Law Times

Page 4 July 7, 2014 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com untary and two per cent of admis- sions were disciplinary. "You get placed in segrega- tion for disciplinary problems or at the request of the person. So oftentimes, you'll find people who will feel vulnerable in the general population and they will ask to be placed in solitary con- finement," says Latimer. But for Latimer, it's simply not enough to say inmates go to seg- regation for their own safety. "I recognize that the correctional authorities have a duty to keep people safe, but there should be some way of doing that, like a sep- arate wing of a prison, rather than putting them into something which is also understood to be a disciplinary mechanism and very hard on their mental health." Sapers says his recommenda- tion for independent adjudica- tion before prolonging inmates' stay in segregation has gone no- where. Currently, after the first five days in segregation, a review takes place to decide on whether to continue solitary confinement, he says. It's a review that's "so criti- cally important" that it should be a person other than the one who decided to place an inmate in segregation in the first place who makes the decision on whether to prolong it, he adds. Reviews take place at the 30- day mark as well as every 60 days after that. Smith never had the benefit of the reviews since she never stayed at one institution long enough to hit the manda- tory dates. Since her death, the Correctional Service Canada has adopted a recommendation by the Office of the Correctional Investigator to have the segrega- tion clock start on the first day of placement in solitary confine- ment regardless of which institu- tion a prisoner is at. Aboriginal Canadians, who are overrepresented in prisons, are also disproportionately placed in segregation. Thirty-one per cent of all offenders placed in seg- regation are aboriginals while 10 per cent are black. The correctional service didn't respond to a request for comment about the segregation issue. LT As Canada's prisons begin to overflow, a four-part Law Times series this summer will use data from various reports to look at the issue of segregation and other trends within the correctional system. In 2011, Juan Méndez, the United Nations special rappor- teur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, concluded that solitary confinement for more than 15 days results in "irrevers- ible" adverse psychological effects. In Canada, inmates on average spend 31 days in solitary con- finement. Mendelsohn Aviv says Méndez' report wasn't the first to reach that conclusion. She argues it's in the public's interest that pris- oners leave penitentiaries in better shape than when they went in. "People were shocked and horrified when they heard what had happened to Ashley Smith but they don't know about all the other inmates that are in similar types of conditions." According to Sapers, there's a growing recognition south of the border that prisons use solitary confinement too often. In Cana- da, the rise in the use of segrega- tion may be due to overcrowding and the resulting tension brought by the competition for resources, says Catherine Latimer, execu- tive director of the John Howard Society of Canada. The increase in the inmate population has led to the construction of 2,700 new cells at existing institutions, she adds. "Whenever you get a high density of inmates, you end up with more behavioural issues, so that in itself contributes to more use of solitary confinement." In 2011-12, 17 per cent of ad- missions to solitary confinement in federal prisons were volun- tary in situations where inmates request segregation from others. A further 81 per cent were invol- NEWS Janet E. Minor elected as Treasurer of e Law Society of Upper Canada Janet E. Minor has been elected to lead The Law Society of Upper Canada as its 65 th Treasurer. Treasurer Minor succeeded former Treasurer Thomas G. Conway on June 26, 2014. Treasurer Minor has worked in public law since 1977. Up until her election, she was general counsel in the Constitutional Law Branch of Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General. A highly respected advocate, she has appeared before all levels of Court and has argued many significant cases on behalf of the Ontario government. She was first elected as a bencher of the Law Society in 2001 and was re-elected in 2006 and 2011. She has served on a number of committees, including chair of the Professional Development and Competence Committee and the Equity and Aboriginal Issues Committee, as well as a member of the Access to Justice Committee and the Retention of Women and Challenges Faced by Racialized Licensees working groups. Most recently, Treasurer Minor played an integral role in the introduction of Pathways, an innovative project undertaken to address the shortage of articling placements, involving significant changes to the experiential training component of the Lawyer Licensing Process. Treasurer Minor has been active in the legal community throughout her career. She is a founding director of the Association of Law Officers of the Crown (ALOC) and past director of The Advocates' Society. She has also served on the boards of the Law Foundation of Ontario and the Ontario Justice Education Network. The Law Society of Upper Canada is the governing body of 46,000 lawyers and 6,100 paralegals in the province of Ontario, Canada, and the Treasurer is the head of the Law Society. The Law Society has a duty to protect the public interest, to maintain and advance the cause of justice and the rule of law, to facilitate access to justice for the people of Ontario, and to act in a timely, open and efficient manner. L E T R I G H T P R E VA I L ntitled-1 1 14-07-03 9:06 AM Continued from page 1 Separate wing rather than solitary confinement proposed www.mckellar.com We would like to thank all those who took part in THE 16 TH ANNUAL McKELLAR CHARITY GOLF DAY on Monday, June 16th, 2014. This event raised $23,975.00 for wicc (women in insurance cancer crusade) for use and support in their fight against cancer. A special thanks goes out to our sponsors for this event: TITLE SPONSOR FINANCIAL HORIZONS GROUP PLATINUM SPONSOR SUN LIFE FINANCIAL GOLD SPONSORS BMO LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY THE STANDARD LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY OF CANADA BRONZE SPONSOR THE RIORDON DESIGN GROUP INC. We appreciate your support! ntitled-7 1 14-06-30 3:53 PM ANNOUNCEMENT Graphic created using infogr.am. Information sourced from the Office of the Correctional Investigator.

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