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We still haven’t learned to prevent prison deaths

The tragedy of Ashley Smith has grown larger and grimmer since she committed suicide in a Kitchener prison three years ago. It was terrible enough that Canadian authorities placed this severely troubled teen in a segregated prison cell, not a hospital, and denied her the care she needed.

The tragedy of Ashley Smith has grown larger and grimmer since she committed suicide in a Kitchener prison three years ago. It was terrible enough that Canadian authorities placed this severely troubled teen in a segregated prison cell, not a hospital, and denied her the care she needed.

But to make matters worse the federal government and Corrections Canada have over the past three years failed to learn the stark lessons of her preventable death. These failings were underlined repeatedly in the report handed down last Wednesday by federal prison ombudsman Howard Sapers.

None of us should forget how Smith, as a troubled 15-year-old, entered New Brunswick’s youth corrections system for a series of minor offences, that included throwing a crab apple at a postal worker.

Because of her behaviour — attributed to an undiagnosed mental illness — Smith racked up more institutional charges and was finally sent to federal prison. Her downward spiral ended October 2007 at Kitchener’s Grand Valley Institution for Women where she choked herself to death in a segregation cell in full view of guards. At that point she had spent a better part of a year in stark segregation.

She was just 19.

On the day Sapers issued his report, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews insisted the federal government has poured more resources into the prison system to help staff deal with the mental health issues of inmates.

But while acknowledging that some progress has been made, Sapers said far more must be done. In the three year’s since Ashley Smith’s death, “about 130 people have died in federal custody” and “many of these have been suicides,” Sapers said. And for anyone who thinks the government has this issue under control, Sapers’ next finding is stunning: Aspects of many of these suicides were similar to the conditions surrounding Smith’s death. In other words, we haven’t learned.

The Conservative government and Corrections Canada must listen to Sapers and act. A mental health strategy developed by Corrections Canada has to be funded and implemented.

It’s not as if the problem died with Smith or exists in a few isolated locations. Corrections Canada’s own figures state that 12 per cent of men in federal prisons and a staggering 25 per cent of female inmates have some form of mental disorder.

It’s true that Canada builds prisons to punish criminals and deter crime. But these institutions also exist to rehabilitate. It is also true that the prison system cannot rehabilitate offenders struggling with mental illnesses if it does not treat their afflictions.

If the Conservatives are determined to send more offenders to prison and for longer periods, they must implement the necessary changes for inmates struggling with the demons of mental illness, the demons that devoured the young and vulnerable Ashley Smith.

From the Guelph Mercury, Sept. 10