Tracking the Politics of Criminalization and Punishment in Canada: 5/1/20

Friday, May 29, 2020

Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Linked to Canadian Carceral Institutions (v7.1)

* Click below to expand the table *

LIST OF INSTITUTIONS IMPACTED AND SOURCES

Federal / Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA)
Laval Immigration Holding Centre (La Presse)
Toronto Immigration Holding Centre (TVO)

Federal / Correctional Service Canada (CSC)
Unknown Institutions (CSC Commissioner Anne Kelly)
Port-Cartier Institution (CTV News / CSC)
Donnacona Institution (Journal de Québec)
Drummond Institution (The Canadian Press)
Archambault Institution (Journal de Montréal)
Joliette Institution for Women (CTV News / CSC)
Federal Training Centre (CTV News / CSC)
Beaver Creek Institution (Global News)
Grand Valley Institution for Women (CTV News / CSC)
Kent Institution (Global News)
Matsqui Institution (CSC)
Mission Medium Institution (CTV News / CSC)
Fraser Valley Institution for Women (News 1310)

Provincial - Nova Scotia
Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility (Halifax Examiner)

Provincial - Quebec
Établissement de détention de Trois-Rivières (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Sherbrooke (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Sorel-Tracy (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Saint-Jérôme (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Montréal - Bordeaux (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention Rivière-des-Prairies (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention Leclerc de Laval (Gouvernement du Québec)
Palais de justice de Montréal (La Presse)

Provincial - Ontario
Central East Correctional Centre (Solicitor General)
Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Solicitor General)
Maplehurst Correctional Complex (Solicitor General)
Monteith Correctional Complex (Solicitor General)
Niagara Detention Centre (Solicitor General)
Ontario Correctional Institute (Solicitor General)
St. Lawrence Valley CTC / Brockville Jail (Solicitor General)
South West Detention Centre (Solicitor General)
Toronto South Detention Centre (Solicitor General)
Vanier Centre for Women (Solicitor General)

Provincial - Saskatchewan
Saskatoon Correctional Centre (Global News)

Provincial - Alberta
Calgary Remand Centre (Calgary Herald)

Provincial - British Columbia
Okanagan Correctional Centre (CTV News)
North Fraser Pretrial Centre (News 1130)

Canadian Jurisdictions without Cases
Linked to their Jails and Prisons
Newfoundland and Labrador
Prince Edward Island
New Brunswick
Manitoba
Nunavut
Northwest Territories
Yukon

OTHER RELEVANT COVID-19 RESOURCES
COVID-19 in Canada's Federal Prisons (click here)

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Linked to Canadian Carceral Institutions (v7.0)

* Click below to expand the table *

LIST OF INSTITUTIONS IMPACTED AND SOURCES

Federal / Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA)
Laval Immigration Holding Centre (La Presse)
Toronto Immigration Holding Centre (TVO)

Federal / Correctional Service Canada (CSC)
Unknown Institutions (CSC Commissioner Anne Kelly)
Port-Cartier Institution (CTV News / CSC)
Donnacona Institution (Journal de Québec)
Drummond Institution (The Canadian Press)
Archambault Institution (Journal de Montréal)
Joliette Institution for Women (CTV News / CSC)
Federal Training Centre (CTV News / CSC)
Beaver Creek Institution (Global News)
Grand Valley Institution for Women (CTV News / CSC)
Kent Institution (Global News)
Matsqui Institution (CSC)
Mission Medium Institution (CTV News / CSC)
Fraser Valley Institution for Women (News 1310)

Provincial-Territorial
Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility (Halifax Examiner)
Établissement de détention de Trois-Rivières (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Sherbrooke (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Sorel-Tracy (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Saint-Jérôme (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Montréal - Bordeaux (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention Rivière-des-Prairies (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention Leclerc de Laval (Gouvernement du Québec)
Palais de justice de Montréal (La Presse)
Toronto South Detention Centre (CBC News)
Ontario Correctional Institute (CityNews / The Canadian Press)
Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Hamilton Spectator)
South West Detention Centre (Windsor Star)
Monteith Correctional Complex (CBC News)
Saskatoon Correctional Centre (Global News)
Calgary Remand Centre (Calgary Herald)
Okanagan Correctional Centre (CTV News)
North Fraser Pretrial Centre (News 1130)

