Beaver Creek Institution

Here are a few of my thoughts on, or nightmares experienced under, the Conservative regime.Specifi cally, I focus on attacks to Correctional Service Canada's (CSC) mandate to make our communities safer through rehabilitation.Originally, I had intended to list ten of the most damaging reforms, however, the list expanded as other prisoners approached me with suggestions for inclusion in order to protect their anonymity.As way of background, I have been serving a life sentence in the Canadian penitentiary system since the 1980s, with a brief hiatus in the American federal system for a few years in the early 1990s following a walk-away from Collins Bay in 1988.I was returned to Canada under the Transfer of Off enders Act in the mid-1990s and was in Millhaven until late-1997.From there, I was sent to Joyceville where I remained until early 2016.I was sent to Beaver Creek Medium later that year and transferred to Beaver Creek Minimum since. Least Restrictive MeasuresThe removal of the "least restrictive measures" 1 priority from decisionmaking in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA) with "measures that are consistent with the protection of society, staff members and prisoners and that are limited to only what is necessary and proportionate to attain the purposes of this Act", has introduced a subjective standard permitting arbitrary decisions without specifi c criteria.It permits the prolongation of imprisonment, while permitting harsher, more punitive decisions to be made with respect to the movement and treatment of prisoners while they are confi ned behind bars and supervised in the community.If imprisonment is to be a measure of last resort in Canada, the "least restrictive measures" principle needs to be restored. National Drug StrategyWithin Commissioner's Directive 585 National Drug Strategy, 2 the standard of review for triggering "administrative consequences" was replaced with a standard of review of "reasonable belief".That means that should a prisoner be charged or convicted under section 19 of a drug-related off ence in the institution or where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they have been involved in drug-related activities, a reassessment of risk and Unescorted Temporary Absences and Escorted Temporary AbsencesThe CCRA, section 115(1)(a), has been changed to restrict access to UTAs and mandates successful UTAs over the period of a year before a Lifer can make supported, successful, day parole applications.This legislative change establishes time limits for frequency of access and duration.As a matter of practice, CSC asks for a year of ETAs, followed by a year of UTAs.This ensures a Lifer cannot gain day parole until eighteen months after their eligibility date because applications for a hearing can routinely take fi ve months to process.I do not have access to the legislative archives, but simple online research should show the changes to access over the Conservative regime had the eff ect of extending imprisonment.Moreover, statistical analysis of incarcerated time spent in excess of day parole eligibility for Lifers, during the reign of the Conservatives, should show statistically signifi cant increases across the entire country.The creation of practices ensuring an extended, expanded progression of community access increased the time Lifers (and others) spend excluded from the community.If sentence release was represented by a temporal continuum, and releasing events like ETAs and UTAs were represented by nodes on the continuum, the Conservatives generated a demand for more nodes, before parole release was possible, while increasing the space between the nodes, often without the knowledge of prisoners themselves.Often excluded, but always the subject to a Case Management Team's created correctional plans fl owing out of these hidden policies, the prisoner is left to suff er prolonged separation from loved ones and the community at large.The Conservatives did this without any proof that the public good was actually served in any way.While selling the public on their desire to protect 'public safety', the Conservatives sacrifi ced proven methods of reducing that very risk. Compassionate Escorted Temporary AbsencesIn Commissioners Directive 566-6 Security Escorts, 4 section 15, it notes that at least two escorting offi cers, both armed (except for incarcerated women), will be deployed for ETAs.This can make the availability of ETAs diffi cult, if not impossible.Particularly as the policy under the Conservatives was to make cost considerations a factor in approval decisions.Also, the practice of mandatory minimum staffi ng practices restricted the number of staff available for escorts.Signifi cant numbers of approved ETAs were not completed due to "staff shortages".This practice continues.We just had an Indigenous man Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, Volume 26(1&2), 2017Correspondence Current correspondence practices within CSC facilities do not follow the Post Offi ce Act.Mail deliveries have been reduced to two or three times a week, if lucky, when the Act still requires delivery within twenty-four hours of receipt.5 Issues with mail also include search and seizure violations, as correspondence is routinely intercepted and returned to the sender often without notifying the intended recipient of the interception or providing written reasons to the sender for the return of the correspondence.

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