The Globe and Mail, August 22, 2005
When an inmate is stabbed
30 times by another inmate and has a collapsed lung and a fractured nose, has
he suffered a "serious bodily injury" warranting investigation? When
male inmates are lined up and strip-searched, is it reasonable to ask the
uncircumcised ones to retract their foreskins? When an inmate is moved to
solitary confinement, chained naked to a bed in a cell without a mattress, and
then confronted by a prison guard who tells a surveillance-camera operator to
"turn it off" seconds before the videotape is stopped, should
authorities try to determine what happened next?
"No," was the
initial response of Correctional Service Canada in each of these cases, events
reported by the correctional investigator that allegedly occurred in federal
institutions in the past few years.
Almost a decade has passed
since then-Madam Justice Louise Arbour raised the alarm about CSC's inadequate response to inmate grievance procedures.
In her 1996 report on the forced strip-searching and segregation of inmates at
the Kingston Prison for Women, she noted that almost all of the problems
examined during the inquiry had been first raised through the inmate grievance
procedure, but were either ignored, answered several months late, or answered
by someone without the authority to investigate the facts or provide an
effective response. After stating that "the lack of observance of
individual rights . . . is probably very much part of CSC's
corporate culture," she concluded that instituting the rule of law in
prisons "has no chance of success unless there is a significant change in
the mindset of the Correctional Service towards being prepared to admit error
without feeling that it is conceding defeat."
There has been no such
change. The Office of the Correctional Investigator reports that neglect and
indifference are still the common responses of correctional officials when both
individual and systemic problems are brought to their attention. The service
has long resisted reforms to reduce overcrowding, the use of force, and
violence among inmates, as well as efforts to improve conditions for aboriginal
and female prisoners.
Prison guards are among the
few actors in the criminal justice system allowed to operate free of binding,
external oversight. By contrast, police officers must face external complaints
commissions. But the correctional investigator is empowered only to issue
recommendations that the service can adopt or ignore at whim. As for the
internal grievance system, which inmates view as "slow and not very
effective" -- both the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the OCI have
concluded that the process is ineffective in curbing abuses in prisons.
What can be done when an inmate
is beaten with a baton, gassed, and then left wet and naked on a concrete slab
(as documented in an OCI annual report), and correctional officials assert that
there's no need to determine why it happened? The answer proposed by the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association and others: Create a federal inmate
grievance tribunal.
Operating in much the same
way as the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, an inmate grievance tribunal would
hear cases referred to it by the OCI. After hearing from both the inmate and correctional
officials, the tribunal would issue a binding order; for example, if an inmate
is placed in solitary confinement without good cause, the tribunal might order
his release back to the facility's general population; if guards with a grudge
destroyed an inmate's personal possessions, the tribunal might order
compensation. Tribunal decisions could be appealed, as in hearings about police
and lawyer misconduct.
Experience shows that three
key principles are embodied in a good complaints system. The system must be
unbiased, both in fact and in perception; it must be efficient and timely --
and it must have the authority and willingness to effect real change.
An inmate grievance
tribunal would have to operate independently of the Correctional Service and
the OCI. It would need fixed timelines, with members chosen according to merit.
Finally, it should be able to issue orders and craft remedies to solve a range
of problems.
No one expects federal
prisons to be paradise. But let's agree that beatings, rapes and degrading
conditions should be investigated and promptly remedied. The creation of a
federal inmate grievance tribunal won't create perfect justice in prisons, but
it will at least help to reduce present injustice.
Jeremy Patrick is a
policy analyst for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. CCLA's Corrections Project is available at http://www.ccla.org.
© 2005 Jeremy Patrick
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