Canada
Seen in the press
Read our selection of press reports about this country. This is a short description of prison conditions on a national scale. It gives an account of the preceding year’s events.
Canada: Length of solitary stays increasing in Ontario prisons
Five years after Ontario vowed to curtail its use of solitary confinement, average inmate stays in segregation cells have grown longer, with one prisoner in Ottawa remaining in isolation for at least 835 days, according to newly released provincial data.Canada : feds aim to replace solitary confinement in prisons with ‘structured intervention units’
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has tabled a new bill in the House of Commons aimed at ridding Canadian prisons of solitary confinement. Bill C-83 suggests designating “a penitentiary or an area in a penitentiary as a structured intervention unit for the confinement of inmates who cannot be ma…Canada: former watchdog: Mental health needs of women in prison not being met
“I don’t agree that it’s society’s fault”. The Royal should never have accepted an acutely ill inmate like Marlene Carter at its Brockville Mental Health Centre as part of a contract it had with Correctional Service Canada, says retired Conservative Senator Bob RuncimanCanada: suicide attempts spike amid Ontario prison system overhaul
At a time when Ontario prison officials have vowed to take a more humane approach to inmate care, the province has recorded a significant rise in the number of suicide attempts in its correctional facilities. Over the past decade, provincial institutions have averaged 106 suicide attempts a calenda…Canada: liberal government to impose 15-day limits on solitary confinement
Nearly a decade after teenager Ashley Smith died by self-strangulation in a solitary confinement cell, the Liberal government has introduced a bill that would place new restrictions on indefinite solitary confinement in federal prisons but falls short of the expectations of some prison-rights advoc…Canada: number of federal inmates who self-harm tripled in last decade
The number of inmates in federal prisons who intentionally harm themselves has more than tripled over the past decade, spiking again last year, prompting Canada’s correctional investigator to call for changes to ensure such prisoners are treated as patients who require medical care.Canada: Ontario vows to act on solitary confinement limits in new report
Ontario’s prisons adviser has laid out a plan that would catapult the province’s prison system from a national laggard to one of the most progressive in the world by placing hard limits on the use of solitary confinement and prohibiting the segregation of vulnerable prisoner populations.Canada: Ontario faces lawsuit over solitary-confinement practices
Ontario is facing a $600-million lawsuit on behalf of thousands of mentally ill inmates who have served time in solitary confinement since 1985, yet another addition to a glut of litigation currently facing governments in the country over their handling of prisoners in isolation.