Counter-recruitment 101: So, you want to be a prison guard or a soldier, eh?

By Seek The Alternatives (STA) January 20, 2025

“When a soldier or civilian is killed, twenty years or more of the fruits of one woman’s labour is destroyed. The woman will never be able to enjoy seeing her children achieve their full potential. This will be not by accident, but wilfully, because someone, somewhere, who could not appreciate the value of human life, issued an order”

(Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group, 1983).

Introduction: Welcome to the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)

The Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) is a form of unified “hard power” (e.g., government, administration, prisons, military, police) that ultimately uses domination, control and violence as a means of achieving specific political objectives. As a form of political machinery designed to protect and advance elite ideas, values and interests, the RSA never works alone; but rather, in tandem with Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) or “soft powers” designed to foster social cohesion, legitimacy and reproduction of the RSA. Without such blend of physical and non-physical forces how would the current socio-economic arrangement stay afloat? Together, the RSA and ISAs work to normalize, and ultimately, reproduce a set of exploitative social relations that overwhelmingly benefit small-scale segments of the population (Oxford Reference, 2025; Althusser, 1970).

Despite the popular conception that Althusser’s (1970) theory leaves no room for human agency, Ryder (n.d.) maintains that Althusser is crystal clear “that the ISAs are not permanent or stable; their ability to produce ideological practices is always limited.” With this in mind, the following write-up adopts the approach that while ISAs work to promote ruling ideas, they can also be challenged, cultivated, adopted and applied in ways that destabilize existing power relations and pave the way towards a more egalitarian society. What determines the substance of ideology on a more general level has much to do with whether or not the populace at large adopts a critical stance and organizational struggle against the power of capitalist social relations versus the mere acceptance of the status quo. As Ryder (n.d.) points out, “there would be no need for ISAs at all if resistance and struggle were not always present and in need of pacification.”  

With this framework in mind, the following write-up aims to explore the ways in which particular aspects of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) – namely, prisons and the military – are legitimized and reproduced in and through Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) or “soft powers” such as state-based propaganda and academic complexes bent on recruiting more guards and soldiers to be chewed up by RSA. Ultimately, the politics of this write-up openly strive to deter the young from internalizing ISA structures that glorify occupations directly linked to some of the most belligerent aspects of the RSA. Without the raw material of labour power, the RSA can be significantly weakened and eventually replaced with socially useful organizations focused on healing our individual and collective wounds, reclaiming what has been stolen and creating a more peaceful and equitable world versus our current predicament: the ongoing production of hell on earth.

From an abolitionist standpoint, it is conceivable and politically desirable to cut the pipelines responsible for training, manipulating and positioning labour into hierarchical arrangements of nearly absolute power. As mentioned by Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity (2024), exacerbating the crisis of labour shortages in these areas “seems like one of the most promising, and perhaps more realistic, paths to […]” releasing people from cages, shutting down prisons and military installations across this country and around the world. It is important to note that cutting off such pipelines should not be misread as a personal hatred or dislike of individual guards, soldiers or police; but rather, a clear recognition of the real opponent – that is, “the system which creates their job[s] and arms them with the authority to oppress” (Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group, 1983).

Notable challenges: Dependency and identity

Clearly, one of the major challenges to cutting off such pipelines revolves around problematizing and abolishing relations of dependency within the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). Put another way, many labourers depend on the RSA and the wages it dishes out in good old carrot-and-stick fashion (also referred to in neoliberal terminology as “incentivization”) as a means of reproducing both personal and familial survival. In concrete terms, Canada’s carceral system contains – or more precisely, feeds and houses – roughly 18,000 employees (Government of Canada, 2021) with a median wage of $36.00/hr. (Government of Canada, 2024). With respect to Canada’s Armed Forces, 68,000 Regular Force and 27,000 Reserve Force members depend on military wages for their survival (Government of Canada, 2021) – a complex conundrum with no easily identifiable solutions. What about Universal Basic Income (UBI)? While guaranteeing people a living wage under a UBI scheme would enhance economic security and buy some time for the exploration of different forms of labour (O’Dell, 2023) there is no evidence that such approach would result in people walking away en masse from the RSA – particularly, if notions of identity, belonging, meaning and purpose are securely attached to their roles (e.g., as guards and soldiers) and the social networks therein. In the words of Ryder (n.d.), “Our conscious experience of the world and sense of individual personhood is always bound up in effects of the social institutions that have raised and educated us. Furthermore, it is in the nature of ideology to conceal this basically artificial and imposed nature.”

Arguably, what we need goes well beyond UBI schemes. What we need revolves around a deeper understanding of subject formation and its relationship to the reproduction of the RSA and the socio-economic system as a whole. In concrete terms, if a person internalizes the idea, “once a Marine, always a Marine,” that equates to one more person working to sustain the RSA, which also translates into one less person consciously working towards its demise. As unthreatening as it seems, one of our greatest enemies lies in the answer to the question: Who am I? The answer to such basic question contains the power to reveal not only where our loyalties lie; but also, what our loyalties reproduce. The reason why this seemingly simple task is in actuality highly demanding is because nobody intuitively scrutinizes what they believe to be the “self” (e.g., “I am a Marine”). In fact, people are more likely to defend “their” dominant notion of “selfhood.”

Undoubtedly, identity disruption is an incredibly taxing process that contains the potential to leave a person feeling socially dislocated and psychologically stressed beyond repair. As a case in point, consider the relationship between identity, mental distress and American war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. In the words of Smith and True (2014), “We find that the postwar transition causes adverse mental health effects that stem from contrasts between the military’s demands for deindividuation, obedience, chain-of-command, and dissociation and the civilian identity expectations of autonomy, self-advocacy, and being relational” – that is, a series of conflicting orientations grounded in different ISAs that result in what Smith and True refer to as “warring identities.” As a point of critique, it is important to note two specific insights: (1) the distinction between military and civilian demands is not always clearcut (e.g., there are many chains-of-command in “ordinary life”) and (2) while the ISAs involved in the “military” and “civilian” field appear categorically unlike, they both work towards – although in different ways – reproducing the social relations of production (e.g., in the less obvious context of “civilian” life being relational has always been a significant tool in the “art” of sales). 

Conversely, identity disruption contains the potential to be a liberating process in which one frees themselves of the ideological forces and habitual practices that attempt to define and control one’s existential parameters. What determines whether or not a person experiences identity disruption as a crisis versus a form of liberation is arguably dependent upon a person’s ability to become aware of and fearlessly scrutinize ISAs working to instrumentalize them. Consider the case of Iraq war resisters such as Joshua Key and Rodney Watson. According to Kassam (2016), Key “chose to cross into Canada rather than continue as a US soldier in the Iraq war.” In Watson’s case, he deserted the US military and made his way to Vancouver in an attempt to find sanctuary. According to CBC News (2009), Watson “deserted because of the racial hatred he witnessed against the Iraqis during his first tour of duty.” In both cases, Key and Watson could have remained loyal to their military commitments and identities; however, their direct experiences, awareness and ability to scrutinize the ISAs working upon them enabled them to breakaway – a clear cut example of Althusser’s insight “that the ISAs are not permanent or stable; their ability to produce ideological practices is always limited” (Ryder, n.d.).

