Even Prison Inmates Deserve a Fair Hearing

FROM THE ARCHIVES (Columns)

Even prison inmates deserve a fair hearing

JEREMY PATRICK (jhaeman@hotmail.com)

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.