For several months I had been living in a cell with every aspect of my life regulated in ways ranging from uncomfortable to terrible. But in the minimum security, where I spent almost exactly a year, I lived in a house shared with other prisoners, in either a shared room or my own bedroom. Instead of having to eat the really low-quality food given to us in the other two places I had been, I could buy and cook my own food. Instead of being locked in a small, barren, barred cell for most of the day, I was free to move around the prison and choose where to spend a lot of the day. Instead of a physical environment almost entirely steel and concrete, full of harsh noise, with nothing pleasant to look at, there was grass, trees, places to walk outdoors and even to lie in the sun. What a huge improvement!
In one of my first letters home after being moved, I noted some of the other changes that struck me that people outside of prison would likely never think about.
- There were adequate numbers of bathrooms instead of two showers and one sink with a mirror for 30 men.
- I could buy snacks and treats from the canteen when I wanted rather than once every two weeks using a ridiculous order process that often resulted in not getting what you asked for.
- I could type letters on a computer, save them and print them instead of having to write them by hand.
- There was a library with a decent collection of books and daily newspapers.
- I could wear my wedding ring and my own clothes some of the time.
- I could wear a watch, have a clock radio and even a Walkman or equivalent for music.
For a few days, I felt as if I was not in prison at all. The question occurred to me, why are we keeping people in minimum security at all, let alone for many years? Why wouldn’t we more or less automatically parole anyone who had spent a year or two in minimum with no problems? That would save at least $100,000 per prisoner per year. And each year in prison makes it harder when and if you eventually do get out.
But we don’t. People can spend decades in minimum; I met some who had.
It’s still prison
My feeling that minimum was not really prison soon wore off as I began to see all the restrictions that still existed. For example:
- Although the minimum security place was a five-minute walk from where I had been held, and I had heard that some prisoners did just walk over carrying their stuff, I was handcuffed and transported in a prison van; it took over an hour for all that to happen.
- Although I could buy and cook my own food, the rules around what food was available and how you bought it were ridiculously complicated and changed several times with no notice or explanation. And I was not allowed to share food with anyone.
- The computers I could use to write letters had no Internet connection and anything you wrote on them could be read by prison authorities at any time (just as our phone calls could be listened in on at any time.)
- Although I could move around the grounds, there were many rules and restrictions on where I could go and when. We were not allowed to be in any of the other houses. We could get in serious trouble for being in the wrong place, especially if we ran into a cantankerous guard — and there were some.
Prisoners don’t matter
There were two other features of minimum that were particularly trying. The first was that there was no institutional interest in making the place any better. Suggestions from prisoners were ignored or ridiculed by staff with the exception of a few who genuinely tried to be helpful. I suggested at one point inviting guest speakers to the prison only to be told that “nobody would want to come” — which I knew to be manifestly untrue. The canteen would regularly run out of popular items because, I was told, the staff person responsible for ordering was unwilling to change the regular biweekly order to respond to changes in demand. Apparently, that would be too much work. Programs were cancelled frequently, with no notice or explanation, including the school, which was closed a shocking amount.
We prisoners were always being reminded that we did not matter and that the institution felt no obligation to be aware of, let alone to respond to, any of our interests or preferences.
Second, and relatedly, we were reminded in many ways that we were prisoners who had done bad things and deserved to be monitored, controlled and punished beyond the deprivation of liberty (even though the Supreme Court has said that the deprivation of liberty IS the punishment and prisoners retain their rights as citizens).
Prisoners and our possessions could be searched at any time without any reason being provided. If you left the prison, say for a medical appointment, or had a conjugal visit, you were strip-searched both before and after. You had to obey any instruction by a staff member even if it made no sense. And there was that common retort from staff to many prisoner requests — “You should have thought of that before you came to prison.”
Far from trying to build positive agency in prisoners, everything was done to make prisoners feel that we just didn’t matter. It is not a way that anybody wants or should have to live and not an approach that supports rehabilitation.
Note: About 20 per cent of federal prisoners in Canada, and no provincial prisoners, are held in minimum security — about 3,500 out of the 25,000 or so being in jail on an average day. The vast majority, including all those not yet convicted of a crime, are held in much worse conditions. For people who start out in maximum security, it can take 20 years or more of good behaviour to get to a minimum security. About 25 per cent of the prisoners where I was held were lifers, many of whom had spent more than 30 years in prison.
David Dorson is the pen name of someone who went through arrest, case disposition, imprisonment and parole in Ontario a few years ago. Law360 Canada has granted him anonymity because he offers a unique perspective on a subject that matters deeply to many readers, and revealing the author’s identity would make re-establishment in the community after serving his sentence much more difficult than it already is.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
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