Menally-Ill
06-15-2002, 02:22 PM
Torrey and Bookgirl; this story's for you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Canada, with it's small population, has always had very few women inmates. We never get much higher than 350 female federal inmates, at any given time, in the ENTIRE country.
They used to all be housed in the P4W, (Prison For Women) in Kingston Ontario. A most brutal place it was, indeed. Lots of rapes by male guards etc...
Apr 22, 1994: 6 women decide to protest medical maltreatment and neglect, by refusing to go back to their cells, for the night-time count.
Apr 26, 1994: The warden called in the SERT (emerg response team) from the neighbouring Kingston Pen. (for men). They decended on the women like Darth Vadar's on drugs, beat them, stripped them naked, threw them into cement rooms and left them there.
WELL!! The whole thing was video-taped, and "somehow" the tape ended up on the nightly news.
The whole country was aghast! Millions of people were revolted! Letters poured into newspapers, politician's offices etc.
The result? Within months, a Board of Commissions was appointed to investigate the inmates' complaints. The commission was headed by a JUDGE, Louise Arbour.
On April 1, 1996, Judge Arbour released her results (now called the Arbour Report) damning Correctional Services Canada, for the abuses going on behind the walls.
People kept screaming. Volunteer organizations, the average Canadian, law students etc.
So, in the end, Canada built 5 small regional prisons for women instead, and finally closed down the P4W.
See "Goodbye to P4W"
<www.macleans.ca/xta-asp/storyview.asp?viewtype=browse&tpl=browse_frame&vpath=/2000/07/10/canada/36804.shtml>
The complete Arbour Report is at:
<www.sgc.gc.ca/epub/corr/e199681/e199681.htm>
It's very long, and very scathing, BUT my point is:
NEVER underestimate the power of the media, in the battle for justice!
~~~~~~~~~
The battle here in Canada still goes on, of course. Sure, we have the nice new regional women's centres, but we put our handful of maximum security women in MEN'S prisons. There are 12 in Springhill Pen, 15 in Saskatchewan Pen for Men, and a few others in Quebec.
Getting them out of there is our current battle.
See "Imprisoned Women Say Conditions Are Brutal" at:
<www.canoe.ca/CNEWSFeatures0102/20_prison-cp.html>
I cannot begin to stress how vitally important it is to get news reporters and Television crews on your side!
After all, one little video (released to a reporter by "goodness-knows-who", a video that was subsequently shown on the nightly news) shut down an entire prison, a year and a half ago here in Canada, for it's brutality!
I always wonder how that little video ended up in a newscaster's hands...
Menolly
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Canada, with it's small population, has always had very few women inmates. We never get much higher than 350 female federal inmates, at any given time, in the ENTIRE country.
They used to all be housed in the P4W, (Prison For Women) in Kingston Ontario. A most brutal place it was, indeed. Lots of rapes by male guards etc...
Apr 22, 1994: 6 women decide to protest medical maltreatment and neglect, by refusing to go back to their cells, for the night-time count.
Apr 26, 1994: The warden called in the SERT (emerg response team) from the neighbouring Kingston Pen. (for men). They decended on the women like Darth Vadar's on drugs, beat them, stripped them naked, threw them into cement rooms and left them there.
WELL!! The whole thing was video-taped, and "somehow" the tape ended up on the nightly news.
The whole country was aghast! Millions of people were revolted! Letters poured into newspapers, politician's offices etc.
The result? Within months, a Board of Commissions was appointed to investigate the inmates' complaints. The commission was headed by a JUDGE, Louise Arbour.
On April 1, 1996, Judge Arbour released her results (now called the Arbour Report) damning Correctional Services Canada, for the abuses going on behind the walls.
People kept screaming. Volunteer organizations, the average Canadian, law students etc.
So, in the end, Canada built 5 small regional prisons for women instead, and finally closed down the P4W.
See "Goodbye to P4W"
<www.macleans.ca/xta-asp/storyview.asp?viewtype=browse&tpl=browse_frame&vpath=/2000/07/10/canada/36804.shtml>
The complete Arbour Report is at:
<www.sgc.gc.ca/epub/corr/e199681/e199681.htm>
It's very long, and very scathing, BUT my point is:
NEVER underestimate the power of the media, in the battle for justice!
~~~~~~~~~
The battle here in Canada still goes on, of course. Sure, we have the nice new regional women's centres, but we put our handful of maximum security women in MEN'S prisons. There are 12 in Springhill Pen, 15 in Saskatchewan Pen for Men, and a few others in Quebec.
Getting them out of there is our current battle.
See "Imprisoned Women Say Conditions Are Brutal" at:
<www.canoe.ca/CNEWSFeatures0102/20_prison-cp.html>
I cannot begin to stress how vitally important it is to get news reporters and Television crews on your side!
After all, one little video (released to a reporter by "goodness-knows-who", a video that was subsequently shown on the nightly news) shut down an entire prison, a year and a half ago here in Canada, for it's brutality!
I always wonder how that little video ended up in a newscaster's hands...
Menolly