It is important to note that Key and Watson’s experiences teach us something valuable about the limitations and flexibility built into Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). With respect to limitations, Kassam (2016) states that there were approximately 200 Iraq war resisters and in the case of Vietnam roughly 90,000 draft dodgers, which is a testament to the ISAs relative instability and limitation. Concisely stated, while ISAs function as extremely powerful forces over human cognition, there is no such thing as impenetrable ideological dominance and control. As discussed by the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983), “Many people label conscientious objectors as cowards, with little conception of the courage and human and political insight they need to resist the wartime propaganda machine and its attendant social values.” When it comes to the RSAs flexibility, we can see how quickly American soldiers were turned into “traitors” or “enemies of the state” supposedly deserving of serious punishment (e.g., deportation and incarceration) by the very system that initially trained and deployed them to dish out state-sanctioned murder in places like Iraq. Duly noted: While you might be loyal to the system as a willing guard or soldier, the system will NEVER be loyal to you. Ask ex-solider Shane Nedohin about the system’s loyalty and he will tell you that after years of working in the Canadian military special operations force as a breacher, Veterans Affairs Canada failed “to accept he has a traumatic brain injury caused by 22 years of exposure to blasts” (Levitz, 2024: A3). Instead of loyalty, compassion and practical support for such injury Veterans Affairs Canada pushed back with tactics best described as a denial of science and trivialization of root causes – all of which pushed Nedohin into a state of suicidal ideation. In the words of Nedohin (as quoted in Levitz, 2024: A3), “Quite a few friends I know have been to the edge and back, and how many more dead veterans do we have to see before somebody will care?” – all of which amounts to a stark reminder that the notion of loyalty in the RSA is an unapologetic one way street. 

Nedohin reflects (as quoted in Levitz, 2024: A3), “Every flash-bang grenade tossed to clear a path. The echoes of gunfire during close-quarter-battle. Mixed martial arts moves during training. Over the decades those blasts piled up – as did other symptoms: violent nightmares, vicious mood swings, crushing exhaustion, sudden weight gain, severe vertigo, movements where he had no idea where he was or what he was doing.” The Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983) adds, “Men are taught a value system where basic common sense is contradicted again and again.” Furthermore, “Love of one’s country turns into aggression towards foreigners, and, whilst it is possible to die honourably for a cause, deaths in conventional war have much more to do with preserving territory for the ruling class than with honour. Men are encouraged to be confident, but also to be insensitive to other people’s needs, to act fearlessly, but not to show they are scared. They learn the supposed virtue of scientific detachment, then cannot relate their findings to human need and ecological balance.” In essence, such military-based socialization and experience gives rise to a host of observable and non-observable deformities e.g., Nedohin’s traumatic brain injury, reduction in his quality of life and relationship with loved ones such as his two daughters. The impacts of the violence dished out by the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) go well beyond individual soldiers suffering with traumatic brain injuries – a truism that the RSA brushes off all while training and deploying the next state-sanctioned gang.

At the end of the day, one might argue that a secure job in the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) sure beats the psychological roller-coater many experience when trying to secure a well-paying – never mind fulfilling – job in a country like Canada – that is, a torturous economic reality that hits many hard over the head including highly educated and skilled immigrants. Consider the story of 48-year-old Mani Bhandari. As an immigrant for nearly five years with a master’s degree in business management, Bhandari has “done everything she can to stand out to employers: attending trainings and webinars during the pandemic to boost her skills, and networking and volunteering with several organizations” (Alsharif, 2025: B1). In the words of Bhandari, “When I send in applications I put all my heart and hard work into it – but I never get responses back” (as quoted in Alsharif, 2025 B1).

For many newcomers, the myth of Canada as a land of opportunity functions as a major pull factor; however, the reality of unemployment, which is double for newcomers, discrimination and systematic rejection of credentials quickly shatters the illusion (Alsharif, 2025). Despite popular opinion, this is not about choices; but rather, economic compulsions that result in people filling the ranks of unstable and risky forms of labour. As mentioned by the director of the Centre for Future Work, Jim Stanford (as quoted in Alsharif, 2025: B2), “Newcomers are economically compelled to take any [emphasis added] jobs they can find” – far from the utopia envisioned by many that make the trip for a “bigger and brighter future.”

But not to worry! If you are struggling to find employment the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) will gladly absorb your time, energy and skills. As mentioned by Ballingall (2024), “As part of its efforts to increase intake, the military has kick-started ad campaigns to increase awareness about education benefits, reserve forces and ‘priority occupations’” – that is, more and more carrots dangling from the sticks of increasingly desperate institutions within the RSA. Similarly, back in April 2024, the Ontario government mainstreamed a call for additional guards. As an attempt to lure in potential candidates the government posted the following message,

“Do you have a passion for making a difference in the lives of others? Do you enjoy working with diverse people? If so, then consider this opportunity with the Ministry of the Solicitor General, where you will support the correctional system in Ontario and contribute to the safety of your community” (as quoted in Jassal, 2024).

Due to the shortages of guards the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) makes it a point to emphasize that potential recruits only need a secondary school diploma to apply (Jassal, 2024). In the case of the military, desperation has led to “open[ing] recruitment to permanent residents and loosened rules for hairstyles and tattoos” (Ballingall, 2024) – nearly anything to manipulate people into the RSA. What could be next? Reintroduction of the draft (which was invoked during WWI and WWII)? In the words of Smith (2024), “Talk of conscription comes at a time when attracting and retaining full-time, quality soldiers is a big challenge for many countries, including Canada.” When it comes to fulfilling the needs of the RSA, anything is possible!

“Soft power” and the politics of rebranding

Repressive systems like the prison-industrial complex (PIC) and military-industrial complex (MIC) are regularly branded and rebranded by the ruling establishment in more and more innocuous ways. As a result, segments of the population are coaxed into believing that these complexes do more good than harm. In the naivest of minds, it may be believed that the PIC and MIC are producers of social harmony and that without such complexes society would fall into an irreversible state of chaos reflective of the 1979 dystopian action film Mad Max.

Unfortunately, no matter how much evidence exists suggesting that prisons are ineffective and counterproductive (Handbook of Basic Principles and Promising Practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment, 2007) and that military intervention “proves no more reliable a strategy than nonviolent political methods, even in the case of direct confrontations with other violent actors” (Cockburn, 2012: 259), it appears that there will always be people ready to swallow the pro-repression pill produced and distributed by the right-wing mythmakers of our time.

Arguably, such unnerving realization ought to necessitate a serious examination and radical transformation of a mass schooling system utterly obsessed with mind-numbing quizzes, tests and job preparation versus debunking the myths and predatory economic logics that are leading our society astray. On second thought, perhaps such examination and transformation constitute an unrealistic strategy. As an alternative approach, perhaps we should focus our energy on supporting the minority of teachers pushing back against the dictates of neoliberalism from the inside. As mentioned by Althusser (1970),

“I ask pardon of those teachers who, in dreadful conditions, attempt to turn the few weapons they can find in the history and learning they ‘teach’ against the ideology, the system and the practices in which they are trapped. They are a kind of hero. But they are rare and how many (the majority) do not even begin to suspect the ‘work’ the system (which is bigger than they are and crushes them) forces them to do, or worse, put all their heart and ingenuity into performing it with the most advanced awareness (the famous new methods).”