OTHER RELEVANT COVID-19 RESOURCES
COVID-19 in Canada's Federal Prisons (click here)

Monday, May 25, 2020

Update Regarding Ramadan Accommodations for Muslim Prisoners at OCDC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

25 May 2020 (Algonquin Territory / Ottawa) – Eid Mubarak to all Muslim people on Turtle Island and beyond.

During the Islamic month of Ramadan, many Muslims – including people behind bars – observe daily fasts, abstaining from all food and drink from sunrise to sunset, including medications. Since at least Ramadan 2019, the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre (OCDC) has failed to consistently distribute medication to fasting Muslim prisoners during their non-fasting hours, despite numerous requests by prisoners. This is discrimination on the basis of health and creed.

On 28 April 2020, the Jail Accountability & Information Line (JAIL) hotline wrote to OCDC’s Acting Superintendent relaying prisoners’ concerns. When OCDC failed to provide a substantive response, legal counsel to the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project (CPEP), Fathima Cader, wrote to the jail’s administration on 7 May 2020 requesting they accommodate Muslim prisoners on an urgent basis. CPEP stressed that OCDC should not be forcing people to choose between their faith and their health.

CPEP’s legal letter was endorsed by sixty civil society organizations and supported by the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC). CPEP shared its letter with signatories, the media, and the general public.

To date, OCDC has not responded to CPEP directly. Instead, on 13 May 2020, the Ministry of the Solicitor General sent an email to then OHRC Commissioner Renu Mandhane responding to an article that Muslim Link – a local newspaper – had published about OCDC’s failure to accommodate Muslim prisoners. In this email, an Assistant Deputy Minister admitted that OCDC had failed to accommodate the Muslim prisoners on at least five days, but asserted that this was no longer the case.

Throughout Ramadan, the JAIL hotline continued to track medication delivery at the OCDC. Prisoners have reported that after CPEP issued its legal letter, OCDC began providing Muslim prisoners with their medications during non-fasting hours. While we count this as a success, some issues continued:

OCDC’s accommodation of fasting hours involved delivering medication at around 10:00pm and 2:00am. This leaves only a 4-hour interval between dosages. However, during Ramadan, Muslims have an approximately 7-hour window to eat, from sunset to the following sunrise. Several prisoners have independently reported experiencing harmful side effects as a result, which they linked to the short interval between dosages.
On 8 May 2020 a Muslim prisoner who had stopped fasting for one day due to extenuating personal circumstances asked OCDC, verbally and in writing, to be returned to the Ramadan meal schedule. OCDC refused, with at least one guard calling the prisoner a “whiner” for their self-advocacy. On 15 May 2020, the JAIL hotline wrote to OCDC demanding they reinstate the prisoner’s Ramadan meal and medication schedule and end its policy of de facto refusing to reinstate prisoners to Ramadan meal and medication schedules. This prisoner has since reported that OCDC reinstated them to the Ramadan schedule effective 15 May 2020. This caller also indicated that the institution provided them a prayer mat shortly after accommodating their Ramadan schedule.

With the conclusion of Ramadan this year, the JAIL hotline remains committed to monitoring OCDC’s treatment of prisoners, including next Ramadan and beyond. We stress that the discrimination Muslim prisoners face is not isolated to them alone. OCDC routinely fails to accommodate the creed-related needs of Indigenous prisoners and the health needs of ill prisoners. Systemic discrimination at OCDC on the basis of identity is the norm, rather than the exception. OCDC’s longstanding history of human rights abuses and the abject failure of all sites of human caging to meet their stated objectives point to the need to move away from systems that reproduce harm and to build communities rooted in solidarity and love.

