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| John L. Hill |
The practice has sparked an investigation, especially after it was reported that Travis Wade Braden had been restrained for 68 hours following his mental health episode in a Franklin County, Ill., jail a year previously. County jails in Illinois are accused of using restraint chairs more than a thousand times a year.
Indeed, such treatment would not be meted out to an incarcerated Canadian who lives with a mental illness, we tell ourselves. But on Oct. 31, 2024, the firm of Lockyer Zaduk Zeeh filed a statement of claim in Ontario’s Superior Court seeking general damages of $3 million on behalf of the family of Stéphane Bissonnette for his wrongful death while confined on a modified suicide watch at the Regional Treatment Centre at Millhaven Institution, west of Kingston, Ont.
The allegations in the statement of claim have not been proven in court. However, Bissonnette’s treatment was the subject of a critical evaluation reported in the Report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) that was tabled on Oct. 29. There was no mention of the Bissonnette case when the commissioner of corrections issued her press release following the release of the OCI report.
Bissonnette had an extensive history of suicidal and chronic self-injurious behaviour while in the custody of the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC). He had been diagnosed with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. It is not unusual for people living with these disorders to misbehave from time to time, especially while enduring the stresses of incarceration.
Instead of providing treatment, the correctional service lapsed into its traditional behaviour of imposing punishment. From 2019 until he died in December 2021, Bissonnette spent 158 days in a structured intervention unit — the new and improved version of solitary confinement. During his period of incarceration, he spent nine days and two hours strapped to a bed in a Pinel restraint system. Such a device is an emergency immobilization technique that can restrain a person at various points (arms, legs, hands, shoulders, etc.) until the person calms down.
While at the Regional Treatment Centre, there were 15 occasions where Bissonnette’s self-harming behaviour was reported. He was recorded as banging his head on a cell wall or door, cutting himself and smearing blood on the observation camera monitoring his cell.
The correctional service knew his behaviour was abnormal and caused by his mental illness. Bissonnette knew it, too. He was interviewed by the correctional investigator’s office days before he died. He openly discussed his history of self-harm and thoughts of suicide. He attributed his severe responses to the lengthy periods spent in solitary confinement. He spoke of reprisals for filing grievances, harassment by staff and excessive force used against him.
The correctional service knows that the use of forms of solitary confinement exacerbates problems, primarily when it is used on someone diagnosed with a mental illness. Harvard University Professor and psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Grassian’s research on the disastrous effects of solitary confinement was first brought to the attention of the courts in hearings involving Terry Fitzsimmons, who went on a six-day bank robbery and murder spree after being released to the streets following six years of solitary confinement. Louise Arbour accepted the Grassian studies in her report on the Prison for Women. Grassian’s research also played a crucial role in the finding of a B.C. court that solitary confinement is unconstitutional.
This adage summarizes the proper treatment of prisoners: “Prisoners go to prison as punishment, not for punishment.” The only legitimate punishment in Canada is the deprivation of liberty. There is no excuse for mismanaging treatment for a prisoner with mental health issues. Hopefully, the Bissonnette lawsuit will result in a hefty judgment to have the Correctional Service’s behaviour modified. Mistreatment of incarcerated people who are mentally ill does not happen only in Illinois. It’s time the Correctional Service of Canada reassessed its standard of care for such individuals.
John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a J.D. from Queen’s and an LL.M. in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. He is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books) and The Rest of the [True Crime] Story (AOS Publishing.). Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.
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