Her death (by self-induced asphyxiation) was
deemed a homicide by a Coroner’s Inquest in 2013.
She died eleven years after the publication of a
report by former Supreme Court Justice Louise
Arbour on the Kingston Penitentiary’s women’s
prison. The report recommended that inmates not
be kept in solitary confinement for over thirty days
and no more than twice a year.
The UN committee tasked with examining this
issue echoes the findings of the Arbour report. The
Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture,
which Canada is being urged to sign, outlines the
negative impact segregation has on inmates. The
Canadian Medical Association seems to concur, calling segregation “cruel and unusual.”
For those
unswayed by the human facet of this issue, there are
also practical reasons for opposing the undiscerning
use of segregation. It seems that solitary confinement, when used improperly, causes more problems
than it solves. It makes it more difficult for inmates
to readjust to the general prison population and to
life after prison. Some experts link segregation and
recidivism. Moreover, inmates in segregation are
often prevented from participating in rehabilitative programs (which are already rare and underfunded as it is). Although this can be justified in
certain circumstances, these programs are all society has to rely on when inmates are released. Every
step should be ta