Canada: double bind for incarcerated minors

Nicolas Sallée. First, it is important to understand the nature of these places of confinement. The graphic novel illustrates daily life inside a so-called “secure unit” at the Cité-des-Prairies institution in Montreal. These units accommodate boys remanded in custody or sentenced to the most severe punishments under Canadian juvenile criminal law: “custody and supervision sentences”. In Quebec, these units can be open custody or closed custody; the graphic novel depicts a closed custody unit. In open custody units, bedroom doors remain open. However, in both cases, any young person who leaves without authorisation is liable to criminal prosecution for escape: both are, therefore, legal incarceration facilities. To complicate matters further, Cité-des-Prairies also has several “protection” units, reserved for young people who have not been convicted of a crime but who have been taken into the care of youth protection services. In some less populated areas of Quebec, there are so few young people convicted of crimes that they are placed with those in secure protection units.

This mix may seem strange, but it reflects the paternalistic mentality that has historically defined the imprisonment of young people considered deviant: if we deprive them of freedom, it is ultimately for their own good, protection, education, or rather, as we say today, rehabilitation and reintegration. This paternalism was explicit in Canada’s first Juvenile Delinquents Act, adopted in 1908: to meet the supposed needs of young people, judges were able to deliver indefinite custodial sentences, without opposition. Fortunately, there were major reforms to Canadian juvenile criminal law in 1984 and 2002, which helped recognise the rights of young people, such as the right to counsel. Since the mid-1980s, young people in secure units have been granted an increasing number of non-negotiable rights, such as visiting, telephone and hygiene rights. These rights are intended to bring living conditions closer to those in the outside world. The link between custodial units and external monitoring institutions was also strengthened in these years. As of 2002, any young person with a custody and supervision sentence has served the last third of it in the community, under the supervision of probation officers, known in Quebec as youth delegates (délégués à la jeunesse).

However, this paternalism is far from obsolete. Today, young people are caught in a double bind. The prison is fenced in, the doors are closed, and there are a multitude of rules dictating when they wake, sleep, do activities, how they move, speak, and interact. The constraint of confinement, which takes its toll on the body, is intrinsically coupled with the constraint of rehabilitation, as Foucault describes in Discipline and Punish. The latter constraint demands that young people not only “do their time”, but also use this time to reshape their behaviour, tame their emotions, and rectify their thoughts. Young people often resist these expectations, refusing to do more than serve their time, as a means of protesting against the demands of their educators. This modernised, cognitive-behavioural approach to self-transformation is not clear cut. On one hand, it allows young people to take part in numerous educational, clinical, cultural and sports activities, which they would undoubtedly have less access to in a real prison. On the other hand, it permits round-the-clock deployment of behaviour-correcting discipline, often in the form of isolation, i.e., “withdrawal”: young people are locked in their bedrooms or in an empty room to reflect on their poor behaviour.

See below for pp. 38-39 of the graphic novel¶

NS. The architecture reflects the ambiguity of these units. Historically, the imprisonment of young people has been characterised by idealistic visions of establishments that bear no resemblance to prison and the violence engrained within it. This was the case with the opening of Cité-des-Prairies in 1963, the architecture of which was based on that of maximum-security prisons at the time. The architecture was publicly denounced soon after the institution opened. In 1968, a provincial commission conducted a study tour of Quebec, France, Great Britain, and Sweden. The report described Cité-des-Prairies as “the most severe and inhumane institution [it] had surveyed”. A youth riot in 1974 prompted wide-ranging reforms at Cité-des-Prairies, including the establishment of academic and vocational programmes and the diversification of clinical activities. These reforms certainly improved confinement conditions but failed to mask the carceral nature of the establishment and old cracks frequently resurfaced.

In 1991, management installed video surveillance cameras outside the units, following the assault of a female educator. The director wanted to avoid turning Cité-des-Prairies into a “detention facility” (once again). The saga continues and cameras are subsequently installed inside the secure units after two riots in 2013. While most educators accept this security measure in their work environment, others deplore it. They report feeling constantly watched and no longer able to perform certain gestures conducive to the educational dynamic, such as touching a young person’s shoulder or comforting them with a hug, as physical contact is forbidden.