For Media Interviews Contact:

Souheil Benslimane

Lead Coordinator, Jail Accountability & Information Line

jailhotline@gmail.com / (819) 592-6469

OCDC Ramadan Fasting - Response from the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General

* Click the image below to read the email *

Friday, May 22, 2020

Abolition Coalition statement on the death of Robert Langevin at the Bordeaux prison in Montreal

* Click the image below to read the statement *

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Carceral Depopulation During the COVID-19 Pandemic (v3.0)

OVERALL CARCERAL DEPOPULATION FIGURES
REPORTED DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Provincial-territorial prison population decline = 5,888

Federal prison population decline = 338
Federal migrant detention population decline = 206

Total adult prisoner population decline = 6,432

Note: I have requested that the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) and its provincial-territorial counterparts publicly release their respective prison population counts for the 1st and 15th of every month as this would provide an accurate and uniform data set through which to examine carceral depopulation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such disclosures should be a regular occurrence in 'normal' times as well. The figures below have been compiled from media reports published over the past month and a half. Recent average daily counts for some jurisdictions, which would allow for a determination of the percentage of prison population decline that has occurred during the pandemic, were not reported in some cases. Where such figures are not available, one can still gain a sense of the significance of jurisdictional prison population reductions by looking at resources such as the average daily prisoner counts for 2017-2018 published by Statistics Canada (e.g. the provinces and territories held an average of 24,355 prisoners on any given day in 2017-2018 and if these numbers remained relatively stable until recently, it is estimated that there are almost 1 in 4 fewer provincial-territorial prisoners today than there were incarcerated at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic). It is also important to note that the declines in prison populations reported may not necessarily be linked to COVID-19 prevention measures (for example, see the recent analysis of the CSC case by journalist Justin Ling, as well as recent figures and comments from the Office of the Correctional Investigator of Canada).

Newfoundland and Labrador (NL)
Prisoners as of mid-March 2020 = no search results
Prisoners as of 3 May 2020 = no search results
Prison count reduction reported = down 65 prisoners / percentage unknown
Source: 3 May 2020 - National Post

Prince Edward Island (PEI)
Prisoners as of mid-March 2020 = no search results
Prisoners as of 7 April 2020 = no search results
Prison count reduction reported = down 53 prisoners / percentage unknown
Source: 9 April 2020 - CBC News

Nova Scotia (NS)
Prisoners as of 18 March 2020 = 452
Prisoners as of 21 April 2020 = 251
Prison count reduction reported = down 201 prisoners / 44.5%
Source: 22 April 2020 - CBC News

New Brunswick (NB)
No search results

Quebec (QC)
Prisoners as of 9 March 2020 = 4,369
Prisoners as of 18 May 2020 = 3,494
Prison count reduction reported = down 875 prisoners / 20%
Source: 18 May 2020 - Gouvernement du Québec

Ontario (ON)
Prisoners as of mid-March 2020 = 8,344
Prisoners as of 1 May 2020 = 5,623
Prison count reduction reported = down 2,721 prisoners / 32.6%
Source: 1 May 2020 - Vice

Manitoba (MB)
Prisoners as of 3 February 2020 = 2,260
Prisoners as of 9 April 2020 = 1,642
Prison count reduction reported = down 618 prisoners / 27.3%
Source: 7 May 2020 - CBC News

Saskatchewan (SK)
Prisoners as of 15 March 2020 = 2,062
Prisoners as of 14 April 2020 = 1,481
Prison count reduction reported = down 581 prisoners / 28.2%
Source: 10 May 2020 - CTV News Saskatoon

Alberta (AB)
Prisoners as of mid-March 2020 = no search results
Prisoners as of 24 April 2020 = no search results
Prison count reduction reported = down 32 prisoners / percentage unknown
Source: 24 April 2020 - Edmonton Journal

British Columbia (BC)
Prisoners as of 15 March 2020 = 2,184
Prisoners as of 11 May 2020 = 1,510
Prisoner count reduction reported = down 674 prisoners / 30.8%
Source: 18 May 2020 - Prince George Citizen

Nunavut (NU)
Prisoners as of 16 March 2020 = 144
Prisoners as of 6 May 2020 = 116
Prisoner count reduction reported = down 28 prisoners / 19.4%
Source: 12 May 2020 - Nunatsiaq News

Northwest Territories (NWT)
Prisoners as of mid-March 2020 = no search results
Prisoners as of 22 April 2020 = no search results
Prisoner count reduction reported = down an estimated 40 prisoners / 22%
Source: 22 April 2020 - Government of Northwest Territories

