Front Burner - Voices from inside: COVID-19 in Canada's prisons

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

For weeks, inmates, correctional officers and penal reform advocates have been sounding the alarm that Canada's prisons are sorely underprepared for the arrival of COVID-19. Canada's chief public health officer, Dr Theresa Tam, has called correctional facilities a "high-risk setting" in which a mass infection could have grave consequences. Three inmates and 18 employees in federal institutions have tested positive for the coronavirus, as have an inmate and a guard at the Toronto South Detention Centre. On today's Front Burner, freelance reporter Justin Ling walks us through how the government can stave off a prison outbreak, protecting both inmates and society at large.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. This is a prepaid call from Paul Lowen,an inmate at a BC Correctional Centre. Please go ahead with your call. As it stands now, I'm in health care. I'm in isolation.

They just did a COVID test on me. Well, the worst part is, you know, I may only be 49 years old, but I've got a preliminary illness called sarcoidosis. It generally affects the lungs and all about three four years ago I nearly escaped a lung transplant. Today inmates, correctional officers and advocates have been sounding the alarm that Canada's prisons are sorely underprepared for the arrival of COVID-19. Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam,

has called correctional facilities a high-risk setting for mass infection. These events are deeply troubling because they result in outbreaks that accelerate the spread of the virus. And we're already seeing the first cases among the 40,000 strong inmate population. The Correctional Service of Canada has confirmed that two inmates and 11 employees at a Quebec Mac security prison tested positive for COVID-19. They join another inmate from the Grand Valley Institution for Women and six employees at the Joliet Institution for Women. An inmate and guard at the Toronto Self-Detention Centre have also tested positive. I'm Jamie Poisson and this is FrontB the TV. So this is Dipan Bhullakoti.

He's an inmate at Ottawa-Carlton Detention Centre. I spoke to him last Friday about what new measures he's seen to keep him and other inmates safe from the coronavirus. So in terms of protection, nothing has changed on our end. The only difference is that we used to be provided like about a 60-ounce bottle to clean in the morning time spray solution. That bottle has doubled in size and that's pretty much it. But in regards to correctional officers or laundry individuals or management,

they have gloves, they have sanitization, they have masks, they have face shields. Today, we're talking to freelance journalist Justin Ling about what the provinces and the federal government can do right now to prevent an outbreak that could not only endanger the lives of Canada's prisoners, but the rest of society as well. Hi, Justin. Thanks so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. So look, this may seem like an obvious question, but can you lay out for me what makes a prison such a dangerous place for a viral outbreak like COVID-19? what makes a prison such a dangerous place for a viral outbreak like COVID-19? Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.

I mean, a lot of people think prisons are these hermetically sealed, perfectly quarantined places where you'd almost want to be during a pandemic, but it's just totally not the case. I mean, to start with, people are coming in and out of prisons constantly. So you have new inmates coming in basically every day at the very least once a week. People that are getting screened that are coming in are just getting their temperature steps are not getting isolated and being merged together with other people on the range. They brought this guy in on the street he just came in 10 days ago he was in for about in our unit for about five minutes and they kicked him out you You know, the symptoms showed right away.

And then you have the guards, the support staff, the managers of the institution, the kitchen staff, the nurses. They're really busy places. The guards are the ones that we're always worried about and they come in and they touch everything. Even though they're wearing gloves, they're always wearing the same gloves. They're going into the quarantine range. They're coming onto our range just with their gloves, touching our food. If the jail gets infected, it'll be by correctional officers or staff that are bringing it to the jail.

They have contact on the outside wall, touching the wall, touching the door, searching ourselves. In the best of times, you know, there are already hotbeds for communicable disease. We've already seen huge rates of tuberculosis, HIV, Hep C in prisons because they share everything. I mean, in part because they live in such close quarters. And it's just very easy to pick things up and to pass on viruses and diseases. And then compound onto all of that the fact that health care is abominable inside Canada's prisons, if it even exists at all. And the places are filthy. They're not clean to a standard that I think a lot of us think they are. These are not good places if you are immunocompromised or if you're in the midst

of a pandemic. And I understand it's potentially worse in provincial institutions. How come? Yeah, so I don't think a lot of people understand the divide. Basically, in Canada, if you're sentenced to less than two years of a prison sentence, you spend your time in a provincial institution. If it's more than two years, generally speaking, you go to a federal institution. Most of our offenders are in provincial institutions. If you're awaiting trial, usually you're also remanded to a provincial jail. If you're awaiting trial, usually you're also remanded to a provincial jail.