Building on Althusser’s insight, Stanley (2024) perceptibly observes, “Today we are unquestioningly returning to something like the era of the Red Scare. Right-wing activists and politicians are targeting educators at all levels for their supposedly leftist ideologies, with the goal of suppressing any teaching that challenges racial hierarchy or patriarchy” (xviii) – which are both fundamental aspects of and key ingredients to a well-functioning Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). Without the normalization of hierarchy and patriarchy the RSA will end up in intensive care – a risk that the ruling class clearly refuses to entertain (e.g., recall how nonviolent protesters were treated during Occupy Wall Street back in 2011).  

In terms of the trend towards innocuous rebranding, it is important to point out that popular and inoffensive notions such as “correctional system” emerged between 1920-1960 – that is, a stage of Canadian penal history that followed an era of brutal public punishments, penal colonies and the birth of the penitentiary (Government of Canada, 2009). Similarly, departments or ministries of war were rebranded as “departments of defence” in the post-WWII era (Madwar, 2024) – a twentieth century restructuring strategy that essentially inverted public views pertaining to some of the most belligerent dimensions of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA).

Today, the inversion of repression continues with ever-present state-based and academic-based propaganda that attempts to dilute the belligerent nature of the punishment and military system. Consider the following examples: (1) According to the Government of Ontario’s (2024) online recruitment ad, “Correctional officers work with inmates in Ontario correctional centres, detention centres and jails. They ensure the security and custody of inmates and make sure inmates have what they need for a successful rehabilitation.” (2) According to Holland College Prince Edward Island Canada, which offers a 24-week correctional officer certificate, “The primary responsibility of a correctional officer is to monitor, supervise, and interact with incarcerated offenders and prepare them to become law-abiding citizens after serving their sentences” (Holland College, n.d.). (3) According to the Government of Canada’s webpage, Joining the Canadian Armed Forces, basic training (or Basic Military Qualification) will teach you “[…] professional conduct, resiliency, physical fitness, and military skills.” In addition, the Government states, “As you progress through basic training, you will learn how to conduct drill, properly handle a weapon, and apply first aid.” Finally, (4) according to the Royal Military College of Canada (2024), “As a ROTP Naval and Officer Cadet (N/OCdt) at a Canadian Military College (CMC), you will embark on an invigorating journey to become a part of a proud heritage. N/OCdts are enabled to excel by being immersed in an environment that values excellence in academics, military training, physical fitness, second language proficiency and leadership. The CMC environment cultivates self-discipline, self-motivation and mutual respect, and the Colleges Motto – Truth, Duty, Valour – guides staff and N/OCdts in everything they do.” Don’t be fooled! Now let’s see what happens when we make an attempt to crack through such glorious sounding recruitment narratives. 

Cracking through the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)

Critically speaking, whether we’re talking about becoming a guard or a soldier one thing remains clear: The punishment/military system and their academic-industrial counterparts, regularly deploy ideas that soften our conceptions and camouflage truths pertaining to the outright violence inherent to the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). This is ideology at work! In the words of English philosopher and literary theorist, Terry Eagleton (as quoted in Cole, 2019), “Ideology is a system of concepts and views which serves to make sense of the world while obscuring the social interests [original italics] that are expressed therein, and by its completeness and relative internal consistency tends to form a closed [original italics] system and maintain itself in the face of contradictory or inconsistent experience.” Put another way, while there are countless social interests and contradictory experiences awaiting revelation, the power of ideology rests in its ability to perpetually reduce and erase the immoral interests and concrete realities that in theory should bring about the complete demise of the RSA and the socio-economic order that it works tirelessly to protect. What follows is an exploration of the political interests and contradictory experiences awaiting revelation and some general ideas related to the possibility of accelerating the demise.

Let’s get cracking…

Continually rebranding archaic institutions is a highly demanding process that requires a perpetual stream of knowledge production in a multitude of forms e.g., print, electronic, audio, visual, tactile, etc. In order to exert influence, pro-prison and pro-military knowledge must be perpetually generated, disseminated and consumed by the civic body until the populace reaches a satisfactory level of pro-prison and pro-military consciousness e.g., full acceptance all the way down to political pacification all of which are unthreatening to the status quo.

Dominant notions (revisit examples 1-4 above) such as, “correctional system,” “working with inmates,” “successful rehabilitation,” “effective communication,” “fitness,” “preparation,” “certifications,” “fun,” “excitement,” “teamwork,” “responsibility, “resiliency,” “professionalism” and the tiresome post-9/11 “public safety” line, work in and through each other in a largely subliminal process that fabricates an unavoidable and nearly inescapable ideological web saturated in pro-prison and pro-military myths e.g., prisons rehabilitate and reduce crime rates all while the military with all of its technological toys (guns, grenades, drones, missiles and nuclear weapons) keep us all safe. The wider the ideological web casts itself the more legitimate, justified and necessary the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) appears. Again, the strength of the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) lies in its ability to sustain the RSA even in the face of contradictory experiences (e.g., lived experiences of guards, the caged, soldiers, etc.) and perverse political interests.

Consider the manner in which the Government of Ontario (2024) proclaims, “They [guards] ensure the security and custody of inmates and make sure inmates have what they need for a successful rehabilitation,” all while men such as, Jason Archer, Paul Debien, Nathaniel Golden, Igor Petrovic, Christopher Johnny Sharp and Robert Soberal drop dead from blood toxicity in notorious detention centres like Hamilton-Wentworth between 2017-2021 (Chandler, 2024). As discussed in Chandler’s reporting, these men were so much more than “inmates,” they were fathers, brothers and sons that should still be with us and their now grief-stricken families. The contradictions at play here scream deceit and duplicity!

If people in cages were given “what they need for a successful rehabilitation” the public would not be subjected to heartbreaking headlines that read, 14 Hamilton jail inmates have died from overdoses since 2012 but Ontario change is slow, inquest hears (CBC, 2024). If people in cages were given “what they need for a successful rehabilitation” why didn’t the Government of Ontario implement a long list of jury recommendations intended to improve the conditions of Hamilton-Wentworth back 2018? – that is, recommendations that could have saved lives (e.g., equipping all corrections officers with naloxone, hold weekly meetings between corrections and health-care staff regarding needs of all inmates and doctor assessments of all inmates within 24 hours of admission). What about the late Soleiman Faqiri, who suffered from schizoaffective disorder? Did he get what he needed from the guards at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont. back in December 2016? No, he was pepper-sprayed, covered with a spit hood and beaten to death in a segregation unit, which lead to a toothless mandatory coroner’s inquest that produced 57 non-binding recommendations that the family is still fighting to see implemented (Raveendran, 2024).

