Publishers Message for BEYOND INCARCERATION
To shed light on todays cultural, social, economic, and political issues that are shaping our future as Canadians, Dundurns Point of View Books offer readers the informed opinions of knowledgeable individuals.
Whatever the topic, the author of a Point of View book is someone weve invited to address a vital topic because their front-line experience, arising from personal immersion in the issue, gives readers an engaging perspective, even though a reader may not ultimately reach all the same conclusions as the author.
Our publishing house is committed to framing the hard choices facing Canadians in a way that will spur democratic debate in our country. For over forty years, Dundurn has been defining Canada for Canadians. Now our Point of View Books , under the direction of general editor J. Patrick Boyer, take us a further step on this journey of national discovery.
Each author of a Point of View book has an important message and a definite point of view about an issue close to their heart. Some Point of View Books will resemble manifestos for action, others will shed light on a crucial subject from an alternative perspective, and a few will be concise statements of a timely case needing to be clearly made.
But whatever the topic or whoever the author, all these titles will be eye-openers for Canadians, engaging issues that matter to us as citizens.
J. Kirk Howard
President
Dundurn Press
A Note from the General Editor
Confronting the Irony of Correctional Services
In this expos, Paula Mallea brings all evidence needed to demonstrate how irreconcilable conflicts exist between publicly stated official goals versus actual institutional performance in our countrys so-called correctional services. Drawing on her own experience, Mallea makes a persuasive case for fresh approaches so officials and prisoners alike can break free from the straitjackets of old-fashioned thinking.
Today, this gap between goals and performance remains as glaring as ever. United Nations policy on solitary confinement of a prisoner for more than fifteen days is that it is tantamount to torture, something prohibited by international law. In Canada, prisoners are routinely isolated for much longer periods, even though Canada proudly claims devoted adherence to the United Nations. Within our country, provincial and federal governments still announce improvements in prison operations that never achieve liftoff in the institutions.
When I wrote A Passion for Justice , a biography of Canadas greatest law reformer James C. McRuer, an entire chapter was devoted to his work with fellow royal commissioners Agnes Macphail and Joseph Archambault investigating why so many prison riots were taking place across Canada. Long after the commission issued its report and recommendations, McRuer remained haunted, he told me, by the nightmarish scenes hed witnessed. Yet parliamentarians were unsympathetic. They hounded MP Macphail in the Commons for misplaced sympathies. In time the seven different types of flesh-tearing whips then used in Canadas prisons were abolished, though other recommendations languished. Those in office saw no voter reward for dealing with offenders other than getting tough on crime and building more prisons.
Theres a direct line between these reformist instincts and the impetus here for transforming correctional services today. For a country presenting itself as a model for the world, for Canadians coveting a cohesive modern society, for a land where entrenched residential schools imprisoning Indigenous children could be abolished and reconciliation begun, another change is now due. With the force of facts, Paula Malleas manifesto makes clear its time to advance beyond incarceration.
J. Patrick Boyer
General Editor
Point of View Books
Other Point of View Titles
Irresponsible Government
by Brent Rathgeber
Foreword by Andrew Coyne
Time Bomb
by Douglas L. Bland
Foreword by Bonnie Butlin
Two Freedoms
by Hugh Segal
Foreword by Tom Axworthy
Off the Street
By W.A. Bogart
Foreword by Sukanya Pillay
Charlie Foxtrot
by Kim Richard Nossal
Foreword by Ferry de Kerckhove
Sir Johns Echo
by John Boyko
Foreword by Lawrence Martin
Dynamic Forest
by Malcolm F. Squires
Foreword by John Kennedy Naysmith
Dedication
For prisoners and ex-prisoners everywhere
Contents
Foreword by Catherine Latimer
Preface
Introduction
1 Getting to Prison: Sentencing
2 Prison Conditions: Developments Since 1971
3 Prison Conditions: Not Fit for Man or Beast
4 The Dubious Efficacy of Reforming Prisons: A Global View
5 Restorative Justice and Other Alternatives
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Foreword
C riminal lawyer Paula Mallea brings much-needed attention to the current dysfunction of Canadas correctional system and suggests avenues for immediate and longer-term reform in her insightful and timely book.
While progress toward just, effective, and humane corrections has been gradual, advances have been made toward recognizing that people are sent to prison as punishment and not for punishment. Correcting criminal behaviour and providing skills that allow former prisoners to be employed and to make a contribution to society upon their return have been seen as contributing to public safety. Canadas Corrections and Conditional Release Act , which came into effect twenty-five years ago, enshrined a rights-based approach to the confinement of people in federal prisons and was regarded as a significant milestone and a model for other countries. The closure of the Prison for Women in 2000 and its replacement with five regional facilities that sought to heal and address the underlying conditions affecting womens criminality represented an important step toward realizing a rehabilitative model of imprisonment.
The last fifteen years, however, have seen a reversal of the progress that had been made. A tough on crime, pro-victim government brought forward a deluge of legislative reforms and budget cuts that had a devastating effect on federal corrections. As Mallea points out, judicial discretion in sentencing, necessary for the precise tailoring of the punishment to fit the crime, which justice demands, was removed by a series of legislative reforms that imposed mandatory minimum penalties of jail time and victim surcharges.
Changes to the Criminal Code also created strong disincentives for those battling mental illness to raise their illness as a defence. This compounded the problem of people with mental illness defaulting into the criminal justice system, arising from an antiquated understanding of the criminal defence of mental illness that was established in England in 1843, and which Canada still uses today. Similarly, the inadequate provision of mental health facilities in civil society has often caused the mentally ill to be diverted into prisons where they do not belong, where they cannot be adequately treated, and where their presence results in greater tensions among prisoners.