Yukon (YK)
No search results

Federal - Correctional Service Canada
Prisoners as of 1 March 2020 = 13,955
Prisoners as of 26 April 2020 = 13,617
Prisoner count reduction reported = down 338 prisoners / 2.4%
Source: 5 May 2020 - Justin Ling

Federal - Canadian Border Services Agency
Migrant detainees as of 15 March 2020 = 333
Migrant detainees as of 28 April 2020 = 127
Migrant detainee count reduction = down 206 prisoners / 61.9%
Source: 1 May 2020 - CTV News

Friday, May 15, 2020

Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Linked to Canadian Carceral Institutions (v6.2)

* Click below to expand the table *

LIST OF INSTITUTIONS IMPACTED AND SOURCES

Federal / Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA)
Laval Immigration Holding Centre (La Presse)
Toronto Immigration Holding Centre (TVO)

Federal / Correctional Service Canada (CSC)
Unknown Institutions (CSC Commissioner Anne Kelly)
Port-Cartier Institution (CTV News / CSC)
Donnacona Institution (Journal de Québec)
Drummond Institution (The Canadian Press)
Archambault Institution (Journal de Montréal)
Joliette Institution for Women (CTV News / CSC)
Federal Training Centre (CTV News / CSC)
Beaver Creek Institution (Global News)
Grand Valley Institution for Women (CTV News / CSC)
Mission Medium Institution (CTV News / CSC)
Fraser Valley Institution for Women (News 1310)

Provincial-Territorial
Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility (Halifax Examiner)
Établissement de détention de Sherbrooke (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Sorel-Tracy (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Saint-Jérôme (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Montréal - Bordeaux (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention Rivière-des-Prairies (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention Leclerc de Laval (Gouvernement du Québec)
Palais de justice de Montréal (La Presse)
Toronto South Detention Centre (CBC News)
Ontario Correctional Institute (CityNews / The Canadian Press)
Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Hamilton Spectator)
South West Detention Centre (Windsor Star)
Monteith Correctional Complex (CBC News)
Saskatoon Correctional Centre (Global News)
Calgary Remand Centre (Calgary Herald)
Okanagan Correctional Centre (CTV News)
North Fraser Pretrial Centre (News 1130)

OTHER RELEVANT COVID-19 RESOURCES
COVID-19 in Canada's Federal Prisons (click here)

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Linked to Canadian Carceral Institutions (v6.1)

* Click below to expand the table *

LIST OF INSTITUTIONS IMPACTED AND SOURCES

Federal / Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA)
Laval Immigration Holding Centre (La Presse)
Toronto Immigration Holding Centre (TVO)

Federal / Correctional Service Canada (CSC)
Unknown Institutions (CSC Commissioner Anne Kelly)
Port-Cartier Institution (CTV News / CSC)
Donnacona Institution (Journal de Québec)
Drummond Institution (The Canadian Press)
Archambault Institution (Journal de Montréal)
Joliette Institution for Women (CTV News / CSC)
Federal Training Centre (CTV News / CSC)
Beaver Creek Institution (Global News)
Grand Valley Institution for Women (CTV News / CSC)
Mission Medium Institution (CTV News / CSC)
Fraser Valley Institution for Women (News 1310)

Provincial-Territorial
Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility (Halifax Examiner)
Établissement de détention de Sherbrooke (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Sorel-Tracy (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Saint-Jérôme (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention de Montréal - Bordeaux (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention Rivière-des-Prairies (Gouvernement du Québec)
Établissement de détention Leclerc de Laval (Gouvernement du Québec)
Palais de justice de Montréal (La Presse)
Toronto South Detention Centre (CBC News)
Ontario Correctional Institute (CityNews / The Canadian Press)
Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Hamilton Spectator)
South West Detention Centre (Windsor Star)
Monteith Correctional Complex (CBC News)
Saskatoon Correctional Centre (Global News)
Calgary Remand Centre (Calgary Herald)
Okanagan Correctional Centre (CTV News)
North Fraser Pretrial Centre (News 1130)

OTHER RELEVANT COVID-19 RESOURCES
COVID-19 in Canada's Federal Prisons (click here)

Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Linked to Canadian Carceral Institutions (v6.0)

* Click below to expand the table *

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Linked to Canadian Carceral Institutions (v5.0)

* Click below to expand the table *