In yet another stark example, the Government of Ontario’s (2024) online recruiting page states, “Correctional officer work can be physically demanding” without a single mention of the unforgiving psychological toll the job takes on guards and their families. Similarly, Holland College (n.d.) states, “you will learn the skills you need to work in a federal or provincial correctional facility while ensuring the safety and well-being of inmates, your colleagues, and yourself” and “[y]ou will study the principles of human relations and receive mental health training” without a single mention of the absolutely brutal psychological impacts associated with working inside the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). Truth be told, Ricciardelli et al. (2022) state, “Relative to other public safety personnel and the general public, correctional workers appear to have a higher prevalence of mental health disorders and suicidal behaviours.” Likewise, Carleton et al. (2022) report, “Correctional service workers report stressful work environments that include repeated exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events (PPTEs), shift work and long working hours, and pervasive unpredictability of threat, which may increase their risk for mental disorders and death by suicide.” With respect to carceral institutions such as Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) in Etobicoke, Ont., the Ontario Human Rights Commission (n.d.) reports, “high levels of occupational stress, including violence and abuse from prisoners, contributes to use of sick days and long-term disability leaves” – findings that collectively disrupt state-based and academic recruitment propaganda. But the question remains: Are these uncomfortable and distressing truths enough to puncture a significant sized hole through the pro-carceral ideological web?

In terms of the military-industrial complex (MIC), the Government of Canada’s (n.d.) online recruitment page contains a wide range of careers spanning from Gunner, Air Combat Systems Operator, Armour Officer to Arterially Officer, Pilot and Infanteer. In all cases, the Government of Canada places emphasis on key responsibilities, general work environment as well as pay and benefits, which include the following categories: competitive salary, paid education, signing bonus and pay rates. In the case of a Pilot, for instance, the state-based propaganda machine suggests, “The primary responsibilities of a Pilot are to plan, communicate, coordinate and execute tactical missions in support of civil authority or military objectives, such as humanitarian and disaster relief, and air intercept operation.” While much emphasis is placed on things such as “communication,” “coordination” and “disaster relief” there is no meaningful mention of the military’s undeniable primary function: systematic application of brute force.

As a case in point, beyond the hypnotic emphasis of “disaster relief,” which could be accomplished through the application of non-military organizations, Canadian pilots engaged in roughly 1,598 bombing missions over the last 30-years in distant lands such as, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria (Patterson, 2021). In the case of Libya, which suffered tremendously on multiple fronts (e.g., destruction of public water supplies, mass internal displacement, humanitarian crisis, migration deaths, forceful migration returns, arbitrary detention, extortion, disappearances and torture), Patterson asks, “did the 696 bombs we dropped [alongside the belligerent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)] on Libya bring peace and human rights?” and “Do we bear some responsibility for the migrants […] fleeing Libya and drowning in the Mediterranean Sea?” While relevant political inquires of this nature are nowhere to be found on recruitment ads or government-based websites, what you will find are concise narratives concerning the Canadian government’s underlying political interests in distant places like Libya. Beneath all the political rhetoric pertaining to spreading “democracy” and “freedom,” Canada openly states, “Libya […] has Africa’s largest proven oil reserves and the ninth largest globally.” Furthermore, “Despite […] challenges, there remain significant commercial opportunities in Libya for Canadian companies in the oil and gas, infrastructure and education sectors” (Government of Canada, 2022). The truth of the matter always hurts: Canadian militarism is in the business of securing commercial opportunities.

When it comes to training for the position of Infanteer, the Government of Canada (n.d.) states, “As a member of the military, Infantry Soldiers are the Army’s primary combat fighters and are responsible for closing with and engaging the enemy,” without a single reference to the heart shattering facts: 158 Canadian Armed Forces personnel that suffered a premature death in Afghanistan (The Canadian Press, 2017), the more than 2,000 personnel that were wounded or injured in Afghanistan (Azzi & Foot, 2021), a review of records spanning 1976-2012, which reported, “the risk of suicide among male veterans of all ages was 36 per cent higher than in men who had never served in the Canadian military” (Berthiaume, 2019). It is worth mentioning, while the Government of Canada (n.d.) enjoys drawing attention to the notion of gender inclusivity in the military they fail to mention that the risk for suicide is significantly high for female veterans. As mentioned by Berthiaume (2019), the suicide risk for female veterans is “81 per cent greater than for women who hadn’t served.” On the topic of gender, it is equally important to ask: Why do recruitment ads fall completely silent on the topic of another military crisis: sexual misconduct and assault, which is the most common euphemism for rape? As mentioned by Burke and Brewster (2021), “Since early February 2021, 13 senior Canadian military officers – current and former have been sidelined, investigated or forced into retirement from some of the most powerful and prestigious posts in the defence establishment.” In addition, Watkins et al. (2017) reports “that military-related sexual assault has been reported by a sizeable fraction of Canadian military women [and] is associated with mental disorders and may be especially likely to occur on deployment. Is this the Canadian military’s understanding of gender inclusivity? 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop with premature death, lifetime battle wounds, mental disorders, suicide and rape. While the Government of Canada (n.d.) rants on about “professional conduct” in their new recruitment ads, they fail to make a single reference to Canada’s record of detainee scandals (Azzi & Foot, 2021) in which “Canada knowingly transferred detainees in Afghanistan to facilities where torture was rife” (Sabry & Mason, 2015) – a horrifying reality that brings back memories of yet another horrific occurrence in which Canadian soldiers in the early 1990s tortured and eventually killed Somali teen Shidane Arone (Foot, 2019). It is important to note that scandals such as these are not sufficiently explained through some “bad apples” theory, which suggests that everything would be fine if the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) simply removed undesirable personnel. Such theory fails to examine the broader problem of a specific power structure called the state that systematically trains and arms men – for the most part – to spread the virus of violence at home and abroad. 

In addition to strategic attempts designed to conceal the outright violence of the carceral and military system, Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) work incredibly hard to mask a wide range of ruling class interests. For instance, while potential recruits focus on notions of “correction,” “rehabilitation,” “communication,” “fun” and “fitness,” political and business elites move forward unhindered with their cold calculations and profit driven logics. For instance, in the case of Ontario’s jails mega companies such as EllisDon, Zeidler Architecture Inc. and DLR Group cash in on new projects such as Thunder Bay’s new $1.2 billion correctional centre slated to open in 2026 (Cameron, 2023). Much like government and academic propaganda linked to becoming an agent of state repression (e.g., guard, soldier, police), Cameron (2023) gives us a clearcut example of the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General’s propaganda pertaining to new jail installations. According to Andrew Morrison, a spokesperson for the Ministry (as quoted in Cameron, 2023), “The new Thunder Bay Correctional Complex will be a state-of-the-art facility, and the first of its kind for an Ontario correctional facility incorporating unique design features that promote rehabilitation of inmates along with traditional elements found in modern correctional facilities” – all of which conceals the fact that the last time the Ministry constructed a “state-of-the-art facility,” which was Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) in Etobicoke, Ont., it turned out to be a “$1-Billion Hellhole” (Robin, 2017) filled with major issues linked to the routine application of “segregation, restrictive confinement, lockdowns and ‘time in cell’ sanctions to manage the prison population” (Ontario Human Rights Commission, n.d.). Instead of “rehabilitation” the celebrated facility dished out extraordinary harm. In the words of McGillivray (2018), “Between 2016 and 2017, the Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) saw an 85 per cent jump in inmate-on-staff violence – the highest number and greatest rate of increase for any institution in Ontario.” Some staff members went as far as to describe TSDC as a “ticking time bomb” (as quoted in McGillivray, 2018) – a rather insightful articulation that cuts straight through all the Ministry propaganda. 

