September 30, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
For members of Canada’s military, the choice to come forward about mental illness can be agonizing: Anyone deemed “unfit to serve” – due to mental illness, for example, if the Defence Department contends the illness’s roots predate military service – before having completed the minimum 10 years of service loses his or her pension.
September 30, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Luka Magnotta has said he killed and dismembered Chinese student Jun Lin, but is seeking a designation of NCR – not criminally responsible.
If Magnotta is found not criminally responsible it would mean a mental disorder was behind his actions. Instead of going to prison, he would go to a forensic hospital where he’s kept and treated for however long it takes until the illness is abated and he’s no longer a danger to the public (or himself).
July 29, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny and James Armstrong, Global News
The head of Toronto’s civilian police watchdog thinks aspiring officers should have to volunteer with people who have mental illness.
June 5, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
The federal government plans to “delist” psychiatric beds in its prison treatment facilities, designating them as more general beds for housing inmates.
June 2, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Ottawa is considering closing psychiatric beds in federal prisons barely a month after announcing a new strategy on inmates with mental illness, the federal prison watchdog says.
At the same time, it has cut back on nursing hours, even as federal prisons are seeing more assaults, more injuries and more use of force – medical incidents that corrections officers, even ones trained in first aid, aren’t prepared to handle.
May 13, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Abbotsford Police routinely spend the night dealing with people who aren’t criminals.
They’ll spend hours, Chief Constable Bob Rich told a parliamentary committee, in emergency rooms waiting for individuals they’ve apprehended to see a doctor.
May 6, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
A Global News investigation revealing the prevalence of death and violence in psychiatric hospitals underscores the need to act on the mental illness crisis in Canada’s prisons, opposition critics say.
May 1, 2014 – Global News
Rick Raemish spent 20 hours in solitary confinement – exhausted, unable to sleep and bored out of his mind – because he wanted to.
May 1, 2014 – Global News
Offenders are more likely to die or be violently attacked in a psychiatric prison than any other federal institution – by a long shot.
The people in these specialized facilities – in B.C., Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec – are the most vulnerable and problematic in a prison system already overflowing with mental illness.
And numbers obtained by Global News through an access to information request indicate they’re disproportionately subject to violence and death in the institutions supposedly designed to care for them best.
April 15, 2014 – Global News
In the wake of a report castigating police forces for automatically disclosing and sharing suicide attempts – info that gets into the hands of U.S. border guards, among others – many are wondering what bits of their personal info police databases might have, and whether it could prove compromising when crossing the border.
