Youth segregation in jails ‘must change’

One Manitoba boy in isolation 400 straight days

WINNIPEG • Manitoba’s children’s advocate is urging the province to stop lengthy solitary confinement of youth in custody after a review that found one boy was isolated for 400 straight days in a cell no bigger than a parking stall.

Daphne Penrose and provincial ombudsman Marc Cormier jointly investigated the use of solitary confinement, segregation and pepper spray in Manitoba’s youth jails.

Penrose said in a 100-page report released Thursday that the province should immediately end solitary confinement longer than 24 hours for kids in custody.

She also recommended that Manitoba Justice restrict the use of punitive segregation overall and called on the province to build a facility to address trauma, mental illness and other mental impairments youth who are locked up in jail frequently live with.

“Some youth in Manitoba have been confined in solitary, denied their basic needs and refused meaningful human contact for days and weeks on end,” Penrose said of the youth, called Colton in the report, who spent more than a year in isolation.

Colton was diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder and other cognitive issues, she said, and spent a total of more than 650 days in solitary.

Penrose called Colton’s case “a clear violation of human rights, of international standards.”

“What we discovered ... was extremely concerning, unacceptable and must immediately change,” Penrose said at a news conference.

The investigation began in 2015 after the advocate’s office fielded several complaints about segregation and pepper spray in Manitoba’s two youth jails: Agassiz Youth Centre and Manitoba Youth Centre.

The review found that between September 2015 and August 2016, youth corrections staff placed 167 males in solitary confinement 498 times. About 20 per cent of cases lasted for more than 15 days.

The advocate defines solitary confinement as being placed alone in a cell for more than 24 hours without meaningful human contact or mental stimulation.

Statistics Canada data shows Manitoba has the highest rate of youth incarceration in Canada with more than 80 per cent being Indigenous.

The advocate suggested use of solitary confinement and segregation is harmful to youth and hurts their chances at successful reintegration into society.

Penrose did find that the use of pepper spray on jailed youth declined dramatically to two instances last year from 2010’s high of 46.

Staff told investigators that may be due to “alternative de-escalation methods” such as talking to youths and having patience to wait out a situation.

In a separate report, Cormier made 32 recommendations on segregation, largely focused on reviewing compliance with correctional services laws and regulations.

Cormier suggested that jails be made to have policies that make clear that segregation can’t be used as discipline.