Similar to the mega companies that benefit from the ongoing construction of “new” and “improved” jails (e.g., EllisDon, Zeidler Architecture Inc. and DLR Group), companies such as Lockheed Martin are set to collect a massive payout through the lifespan of Canada’s newly purchased F-35 warplanes – all of which could amount to $90.4 billion (Patterson, 2023) – a discourse that is completely absent from recruiter ads designed to narrow and control the cognitive field of potential recruits. Alongside companies such as Lockheed Martin, which unapologetically rant on about their commitment to “driving free cash flow per share growth to generate returns for shareholders” (Lockheed Martin, 2024), a long list of Canadian companies such as, Ultra Electronics TCS, Wescam Inc., General Dynamics OTS – Canada Inc., General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada Corp., Emergent BioSolutions Canada Inc., Indal Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin Canada Inc. (Commercial Engine Solutions), General Dynamic OTS – Canada Valleyfield Inc., General Dynamics Mission Systems – Canada, EMS Technologies Canada Ltd. (SATCOM Division), Rolls-Royce Canada Ltd., CMC Electronics Inc., MDA systems Ltd. and 3M Canada Co. stand to cash out from their economic dealings with the greatest terror distribution centre in the world – that being, the United States of America (Gallagher, 2023). When it comes to brokering arms deals with Canada’s military-industrial complex, Gallagher (2023) points out, “Prime contracts for many large-value Canadian exports and services are directly brokered by the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), a crown corporation. The CCC not only sets the table for these deals but guarantees that the Canadian manufacturer will be paid the amount specified in the contract, and the foreign recipient will receive the services laid out in that contract” – all of which shows just how deeply ingrained the economics of warfare is in Canada’s infrastructure.  

It is worth noting that those in uniform constitute the most visible segment of a much larger military labour phenomenon. Similar to government and academic recruitment tactics targeting potential violence workers, weapons dealers require a substantial workforce with highly specialized skills in order to produce the technological software and hardware that is used on the frontlines of organized violence. For instance, Ultra Maritime (UM) (2025) put out a job posting on 14 January 2025 for a full-time Manufacturing Engineer in Dartmouth, N.S., Canada. According to the job description, UM is looking for an engineer that “works with Design Engineering, Quality Assurance and Production Support to design, monitor and optimize the manufacturing processes for existing and new product lines” – all of which amounts to a form of double-talk that conceals the real commodity: technologies of death. Unlike government and academic propaganda, which attempts to steer clear of discourses that reveal their relationship to violence, weapons dealers such as UM brazenly state, “Join us in shaping the future of naval warfare and together, we will safeguard the seas and empower navies worldwide!” – indeed, a true testament to the profound normalization of organized violence.

As demonstrated, the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) relies on both interlocking institutions as well as a relatively steady supply of diverse forms of labour (guards, soldiers, police, manufacturing engineers, etc.) as a means of both institutional reproduction as well as product advancement. Without cooperative institutions and a steady supply of labour across the entire production chain (extraction, manufacturing, distribution, consumption and disposal) organized violence would cease to exist. For anti-repression activists, this would be a welcomed shift and opportunity to actively create a world without such belligerent institutions.

The seemingly impossible: Accelerating the demise of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)

When it comes to the big question of accelerating the demise of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) it is important to start with a truism observed by the Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity (2024), “Over the longer term, one of the most important factors is that you don’t get into the business of torturing and caging people without inflicting harm on yourself as well.” While there is absolutely no need to lecture people like ex-soldier Shane Nedohin (Levitz, 2024) about the harms associated with working in the business of violence, there is a need to critically engage with would-be recruits and inexperienced members that may have swallowed the right-wing pill of glorified repression. Whether you’re a guard, incarcerated person, soldier or one of many women, men and children that die as “collateral damage” on the killing fields of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, one thing remains: the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) dishes out an incalculable amount of harm, pain, suffering and death to all involved – albeit unevenly. The recognition of this truism is but a crack that should be made wider and wider until the demise of such system becomes a living reality alongside the creation and implementation of nonviolent alternatives. As mentioned earlier in this writeup, the yearning for such demise is not rooted in some personal hatred or disklike of individual guards, soldiers or police; but rather, a clear recognition of the real opponent – that is, “the system which creates their job[s] and arms them with the authority to oppress” (Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group, 1983).

The concrete reality of pervasive pain and suffering meted out by the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) is a truth that undermines its dissemination of almighty myths pertaining to the “safety” and “protection” of the population. Given that the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) involved with the reproduction of such myths are not eternal or stable (Ryder, n.d.), there are many points of critical intervention. As stated by Cockburn (2012), “It may be useful to think of the inevitability of violence as a hegemonic idea, one that holds sway over the minds of the majority in our societies at the present time” (260) – that is, a very powerful idea indeed that can nevertheless be disrupted and exposed as a fraudulent scheme designed to maximize fear and political paralysis among the populace. In order to counter such dominant idea, it is vital for anti-repression activists to continually challenge the state and consumer markets relentless reproduction and distribution of materials that work to normalize pro-repression attitudes, beliefs, values and institutions. Cockburn (2012) adds,

“The inevitability of violence is one of these pervasive and persuasive ideas that forestall progressive change. It serves ruling interests by legitimizing a state with a strong security sector, capable of imposing internal order as well as defending investments, markets and other national interests abroad. It fosters a lucrative industry manufacturing warships and planes, weapons and ammunition, for domestic use and export. It favours racist suspicion and foreign ‘others’ and ‘the enemy within.’ Calling for tough leadership, it fosters the patriarchal gender order, bolstered by a ‘hegemonic masculinity’ that is combative and authoritarian. It makes it seem reasonable to train a proportion of the citizenry in military values and fighting techniques, and prepares the remainder to sacrifice them to the interests of the nation, should the need arise” (260).

Building on Cockburn’s reference to ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and authoritarianism, Repucci and Slipowitz (2022) observe, “Global freedom faces a dire threat. Around the world, the enemies of liberal democracy – a form of self-government in which human rights are recognized and every individual is entitled to equal treatment under law – are accelerating their attacks. Authoritarian regimes have become more effective at co-opting or circumventing the norms and institutions meant to support basic liberties, and at providing aid to others who wish to do the same. In countries with long-established democracies, internal forces have exploited the shortcomings in their systems, distorting national politics to promote hatred, violence, and unbridled power” – a clear example of this being in Canada’s neighbour to the south in which Donald Trump prepares to take on the position of US president for a second time as of today!