The problem with that is the sheer number of people awaiting trial or who have been incarcerated on driving offenses, low-level drug offenses, you name it, are in provincial institutions. And they are incredibly crowded. Some of them are basically dormitories. In some cases, you have people double-bunking or triple-bunking or, in some cases, quadruple, quadruple bunking into cells. They had me double bunked with a guy that just got out two days ago, and he needed a hip replacement. So he was on the floor while I was in a wheelchair. In provincial institutions, it's a really acute problem in the best of times. In the midst of a pandemic, if a virus were to get into one of these provincial jails, you would not be able to escape it. It is absolutely the worst case scenario. I don't think I can think of another place apart from maybe a hospital where a virus could spread so easily and so rapidly as a prison.

It's physically impossible to get everything in this range disinfected within a day. There's so many people that if one of them does contract it, basically everyone here is going to have it. It's just going to spread all over the range, all over the jail, massively. We have individuals that come out of the range that tell us we're supposed to do this thing, but it doesn't make sense. You can't do any social distancing in this type of layout. Well, I know Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, she talked about the vulnerabilities there,

and she compared them also to nursing homes, and we're seeing massive crises across the country at nursing homes. Our greatest concern at the moment relates to the introduction and spread of the virus in enclosed settings where vulnerable people reside. These events are deeply troubling because of the serious consequences for those high-risk individuals. Yeah, I think it's a really good comparison. I mean, you know, the difference is that in a lot of cases, nursing homes, you can sort of sequester people into their rooms pretty comfortably. They have their own bedroom. They have a living room, maybe a TV.

They have their own kitchenette in a lot of cases. And they're sort of set up to deliver people services in their rooms. Prisons in a lot of cases are just not built that way. You often need to go to a dining hall or have your food kind of delivered by another inmate. You know, you don't have any amenities in your room, really, maybe a tiny TV, but in some cases, you know, you don't even get that. Your access to the outside is very regimented. You know, it's really, really difficult to try to lock people down into their cells. I've spoken to some inmates who have told me that that has been the prison solution, to just lock people in their cells for, in some cases, two days, three days at a time, and you don't have anything to do.

So it's sort of this really imperfect solution to just tell people to stay inside their cells, but at the same time, letting them out means putting them shoulder to shoulder with each other and increasing the likelihood that they're going to be transmitting this disease to each other. Right, shared dining halls, shared telephones to make telephone calls as well, shared common spaces. It's also startling to hear you talk about the solution here has been to lock people in their cells, which is generally thought of as some sort of punishment. Yeah, I mean, it's actually worse than that. So I spoke to somebody at the Port Cotillet Institution in Quebec just a couple days ago. This is the institution that has already seen two confirmed cases of COVID-19

in the inmate population. In that institution, the solution of the prison has been to lock everybody not confirmed or suspected of having COVID-19 in their cells indeterminately. That means no time outside, no time to shower, no time to make phone calls, generally speaking, unless it's an emergency. But for those who are suspected of having COVID-19, so if you basically run a high fever, you're locked in solitary confinement. You're locked in a tiny cell with just a toilet and a very uncomfortable bed, in a lot of cases, no sheets, and you're left there. Some of these inmates have been there for three or four days

at this point. And in some cases, they haven't even confirmed whether or not those inmates actually have COVID-19. They're there pending the results of their test. What has that institution said in response to stories about, you know, what's happening there, allegedly in solitary confinement. When they first confirmed there was two cases of COVID-19 in the prison, they did so in a press release. And the press release said that the inmates had been put in medical isolation. When that inmate told me that medical isolation meant solitary confinement, I followed up with Corrections Canada to see if that is their plan. Is that really the solution

for people contracting this illness? And they haven't responded to me yet, which is really troubling because Port Cartier is an institution with some elderly and infirm patients. They're going to need actual health care support if and when they get sick. Potentially, they're going to need to be released into the community, into hospitals there, putting a further strain on community and provincial hospitals in the midst of a pandemic.

I know you've been speaking to some people on the inside, and let's talk for a little bit about what they're saying to you, what kind of picture they're painting. So tell me about John Paul Lowen. Yeah, so John Paul is one of more than a dozen inmates I've spoken to over the last couple of weeks. I've been getting phone calls almost nonstop, a couple a day, from lawyers, family members and inmates, all of whom are telling me these really horrifying tales of what's happening inside these prisons and how ill-prepared they've been for exactly this sort of situation. You know, we try to make our own makeshift masks that we've bleached

and put paper towel in between, you know, the regular towel that we made it from. And they won't let us wear them. You know, they want to see who we are. It doesn't seem to matter too much who we are. We're worried about our life right now, you know. I know inmates have been requesting hand sanitizer. Corrections officials have said no, because hand sanitizer has alcohol in it. And I was told point blank by one inmate that he was told by a corrections officer,

no, you're just going to drink it. What's John Paul telling you about the situation there around sanitation. Yeah, he says it's awful. I was a cleaner, like, from you wouldn't believe. I mean, I spent three times a day, just all day, that we're unlocked, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning with bleach and water, all outside in our unit, all the handles. He's repeating exactly what I've heard from inmates in B.C., Saskatchewan,

