On October 16th, the Canadian state under Mark Carney announced a plethora of reactionary measures reminiscent of the Harper era that will only increase the number of people in prisons. Among the proposals are amendments to the Criminal Code that will increase reverse onus on bail decisions, allow consecutive sentencing for multiple convictions, impose harsher penalties for “organised retail theft” and restrict conditional sentences for sexual offences.
As addressed elsewhere, these reforms go directly against evidence in what truly makes communities safe and will only increase the incarceration of Indigenous and racialized communities under the Canadian state. The fact that such legislation is being implemented under the Liberals (as opposed to the traditionally “tough on crime” Conservatives) further reveals the “carceral consensus” that permeates the current electoral spectrum. While some may perceive increased incarceration as a failure of the state to adequately address the “crisis” of imprisonment, abolitionists rightfully understand the rate of incarceration to not be a crisis at all. Rather, what has occurred over the past 30 years in so-called Canada in terms of incarceration can only be accurately described as an intentional political decision by the state to funnel surplus populations displaced by capital into overcrowded prisons away from the public eye. When seen through this lens, Carney’s reforms conform to the same carceral pathways of displacement and disappearing.
Punctually, the most recent Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) annual report was released on October 30. The OCI remains the sole government body responsible for providing what they consider to be external oversight by monitoring the conditions of confinement within federal prisons. Every year it releases an annual report that provides a glimpse of the usual cruelty that occurs under Correctional Service Canada (CSC), the government body responsible for running federal correctional facilities.
While the OCI does invaluable work in terms of bringing to the forefront the perspectives of incarcerated people, it remains beholden to the power of CSC in terms of what they can “recommend.” This is evident in each OCI report, where following every systemic issue raised in the report, CSC either “accepts” or “rejects” the recommendations brought forth by the OCI. The question arises, why should CSC even have a voice, let alone a chance to respond, in the OCI reports? True oversight would have demands for change, not recommendations that CSC can hastily respond to.
Nevertheless, the OCI reports offer an integral look into the lives of prisoners that is worth accentuating.
The continued criminalization of mental health
The first section of the report details the OCI’s investigation into the five Regional Treatment Centers (RTCs) run by CSC. RTCs are essentially classified as prison hospitals that, when someone is transferred there, reportedly provide treatment and assessment for federally sentenced people experiencing adverse mental health conditions. The stated purpose of such facilities is to treat people for a limited amount of time with the expectation that they will return to prison afterwards.
The OCI investigation reported the following: RTCs have outdated and inappropriate infrastructure for a hospital setting, the majority of the population consists of aging populations, RTCs prioritize security over the mental well-being of prisoners, RTCs have an overreliance of use of force on people experiencing mental health adversity, and RTCs lack patient advocates.
The investigation concluded by stating:
“Despite being referred to as Regional Treatment Centres, these facilities essentially amount to penitentiaries offering psychiatric services with limited capacity for emergency care. None of the RTCs live up to their name, nor can they be considered to be classified as a proper psychiatric hospital.”
The OCI continued, stating that despite seeing less violence than traditional prisons, RTCs are treated by guards as maximum security units when it comes to security measures.
Despite such overwhelming evidence of the harms that come with integrating carceral logics into healthcare, the Canadian state has recently invested $1.3 billion in a new CSC-run RTC in New Brunswick set to open in 2032. Let’s call this investment what it is: carceral expansion by another name. Re-entrenching CSC security logic under the guise of mental healthcare. Another prison hospital.
Incarcerated people are deserving of healthcare that prioritizes their well-being, not one that sees them as “inmates” who are a security risk. In line with the evidence outlined in the new OCI report, CSC should not play any role in providing acute psychiatric care. Continued investment in CSC-run hospitals is continued disinvestment in true health care and community support. By expanding resources to prisons, the Canadian state remains committed to funding institutions that contribute to the disposability of society’s most vulnerable—not their wellbeing.
The continued criminalization of trauma
Another chapter of the report showcases OCIs interviews with 36 incarcerated women and gender-diverse individuals. These interviews reveal what abolitionist organizations have known since the invention of prisons: the prison environment itself is a source of trauma that only escalates the pre-existing adversities experienced by incarcerated people.
Prisons are places that further isolate people from the resources they need when it comes to trauma-informed solutions to mental health. Just as the emotions and behaviours women exhibit while incarcerated are often used against them to justify increased security measures, women’s experiences when it comes to disclosing past trauma to correctional staff are used for the same purpose. Upon intake into prisons, the OCI reported how the trauma that women have experienced in their life is brought up only in the context of how it relates to their “criminal” behaviour and utilized as a “risk” factor to determine their security classification.
While the OCI ultimately recommends that CSC improve training and implement trauma-informed approaches, it fails to recognize that prisons and trauma-informed care can never be used in the same sentence. A true trauma-informed approach recognizes the source of the trauma itself: prisons. A true trauma informed approach prioritizes decarceration and the dismantling of carceral institutions through non-reformist reforms that demand the state invest in true community safety. For instance, the recently released alternative federal budget by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calls for a 30% reduction in federal prisoners by 2034, with investment instead going towards housing, health, education and positive support networks.
Another year, another report, another recommendation
In his book, Modernity and the Holocaust, Zygmunt Bauman argues that genocides are not a departure from modern life. Rather, the conditions that lead to mass death are shaped by modern ideologies and institutions that coordinate organized forms of collective action, broken up into hierarchical and functional divisions of labour by bureaucratic proceduralism. For Bauman, the Holocaust did not occur as a result of mass hysteria among Germans driven purely by blind, uncoordinated hatred towards Jewish people. What made the concentration camps function was the labour of millions of seemingly ordinary people, in seemingly ordinary roles, performing functions that were coordinated, planned and managed. Normal people in Nazi Germany became distanced from the atrocities committed under the regime through the standardization of workplace bureaucracy.
While reading the annual OCI report, or any government report detailing the atrocities of carceral institutions, one becomes accustomed to desensitization. What should be considered a damning account that holds CSC accountable in their role in contributing to genocide instead feels like another box the state checks off to finish their role in investigating themselves. In CSCs response to the report, the Commissioner Anne Kelly talked about the OCI as if they are old friends, stating that they provide “valuable insight” and recommendations that “guide” the work of CSC.
Reading the OCI report puts the reader in a pacified state, where Bauman’s theorization of the functional division of labour becomes apparent. Under capitalist modernity, institutions such as prisons operate through the hierarchical division of labour that separates correctional staff from the harms their occupation exists to produce. While the system is racist, no one is to blame, because no one is responsible. This results in government oversight repeating the same recommendations over and over again while the very carceral system that commits social murder becomes exonerated. Another year, another report, another recommendation. The same systemic issues are sanitized under the pretense of reforms that relegitimize carceral logics.
Bauman put it bluntly when he said that we live in a type of society that made the Holocaust possible. The same can be said for prisons. Under capitalist modernity, prisoners are rendered disposable through their dehumanization by bureaucratic procedures of institutions. Incarcerated people become separated from the broader public by being designated as “offenders” or “inmates,” by being referred to either by their fingerprint serial number or only by their last name. They are then subjected to conditions that only further lead them down the path away from what they truly need, where degradation, violence and oppression imposed on them is constructed as legitimate under the veil of security. Rinse and repeat.
What should be considered cruel and unusual punishment has instead become very usual indeed. Until next year’s OCI report.
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