The centre’s prison-like atmosphere impacts all practices, interactions, and experiences within it. Some stricter educators are quick to resort to “withdrawal” when a young person breaks the rules. The issue of discipline is the subject of endless, and sometimes heated, debates among educators. The ultimate insult to an educator is being called a “prison guard”.
But isn’t it only logical that some of the practices in this mock prison are similar to those employed by prison guards? My observations are not intended to challenge the professionalism of the educational teams. They work hard in difficult conditions to try to get young people out of delinquency.

Above all, I want us to think critically about how we work with young people. We need to deconstruct the idea that just because we want their rehabilitation we are infallibly acting in their best interest. On the contrary, confinement is inherently violent, even when the term “prison” is conveniently removed.

At Cité-des-Prairies, there are rooms, consequences and withdrawal measures rather than cells, punishment or disciplinary isolation. But ultimately, euphemisms don’t change much about daily life in these units: closed custody may not be prison, but it is not far off either.

Cité-des-Prairies is northeast of Montreal, in one of the city’s least dense and most inaccessible boroughs. The distance makes travel difficult for visitors, especially families. The establishment is separated from the residential area by a large boulevard. It is located next to a hydroelectric power station, a water treatment plant, an adult prison, and a high-security psychiatric hospital. If they wanted to remind the young residents of Cité-des-Prairies of their exclusion from society, they couldn’t have picked a better place to house them.

See below for pp. 22-23 of the graphic novel¶

NS. We must re-establish the confinement of young people as part of the of the aftercare continuum, which extends well beyond secure units. Since the early 1990s, the most significant changes in the juvenile justice system have been to external follow-up institutions. In Montreal, they have been restructured to optimise resources by varying follow-up intensities according to an individual’s risk of reoffending, based on a preliminary assessment. The higher the risk of reoffending, the greater the follow-up intensity. The daily conditions and monitoring of a young person are subject to increase and may include compulsory appointments, social skills workshops, training or care obligations, contact or travel bans, or curfews.

Any breach of these conditions may lead to the young person being sent (or returned) to a secure unit. Those considered most at risk, who are often the most disadvantaged, feel that they are “locked out”, or in a kind of “open custody”. The role of a youth delegate is to support and monitor these young people, however, these responsibilities are often at odds with one another.

There are also two contrasting timeframes in this situation: the lengthy journey out of delinquency and the narrow window of opportunity to prevent young people from reoffending. More and more research shows that young people face a long, precarious, and often bumpy road away from delinquency: beyond avoiding reoffending, they must learn new social roles and obtain the recognition and resources necessary to move forward. There are sometimes relapses, mistakes, and reoffences over the course of this process. When we reduce assisting young people out of delinquency to preventing them from reoffending, we run the risk of jeopardising the support period in a hasty, overzealous attempt to control the situation.

My observations from within the units reveal this mindset of control is present in a large amount of the support offered inside. Young people are then left to rely on their own self-control to manage their risks and to meet their needs. One of the main elements of the clinical programme is to teach young people various “social skills”: to be aware of their emotions, to help others, to exert self-control. Using these skills and having them validated by an educator allows young people to earn pretend banknotes called “cognitive dollars”, with which they can buy various high value “privileges”: a music player in their room, video games, “housework leave”, gym time, a later bedtime. This “emulation system”, which uses old behavioural techniques, was set up in the wake of the 2013 riots to revitalise daily life in the secure units. This rehabilitation project promotes the image of a young man in charge of his own destiny, undergoing intensive behavioural training in preparation for his release.

See below for pp. 58-59 of the graphic novel¶

These observations will be the subject of a book set to be published in early 2023, Beyond Rehabilitation: Control. Juvenile Justice in the 21st Century, Quebec, University of Quebec Press, University of Quebec Press (Sous la réhabilitation, le contrôle. La justice des mineurs au XXIe siècle, Québec, Presses de l’Université du Québec).