As noted by Repucci and Slipowitz, “The present threat to democracy is the product of 16 consecutive years of decline in global freedom. A total of 60 countries suffered declines over the past year, while only 25 improved” – certainly, a concerning political reality at this particular juncture in human history. That is, a point in human history in which notions of “inherent dignity” and “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” have been mainstreamed in and through international documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (United Nations, n.d.). Unfortunately, the disdain for human rights, barbarism, tyranny and oppression that the Declaration was meant to eradicate is on the rise, a disturbing reality that places the United Nations’s ideals and influence into serious question. Under such conditions, the social, economic and political necessities for freedom are in a state of acute atrophy – all of which ought to ignite the opposite of passivity and obedience to the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA): mass non-compliance, political organization and action against repression everywhere.

Anything less constitutes a form of complicity in our own collective demise. As Cockburn (2012) points out, violence and repression is a choice not an inevitability. In the words of Cockburn, “The woman can choose not to slap the child. The man can choose to put down the gun. The cabinet can choose to cancel the contract for the aircraft carrier. Violence is discretionary [original italics]” (261). For some, “peace” means the nonappearance of war; however, the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983) observe that such conceptualization is inadequate in so far as the presence of a denial linked to the role that both patriarchy and capitalism play in reproducing war and violence around the globe. Point being, without the abolition of both patriarchy and capitalism, organized violence will persist well into the future. Furthermore, the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983) state, “Underlying patriarchy, capitalism and the State is the most pervasive assumption of all: that some people are better than others and are therefore more important and valuable” – that is, an ideological structure that feeds directly into the justification and legitimization of caging and state-sanctioned murder. As demonstrated by Ferguson (2008), there is nothing “natural” about war. On the contrary, it is a social process in which opponents are systematically fabricated. In the words of Ferguson, “In war, a line must be clear between “us” and “them,” otherwise one would not know whom to kill” (42).

Finally, if the rules and social practices of repression constitute a form of social engineering, we can unlearn and repurpose all the structures, people, time, energy and skill we assigned to repression. Of course, the challenge ahead is immense. As observed by Ferguson, “Once a given society is internally adapted for war [and repression], making war [and repressing] becomes much easier – a necessity, even, for the reproduction of existing social relations. Commentators have compared war to a disease, but a more apt analogy is an addiction” (40). The question remains: How do we break our addiction and dependency on the potency of repression? – a question we might be able to address en masse once we disarm the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) responsible for making us believe that we have no addiction and dependency to be dealt with.

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Carceral hellholes and the possibility of alternatives

By: Seek The Alternatives (STA) January 6, 2025

“Without concerted action, Canada’s […] system will continue to penalize our society’s most vulnerable and marginalized people” (Canadian Civil Liberties Association, 2024: viii).

Regrettably, prisons can be found in every single country around the world (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). Despite the challenges associated with calculating the global prison population with pinpoint accuracy – for instance, no data or incomplete data for countries such as North Korea, Eritrea, Somalia and China – Walmsley (n.d.) maintains that there are well over 11 million people incarcerated around the globe. Given the pervasiveness of prisons some suggest that policymakers and administrators have come to conceptualize them as inevitable and inescapable, which works against any local and global efforts to deliberate and implement well-founded alternatives (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). The Handbook of basic principles and promising practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment (2007) asserts, “imprisonment should not be taken for granted as the natural form of punishment” (3). As the Handbook of basic principles (2007) points out,

“In many countries the use of imprisonment as a form of punishment is relatively recent. It may be alien to local cultural traditions that for millennia have relied on alternative ways of dealing with crime. Further, imprisonment has been shown to be counterproductive in the rehabilitation and reintegration of those charged with minor crimes, as well as for certain vulnerable populations” (3).

Irrespective of their counterproductivity and general ineffectiveness to enhance public safety, global use of imprisonment is on the rise (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). As reflected in the astute and timeless thoughts of Judge Bruce McM. Wright (as quoted in Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists, 1976: 34), “The myth that prison protects is widespread. To a public immersed in the myths of prison protection, the image of prison walls suddenly being torn down can create unnecessary fear and a backlash that ultimately may inhibit change.” Without the realization that “[m]ost changes needed to reduce crime and eliminate prisons lie outside the criminal (in)justice systems—in the cultural values and institutions of society,” (Instead of Prisons, 1976: 41) we are doomed to repeat the process of blindly organizing society in accordance with a wide range of prison mythologies (for a detailed version of prison mythologies see Chapter 2: Demythologizing Our Views of Prison in the handbook Instead of Prisons). As a case in point, the myth that prisons keep society safe from “criminals” is rampant, but in reality,

“Prisons fail to protect society from “criminals,” except for a very small percentage and only temporarily. Prisons “protect” the public only from those few who get caught and convicted, thereby [contrary to popular belief] serving the primary function of control over certain segments of society” (Instead of Prisons, 1976: 51).

As stated in the abolitionist handbook, Instead of Prisons (1976), “We must keep in mind that […] prison is the ultimate power the democratic state exercises over a citizen. That prisons fail miserably at their professed objectives—rehabilitation, deterrence and protection—is immaterial to their survival” (31). In order to reverse the material trends of building more cages around the world and filling them to the brim, it is necessary to attack the prison mythologies that generate the ideological backdrop or legitimizations that support such dehumanizing material structure as well as the social practices therein that keep them functioning on the quotidian level. Without the development and mainstreaming of counter-hegemonic narratives that push back against such pro-prison mythologies we run the risk of falling even deeper into the prison hellhole.  

Perpetual punishment beyond the removal of liberty

Rising global imprisonment rates result in conditions that violate international norms linked to universal notions of human dignity and respect for all persons as well as universal minimum prison standards (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). According to the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR), “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Similarly, The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (also referred to as the Nelson Mandela Rules) (n.d.) states, “All prisoners shall be treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings.” As will be demonstrated, despite such universal standards prisons punish well beyond the removal of individual liberty. 

As suggested in the Handbook of basic principles (2007), liberty is one of the most important human rights, which is fully acknowledged in both universal human rights documents and national constitutions around the globe. For instance, Article #3 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (n.d.) states, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Similarly, Section #7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

As discussed in the Handbook of basic principles (2007), removing such fundamental right requires a clear justification by governing bodies with the power to impose such restrictions. In the words of the Handbook of basic principles, “governments have a duty to justify the use of imprisonment as necessary to achieve an important societal objective for which there are no less restrictive means [emphasis added] with which the objective can be achieved” (4). In the case of imprisonment, the involuntary removal of liberty rarely occurs in isolation as many other deprivations occur simultaneously (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). For instance, the Handbook of basic principles states,

“In many countries of the world, prisoners are deprived of basic amenities of life. They are often held in grossly overcrowded conditions, poorly clothed and underfed. They are particularly vulnerable to disease and yet are given poor medical treatment. They find it difficult to keep in contact with their children and other family members. Such conditions may literally place the lives of prisoners at risk” (4).