New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, you name it. They've all said basically that the prison has done very little different in terms of cleaning, that in some cases they're not even providing inmates with cleaning supplies that they're requesting, that they're in some cases not even providing additional soap. It's tough because these inmates want to fight off this virus. They're volunteering to do the cleaning themselves, and they're not even in a lot of cases being supported in the request to do that. And I should say, Jean-Paul is at the Surrey Pretrial Services Center in BC, and we reached out to BC's Ministry of Public Safety. And they

told us that staff and inmates in their facilities have been given additional supplies and are encouraged to utilize products on a frequent basis. They also told us that new inmates brought to the facility and placed in ranges now have to go through a 14-day quarantine period before this policy was implemented at the end of the month between March 24th and 27th. I also spoke to a prisoner, Farid Kasyanov, an inmate at the Central East Correctional Center. And when we're talking about cleaning products here, things don't sound much better there. So I have a certain amount of soap saved up from before. I can barely wash my hands five times a day.

And I'm still diluting the soap in a bigger bottle with water. And I know for a fact that a bunch of other guys on me, out of the 32 people that are on my range, they don't do this. It's hard to take it seriously when we're not getting the proper supplies to do so. Right now, beside me, within a meter span, I have four people around me. At no given point in time, we would be two meters apart from each other. It is physically impossible on these ranges. But again, the Ministry of the Solicitor General for Ontario is saying that their correctional facilities are inspected. They are thoroughly cleaned daily as is required. And that, you know, proper hand washing and coughing, sneezing etiquette is being communicated.

I don't know what you're hearing. They're not getting a lot of communication, a lot of what they're learning about, they're hearing on the television. If the ministry actually cared for our health and safety, they would provide us enough knowledge, enough information to help us be aware and try to help people with anxiety, because right now a lot of people are anxious, don't know what's going on, are concerned for their health. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it really depends on what institution you're in, right?

So Corrections Canada or the provincial ministries can talk a good game about all the steps they're taking. But fundamentally, if the individual prisons and jails aren't actually listening to those recommendations or those guidances, well, then the inmates are kind of just stuck. But I heard from one inmate who was actually chastised by the management of the jail for kind of raising concerns about COVID-19. But on the flip side, I spoke to somebody else a couple days ago who told me that the prison guards actually held a kind of town hall with all the inmates to let them know what they were doing to try to fight this virus. So there are definitely guards and managers out there

who really do want to stop the threat of COVID-19 inside these institutions. And I think that is really laudable. And there's a lot who I think are kind of, a lot of correctional officers who I think don't feel supported. You know, you mentioned before that some of these prisoners want to clean themselves, but our producer Ashley spoke to a former inmate

at the Nova Institution for Women in Truro, Sarah Tessier. You know, she says her contacts inside are worried about infection, but... So the women are responsible to clean their own living units. They're also responsible to clean the main buildings, such as the departments like healthcare, library, leisure area. A lot of times they don't have those basic skills to know how to actually do a proper deep cleaning or disinfecting of an area. In a lot of cases, these inmates who are cleaning the institutions, they don't have any training on what they're doing.

They're given a bucket of water with bleach and told, you know, go for it. When I spoke to John Paul Lowen, he was basically in a wheelchair for an unrelated illness, and he was wheeling himself around the prison cleaning kind of of his own volition. And they just started paying me. So they gave me $1.50 a day and I just got my first day. And of course, I was able to make this call, which, you know, it took me a week's worth of work to get the money to make this call. So, you know, it's this absurd situation for many inmates who are so anxious and afraid,

but who are just not being supported by their institutions. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Okay, so look, let's go through some of the moves that they have made to try to prevent a catastrophic outbreak in prison. You know, they have moved to release some prisoners, right? Provincially, provincial governments in Alberta, Ontario, Newfoundland, and a couple

other provinces have made steps to release offenders early who are already nearing their release date, and to let some of those who are on day passes or day parole or only serving time on the weekends to just stay out of the prison altogether, which I think is a really common sense solution to reduce the prison population and therefore reduce the risks that present themselves amidst this pandemic. But, you know, in practice, do we know how well this is working? Because when I spoke with Fareed, he was supposed to be released from his DUI sentence in a matter of weeks. My release date is April 17th. I applied for early parole. They fully denied me the right to see the parole board period, which I've never heard that. And my wife, she's got autoimmune issues. She's got asthma. We have a four-year-old son at home and these guys are keeping us here for

the next 17 days for literally no point beside a quarantine range. And I'm supposed to go home from here to my family after being right beside a quarantine range. Right. So how do we know about how this is working in practice? We really don't. And I've been hearing the same thing. You know, people who should be released by now, people who only have a couple weeks left in their sentence, people who are candidates for parole but who can't be heard by the parole board because the meetings have been functionally suspended. They're still being held to some degree on the phone.

