June 21, 2018 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Reuters
Canadian law allows for prolonged, indefinite solitary confinement that hurts vulnerable people most and that is why it must be struck down, lawyers for civil liberties groups argued this week, as they accused the government of backing away from its avowed goal of pursuing prison reform.
August 3, 2017 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Reuters
Nearly 270 people have died in Canadian provincial jails over the past five years. Two-thirds of them were legally innocent.
May 5, 2016 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Corrections Minister Yasir Naqvi is “concerned” that Ontario inmates are being put in solitary confinement because of their mental illnesses — but he won’t commit to ending the practice entirely.
July 17, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
A Toronto law firm has launched a class action suit against the federal government over the treatment of prison inmates with mental illness.
July 8, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Staffing-related lockdowns in crowded jails across Ontario have more than tripled since 2009, numbers obtained by Global News show.
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).
September 10, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Canada’s federal prisons are continuing practices known to make inmates more likely to kill themselves – and then failing to properly measure or report these suicides, a watchdog report finds.
May 1, 2014 – Global News
What if there were a way to prevent more mentally ill women inmates from dying, and no one grabbed it?
Senator Bob Runciman has spent years pushing the federal government to adopt the strategy he pioneered as Ontario’s Public Safety Minister a decade ago – “with modest success, to say the least,” he smiles.
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
August `17, 2012 – Globe and Mail
Correctional Service Canada plans to roll out electronic anklets to monitor parolees – even though its own pilot project found the devices did not work as hoped.
The idea is to ensure that offenders follow the conditions of their release. A tiny proportion of parolees breach those conditions or reoffend, although the number has been getting smaller for four years.
Photo by Kevin Van Paassen/Globe and Mail
Thursday, May 10, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
Inmates in Canada’s federal prisons have been sleeping in trailers, interview rooms, family visiting spaces and gymnasiums, while the percentage of prisoners sharing cells built for one has nearly doubled in under three years, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.
The documents, obtained from access to information requests, suggest a penal system stretched to capacity. Canada’s prison population has been rising since 2005 after years of steady decline, growing 7 per cent between March 31, 2011 and May 1, 2012.
Part of the latest increase can be attributed to the government’s tough-on-crime agenda. At the same time, the government will lose 1,000 beds after it closes aging penal facilities such as Kingston Penitentiary and Leclerc Institution in Laval, Que., but says it will more than make up the difference with new units.
a business of misfits 