Case study: Ontario’s carceral hellhole

As a case in point, consider the harmful conditions and unjustified deprivations beyond the removal of a person’s fundamental right to liberty in the Canadian context. With respect to Ontario’s jails, for instance, Ferguson (2024) reports that there are a number of serious concerns pertaining to unsatisfactory living conditions, overcrowding, rodent infestations, insufficient medical care, issues surrounding access to prescription medication, bureaucratic delays linked to file transfers to Ontario’s Disability Support Program (ODSP), lack of access to showers due to construction, overuse of solitary confinement and use of force by guards. Furthermore, Ferguson adds, “Despite regulations making it unlawful for jails to put inmates known to have “serious mental illness” [SMI] in segregation, complaints about this happening continue to come in,” which points to serious institutional issues related to a lack of compliance with regulations, access to services and effective oversight. Similarly, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe, “[jail] conditions are often described as bleak and bare, marked by overcrowding, extended periods of cell confinement, minimal medical and mental health services, and few opportunities for mental and physical stimulation” (530). The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (2024) adds, “Over-crowding and under-staffing continue to be significant concerns. […] courts have repeatedly decried the frequent lockdowns caused by inadequate staffing. During lockdowns, prisoners may receive only 30 minutes outside of their cells each day, and may be forced to go days without showers, recreation, or phone time” (vi) – conditions that fail to comply with basic minimum standards as outlined in documents such as the Nelson Mandela Rules.

In addition to this long list of unjustified and superfluous harms, which go well beyond the removal of liberty, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe, “[provincial/territorial] detention centres are typically designed as holding facilities, thus tend to offer little in the way of correctional programming or interventions in comparison to the federal system” (530). As research demonstrates, warehousing human beings in such facilities generates a number of psychological, social and physical impacts ranging from a deep sense of social uncertainty, heighted tension and fear, physical violence and in some cases death (McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021).

Warehousing and overcrowding in provincial institutions generate highly toxic conditions, which is a serious risk for all people on the inside. In some cases, cells built for a single person are holding three people and cells built for two are housing up to four (McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021). Research shows that overcrowding is a widespread problem in provinces such as Ontario. In 2023, Ontario’s jails were operating well over their structured capacity (avg. 8,889 people vs. 7,848 capacity). In the case of Maplehurst Correction Complex in Milton, Ont., there was an average population of 1,188, which is well over its 887-maximum capacity. Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in London, Ont., was housing 471 people, which is over its 353 person limit and South West Detention Centre in Windsor, Ont., contained 337 people despite a maximum capacity of 262 (Casey, 2024). According to Casey (2024), criminal lawyers and guards are on the same page with their general assessment of the situation. In essence, the reality of warehousing and overcrowding in provincial institutions results not only in more restrictive living conditions for those in captivity; but also, more work-related stress injuries, post-traumatic stress, suicides, staff shortages and assaults on guards. In the words of Chad Oldfield (as quoted in Casey, 2024: para. 11), an Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) spokesperson for the guards, “it’s just a recipe for disaster.” According to Casey (2024), when it comes to high levels of work-related stress injury claims registered with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), guards are right up there with police officers and paramedics. Point being, the existing system is destroying prisoners and guards – albeit unevenly.

Unfortunately, those with the political power to address the situation in Ontario are too busy spewing out the “public safety” line, making promises to hire more contracted guards and touring jails versus taking substantive steps towards reducing the use of jails in the first place. When asked by reporters about jail population numbers and the issue of overcrowding, Ontario’s Solicitor General Michael Kerzner simply failed to respond (Casey, 2024) – indeed, a luxury seemingly afforded to those with the political power to decide the fate of thousands.

While there is no evidence of political plans to reduce or close jails across the province of Ontario, there are definite plans to do the exact opposite: construct more jails! According to Casey (2024), the province is constructing a new jail in Thunder Bay, Ont. with a maximum capacity of 345 and planning to build yet another in eastern Ontario with 235-beds. Instead of a critical public discourse pertaining to the history and harm of jails in society the public is pounded over the head with mind numbing government propaganda about “state-of-the-art facilities,” “money savings,” “green jails,” “sustainable features,” “square footage” and the dead promise of “rehabilitation” (Cameron, 2023), – all of which conceal the names of the big winners that profit from jail construction projects such as, EllisDon companies, Zeidler Architecture Inc. and DLR Group. Why would Thunder Bay’s new $1.2B jail, which is scheduled to open in 2026 (Cameron, 2023), be any different from Toronto South Detention Centre’s (TSDC) “$1-Billion Hellhole” (Robin, 2017), which opened in 2014? 

Similar to Thunder Bay’s up and coming jail, TSDC was designed by Zeidler Architecture and touted by government mouthpieces as a modern facility focused on rehabilitation. The research is clear, instead of rehabilitation people inside of TSDC got the usual: hyper-punishment, violence, trauma and death. As documented by Robin (2017), TSDC was (and still is) plagued by staff shortages, lockdowns, overuse of segregation, sensory deprivation, attempted suicides, riots and an all-encompassing culture of threat and fear. Clearly, not the most productive environment for people with a history of neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and physical violence (“McMaster University,” 2019). While some survive the trauma of the system, others die in custody. As mentioned by the Tracking (In)justice Project, since 2014, 16 people died inside of Toronto South’s super cage (McClelland et al., 2024), which is a far cry from the government’s publicly stated intentions.

Much like Toronto South, it is likely that Thunder Bay’s new facility will end up being yet another “plea factory” (Robin, 2017) in which people on remand strategically plead guilty as a means of getting out of hell on earth. As in Jonathan’s (pseudonym for a formerly incarcerated person) case, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe, while in provincial custody he decided to “plead guilty – waving his right to a fair trial – in order to be transferred to federal custody” (539) – essentially, for a greater level of “comfort” and “opportunity.”

In addition to warehousing and overcrowding, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe, people in provincial/territorial jails live in a state of perpetual “ontological uncertainty” due to a constantly changing environment e.g., ongoing admissions, discharges and transfers. Alongside these conditions exists a deep sense of legal uncertainty and doubts about the future. In the words of McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021), “Such conditions place prisoners in a continual state of perceived social, emotional, and physical insecurity, all states of being that are only intensified by institutional conditions” (536). In essence, life in pre-trial detention (or remand) is systematically reduced to a massive “waiting game” (McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021: 536) – that is, a cruel, stressful, boring and meaningless game in which human beings – who are legally defined as innocent until proven guilty – sit idle and deteriorate day-after-day.

At the federal level, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe that people in prisons “may be fearful that their eligibility may be compromised by institutional happenings, such as another prisoner sabotaging their case for release […] or being confronted with institutional charges for which they must take responsibility” (537) – even if they did not participate in a particular incident. For instance, Smith (pseudonym for a former federal inmate as quoted in McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021: 538) claims, “you can’t tell your Parole Officer ‘I’m not guilty.’ If you tell them that, they don’t give you parole… they send you to medium security to do the denial program.”

