REform and LEgIslatioN
Groups file response to government’s fight against solitary confinement
The head of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association says the group is ready to take on the federal government in a dispute over fixing a law that violates the rights of inmates in solitary confinement. [visual-link-preview...
Three Easy Criminal Justice Reforms
There are ten times as many people with serious mental illness in our jails and prisons as in our psychiatric hospitals. What is done to them in prison—including crowded conditions, victimization, inadequate mental health care and too often long stints in solitary...
‘This never should have happened,’ says father of Burnside jail inmate who died
The father of a 29-year-old man who was found unresponsive after a suicide attempt in a Nova Scotia jail cell earlier this week says the system should be changed to prevent such a death from happening again. [visual-link-preview...
Inquest into death of mentally ill prisoner finds staff unaware of schizophrenia diagnosis
Inquest report begins important conversations surrounding mental illness and solitary confinement in Canadian prison systems. Like Soli, Devon suffered with schizophrenia and died under state custody due to an unawareness of his mental health needs...
As prisoners protest, is the province listening?
Lack of access to mental health care is what ended Soleiman's life at Lindsay Correctional Centre. 3 years later, prisoners are still protesting against the same inhumane conditions across the prison system. [visual-link-preview...
Yukon agrees to make changes to solitary-confinement policies
The Yukon Human Rights Commission and the territorial government have reached an agreement in response to complaints from four prisoners over the use of solitary confinement for inmates who have a mental illness, as well as those who are Indigenous....
It’s Time to End Solitary Confinement
Lynn McDonald from Policy Options writes that “solitary confinement entails lack of meaningful human contact and sensory deprivation. It costs lives (40 percent of prison suicides take place in solitary), and causes or exacerbates mental illness.” [visual-link-preview...
Rights groups fight Canada government’s defense of solitary confinement
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Feds appealing solitary confinement ruling
Feds appealing solitary confinement ruling [visual-link-preview...
Rights groups gear up for new court battle over solitary confinement
Two civil rights groups are bracing for another courtroom clash with Ottawa over the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons, part of a protracted legal campaign launched more than three years ago. [visual-link-preview...
Security tool, or torture? Time running out for Liberals to make a call on solitary confinement
Eventually, the courts might compel the Liberal government to impose strict limits on the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons. But the government is already being judged. And if there's any reason to believe its critics are right — that administrative...