But, you know, I've talked to a bunch of people who should be out by now, and they're not. I think some governments have signaled some good steps, but they're trying to work through the logistics of actually doing this. And for provinces, that can be quite hard. That's why I think this really falls on the federal government. The federal government has the authority to release most offenders in the country in both federal and provincial jails. Most inmates in the country, the vast, vast, vast majority of inmates, are in prison or jail based on federal crime. So the Controlled Drug and Substance Act,

the Criminal Code, and a handful of others. If the federal government wanted to do a conditional release of some of those prisoners, it can kind of set the guidelines on who gets released and who doesn't. But it hasn't done that. Well, I know you've been asking the prime minister about this. Well, repeatedly, I hear you at his daily press conference. The next question is from Justin Ling from Freelance. Hi there, Prime Minister.

What, if anything, are you going to do to continue reducing the risk in Canada's federal institutions and is releasing inmates, nonviolent offenders on the table? We recognize that the incarcerated population is at greater risk. I have said multiple times we are not taking anything off the table in terms of options in order to keep Canadians safe. And we will continue our discussions with Corrections Canada. You know, fundamentally, they haven't done anything. They keep saying they're looking at it. They keep saying they've talked to the parole board and to Corrections Canada. They keep suggesting that they're open to this.

But, you know, this is a pandemic. This is a crisis. that they're open to this, but this is a pandemic. This is a crisis. I know on Tuesday, Bill Blair did ask the commissioner of the CSC, the chair of the parole board of Canada, to, quote, determine whether there are measures that could be taken to facilitate early release for certain offenders. Well, I actually, I don't think that's true. I think his office tried to make it seem like that was the case. But I actually asked Bill Blair's office directly, when did you send that directive to Corrections Canada, the parole board? And what exactly did you ask for? And they didn't answer me. They actually

pointed back to a statement that he made in the Senate on March 25, where he also said then that he had spoken to Corrections Canada and the parole board, instructing them to look at releasing nonviolent offenders, but nothing came of it. Justin, you know, there are people who are going to be listening to this who are going to be uncomfortable with the idea that prisoners are going to be released from jail before they're supposed to be released from jail. And that's totally reasonable and understandable. But the thing is, you know, for starters, there are a lot of good candidates for early

release. You know, there are elderly and infirm inmates. Something like a fifth of all inmates are elderly. Multiple people on my range alone here. I have a man in his late 50s that is hypersensitive, diabetic. He had a recent bowel replacement. Another 77-year-old. Severe health issues.

Experiencing headaches, nosebleeds, dizzy spells. I spoke to a guy who had terminal colon cancer. His risk to reoffend is really low. A lot of people in institutions right now, they're there because they can't afford bail. They're there because their trial has been delayed, and they might not even be guilty. They're there because they've been arrested on low-level drug offenses. And the more people you get out, the more you can manage the people who are still inside. So we're not going to release serial killers.

We're not going to be releasing serial sex offenders. But what it does mean is that when you have more space in your prisons, you can start moving people around and put someone in every other cell instead of having someone in every cell. You can make sure you're not double-bunking people. You can make sure that there is a little more leeway. And it means you have less guards in the prison, right? You have less corrections staffers who need to come in every day. More of them can stay home with their families. Fewer of them will be exposed to risk. And fundamentally, early release is not a panacea. It will not solve everything. But it is one tool that will really help enable social distancing. And really, it just gives you more space to react if something goes bad. want to see all of these prisoners released. They say a few inmates being released would not solve the potential spread of COVID-19. It would only increase the risk for Canadians. Also, the president of the Canadian Police Association is saying, you know, presumably there's a reason why inmates are being incarcerated. And the president is saying the police are already

operating at or beyond capacity. And he questioned whether parole services would be able to monitor inmates during this health crisis. Right. I guess he's worried about the cascading effects of this. You know, these these groups don't seem to recognize that there's already thousands and thousands of inmates who are going to be released anyway. We're going to be released in two weeks or three weeks. It's better to do it now when we still have a fighting chance of getting this thing under control than in a couple weeks when it might get into one of those institutions and suddenly these people are sitting ducks. You've seen riots in Italy and elsewhere as they lose basic freedoms.

Italy, Colombia, Thailand, Iran, and that was even after they took the step of temporary releasing 100,000 prisoners. Think of the logistics and the support that will need to go into responding to a prison break or a prison riot. That is going to be calamitous. Justin Li, thank you very much. Thanks, Jamie.

So before we let you go today, I just want to mention that by the time we recorded this episode, we hadn't received a response from Correctional Service Canada after we asked them for comment on the conditions at the federal facility NOVA Institution for Women. We'll keep you updated on this story. That's all for today, though. Thanks so much and talk to you soon.