Submissions to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs
Sub-Commitee on the Penitentiary System in Canada

Publisher:  Prison Law Collective of the Law Union of Ontario, Canada
Year Published:  1977
Pages:  42pp   Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX316

A review of oppresion in the Canadian penitentiary system as a wholem with a closer look at the Millhaven Institution.

Abstract: 
These submissions are divided into two segments. The first deals with the history of Millhaven Institution and relates its story of continued oppression of prisoners, an oppression which continues in its intensity to the present day. Examples of severe and extended segregation of prisoners are given. Some of
those include cases of prisoners being put in rooms without bedding or clothing, shackled and left to lie in their own excrement. Suicides have resulted, and in fact, the prison suicide rate runs more than ten times that of the general Canadian rate.
The second segment is a catalogue of present and contemplated inhumanities in the penitentiary system in general. Prisoners cannot vote in elections; their freedom of speech is denied to the point where even their reading is severely restricted. Prisoners identified with peaceful protests are systematically rooted out, transferred and segregated. The procedures for dealing with discipline, parole, and other juridical matters are conducted without any of the normal legal process or protection of legal rights. Often it is the very institutional staff responsible for the person under their care who sit in judgement. There are no transcripts of hearings, no reasons for decisions, no right to access or to defence witnesses, no right to make submission on one's own behalf. Appeal is extremely difficult and limited.
The submission includes an extended review of Bill C-83 (the Peace and Security Legislation) which is designed "to provide better control in penitentiaries and to strengthen the process whereby inmates are released into the community." The general result of the legislation will be that prison authorities will have much more control over the prisoners, and over the length of their stay.
The major recommendation is the immediate abolition of all current practices which deprive penitentiary prisoners of their basic rights to dignity and peaceful self-expression. Economic right to a decent market wage for work done in the penitentiary is especially underlined. Prisoners deserve the freedom from exploitative labour at low wage rates (usually below a dollar a day).