Ordinarily Dan would have been paroled long ago, since he had served well over the required period for a person convicted of murder. But Dan could not get paroled because he maintained that he had not committed the crime and had been wrongfully convicted. Unfortunately for him, the parole board generally requires prisoners to admit guilt and accept responsibility as a condition of being paroled. (See Parole denied due to claims of innocence.)
There is a certain logic to this position. Isn’t accepting one’s guilt a reasonable requirement for rehabilitation? But what about cases where the person actually is innocent? There are now plenty of cases like that in Canada, where people have been held for decades in prison only to be exonerated later. We compound the original error of a wrongful conviction by refusing to grant parole when someone maintains their innocence. People who did commit a crime are (rightly) paroled while someone who is actually innocent remains imprisoned. It’s a double punishment.
Parole is only one example of a central dilemma of our prison system — whether to focus on prisoners’ wrongdoing, risk and danger or on supporting rehabilitation. The more we do the former, the less we can do the latter. The jail/prison system in Canada faces many choices between those two options, and most of the time it chooses the former.
There are a legion of examples, some of which I have written about in previous columns. Indeed, just about every aspect of prison life is made harder than it needs to be because of the focus on prisoners as dangerous when, in fact, the great majority will not commit another crime. If that claim seems incompatible with what we read and hear, it’s because a very small number of people account for a large number of crimes. Data from Public Safety Canada show that only a small minority of people paroled are re-arrested for another crime. Yet in so many cases the system focuses on the risk, not the reward.
Instead of making visits easier to allow prisoners to keep contact with families and friends, they are tightly controlled and monitored, including drug scanning equipment and sniffer dogs. In many institutions, visits are only behind glass. Mail to and from prisoners is opened and contents may be removed. Phone calls are monitored. Anything you say to a counselor or psychologist may be recorded and used against you. Strip searches are common, a cause of humiliation for prisoners.
Although prisons could have many volunteers doing positive things with prisoners — far beyond yoga or book clubs, as helpful as those are — instead we make it extremely difficult for volunteers to enter. When prisoners want to organize pro-social activities, like making music or inviting speakers, they are discouraged or even prevented from doing so. At one point I attempted to initiate a speaker series, which I was confident I could do because of my previous career, only to be told by the prison staff person that “nobody wants to come and talk to guys like you.” I knew that was wrong but talking back to any staff member, even in minimum security, could land you in trouble.
Our prisons could have physical environments that offer some colour, some comfort and interest, but instead we have sterile, ugly settings. Cells, especially, are cold, uncomfortable, noisy places. Food is made as cheaply as possible, is sometimes inedible and time to eat is often very limited. Opportunities for prisoners to spend time, do work or visit family in the community are highly restricted.
Prisons could have high-quality education programs, and should, because so many prisoners have such low levels of formal education. Instead, we have just about the minimum possible. Teachers are not allowed to bring in any of their own materials for teaching purposes. In general there are few if any opportunities for prisoners to develop pro-social activities.
Most of these restrictions are justified by the prisons on grounds of security. But the reality is that there are plenty of drugs and contraband in many prisons despite all these measures. Meanwhile, creating a bad physical and psychological environment makes security issues worse, not better, because it exacerbates prisoners’ loneliness, anxiety and anger. The security argument can be self-defeating. The worse the conditions, the more dangerous prisons will be — for everyone.
Is it even true that security is the reason for many of these restrictive measures? The negative focus in jails and prisons (provincial jails are even worse because they are all essentially maximum security, yet they have more drugs and violence) extends beyond anything that can reasonably be seen as a security issue. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that these choices are often driven by the goal of making prisoners’ lives harder because of the desire to see others suffer, especially those we dislike. We can see the same tendencies operate in any setting where some people have a lot of power over others without much scrutiny.
The desire to see others suffer is evident in stories about how easy prisoners have it, even given that most are locked in small and uncomfortable cells for most of the time. So in prisons where prisoners buy and make their own food, many normal food items are not available because they might make people think prisoners had it too good. A teacher I worked with told me that at one point they were not allowed to have coffee in the classrooms because that was seen as too good for prisoners. The list of deprivations and humiliations is long, both small ones and big ones.
It is important to be aware of these very human tendencies to want to punish, especially at this time of year, when everyone is talking about compassion and good will towards others. At the same time as these virtues are being celebrated, thousands of people, many of them not convicted of any crime, are living with anything but compassion and good will, because people like to see others suffer — and our institutions willingly take on that role.
Happy holidays.
David Dorson is the pen name of someone who went through arrest, case disposition, imprisonment and parole in Ontario a few years ago. Law360 Canada has granted him anonymity because he offers a unique perspective on a subject that matters deeply to many readers, and revealing the author’s identity would make re-establishment in the community after serving his sentence much more difficult than it already is.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
Interested in writing for us? To learn more about how you can add your voice to Law360 Canada, contact Analysis Editor Peter Carter at peter.carter@lexisnexis.ca or call 647-776-6740.