British Columbia’s Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society of Canada have filed a petition to the Supreme Court, arguing that Canada’s use of solitary confinement in prisons is unconstitutional.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture considers solitary confinement of longer than 15 days to be torture. The average length of a period of solitary confinement in Canada is 40 days.
In 2007, 19-year old Ashley Smith committed suicide after spending more than 1000 days total in solitary confinement. The coroner in her case recommended that “administrative segregation” be limited to 15 days. This suggestion was ignored. Currently, Canada has no limit.
Smith’s case was not unique – on average, there are around 10 suicides per year by prisoners in solitary confinement. One quarter of Canadian prisoners spend some time in solitary confinement, but tellingly, over half of prisoners who commit suicide were segregated.
Canada doesn’t seem to be learning, either – over the past five years, Canada’s use of solitary confinement has increased by 6%.
We should really know better.
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