While notions of “release” from prison and “reintegration” into society may spawn celebratory images in the popular imagination, research shows that merely qualifying for release produces new levels of stress, anxiety and fear among people in federal prisons. In the words of McKendy & Ricciardelli (2021),

“Given they have likely been incarcerated longer than provincial releases, federal prisoners may be more disconnected from their pre-incarceration lives and/or the current dynamics (social, technological, economic, cultural) of the outside world. Thus, much like the shock they may experience at the early stages of incarceration, they may likewise experience apprehension and anxiety as they face re-entry into the outside world” (538).

As if warehousing people like animals in overcrowded conditions of fear and ontological uncertainty are not enough, research shows that food in provincial jails are best described as low in quality, scarce and often a source of conflict due to steeling and hoarding. Through the systemic production of hunger people behind provincial bars are pushed to the edge, which is reflected in pessimistic moods, harmful attitudes, dissatisfaction and outbursts of violence (McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021). In the words of Blake and Floyd (pseudonyms for two formerly incarcerated people) (as quoted in McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021: 541), “I mean it will get you through the day but it’s just barely enough to pretty much get you through the day. If you don’t have money for canteen, you’re pretty much feeling like you’re starving all the time (Blake).” “It’s just enough to keep you alive; it’s not very much… You starve in there basically” (Floyd).

As mentioned by Joseph (pseudonym for a formally incarcerated person at the provincial level), the carceral space is best described as “mental abuse” (McKendy & Ricciardelli) – a reality that works against any meaningful notion of “safety,” “humaneness,” “care,” “rehabilitation” and “reintegration,” all of which are clearly stated objectives in, for instance, Ontario’s Correctional Services and Reintegration Act (2018). As observed by Gresham M. Sykes, (as cited in McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021: 531), modern penal apparatuses are in the business of dishing out a specific form of punishment best described as a complete “destruction of the psyche.” For many in Ontario’s cages, the system dishes out a double, triple, if not quadruple dose of trauma and punishment. As discussed by the John Howard Society of Ontario (n.d.), people without stable housing, unstable family conditions, history of trauma, marginalization, racism, poverty, and consequently, mental health issues “[…] end up more frequently in jail” (6). Furthermore, the John Howard Society of Ontario states,

“Many individuals enter the correctional system with pre-existing mental health issues, which are typically worsened during their incarceration. Other people develop new symptoms due to the negative psychological effects of jail. Whether it is through the imposition of strict conditions of bail or probation, or through segregation and isolation in jails, practices rooted in punishment and control often only exacerbate the challenges facing people with mental health issues and further enmesh them in a system that was never designed to meet their needs” (6).

The literature is clear: incarcerated people in places like Ontario, Canada, – and all around the world for that matter – are punished well beyond the removal of their liberty, which strips them of basic human rights and a sense of dignity and worth. Given the grand inefficiencies of incarceration e.g., ineffective at achieving their stated objectives, human rights violations, expensive and overused (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007) it is disgraceful that Canadians permit for their ongoing use and expansion. Perhaps Dukett and Mohr’s (2015) articulation hits the nail on the head: Canadian citizens “[…] tend to know little and seem to care even less about who is in prison, what happens there and what happens to people after they leave” (para. 10). While an exploration of the reasons behind such disinterest falls beyond the scope of this writeup, it is important to emphasize that uncovering these reasons is vital for any meaningful transformations in the near and distant future. In the meantime, it is important to advance the immediate concerns expressed herein to the issue of alternatives to incarceration – that is, until we fully realize the abolitionist objective of constructing a society without cages.

The possibility of alternatives

According to the Handbook of basic principles (2007), effective alternatives to incarceration exist; however, the design and implementation of such alternatives depends on the coordination and focus of several key players e.g., legislators, judicial officers, lawyers, administrators, politicians, non-governmental organizations and community involvement. According to the Handbook of basic principles, the application of alternatives to incarceration is an absolute necessity due to the following facts: people in cages are disproportionately drawn from the most vulnerable communities, the vast majority of people in cages will return to civil society and incarceration has long been considered  counterproductive when it comes to achieving objectives such as rehabilitation and reintegration – particularly among vulnerable populations and those charged with minor offences.

If any society, including the province of Ontario, is serious about notions of public safety, rehabilitation and reintegration then a societal wide commitment must be made to abandoning the right-wing ideological default that falsely equates punishment, jails and prisons to safer communities. Instead, society needs to make a concerted effort to teach and learn about and adopt evidence-based approaches that speak directly to human histories, needs and the overall organization of society. Without the prioritization of evidence-based measures we run the collective risk of wasting more public funds and human lives.   

If incarceration is to be avoided what are the alternatives? An effective departure point for this discussion revolves around international norms and recommendations. For instance, the Handbook of basic principles (2007) draws explicit attention to The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the Tokyo Rules), which was adopted by the General Assembly on December 14, 1990. The Tokyo Rules present the international community with a host of non-binding recommendations geared towards the design and normalization of non-custodial measures. According to the Handbook of basic principles, one of the most effective measures for avoiding incarceration revolves around the implementation of strategies that reduce the criminal (in)justice system’s reach. Two vital strategies consist of decriminalization and diversion.

When it comes to the process of decriminalization, the Handbook of basic principles states, “Not all socially undesirable conduct needs to be classified as a crime” (13) and when it comes to diversion, the Handbook of basic principles states, “Under diversion strategies, authorities focus on dealing in other ways with people who could be processed through the criminal [in]justice system” (14). Outside the scope of decriminalization and diversion strategies the Handbook of basic principles recognizes that some individuals will in fact be charged and prosecuted, which poses the challenge of deciding what to do with people during the pre-trial, pre-conviction and pre-sentencing stages e.g., cage them or implement alternatives? With this quandary in mind the Tokyo Rules explicitly states (as quoted in Handbook of basic principles, 2007: 17), “Pre-trial detention shall be used as a means of last resort [emphasis added] in criminal proceedings, with due regard for the investigation of the alleged offence and for the protection of society and the victim.”

As demonstrated, the notion of last resort (also referred to as parsimony) is a vital guiding principle that must be honoured for two reasons: firstly, pre-trial detention deals with people who are in fact presumed innocent by law, and secondly, detention is a serious violation of human liberty. With this in mind, one significant question arises: What justifies detention? While this is a pertinent question to deliberate, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) clearly states (as quoted in Handbook of basic principles, 2007: 17), “It shall not [emphasis added] be the general rule that persons awaiting trial shall be detained in custody, but release may be subject to guarantees to appear for trial, at any other stage of the judicial proceedings, and, should occasion arise, for execution of the judgement.” For instance, people could be situated at a specific address, report on a daily basis to a court, pay a bail bond (if not overly burdensome) or accept supervision by an agency among many other practical options. Furthermore, the ICCPR states that people on a criminal charge must be given a speedy trial, which would reduce the amount of time a person spends in detention if they are justifiably detained. The Handbook of basic principles explicitly states, “In cases where a person is known in the community, has a job, a family to support, and is a first offender, authorities should consider unconditional bail” (20). In such cases, people are released under personal recognizance and vow to appear in court.

When it comes to sentencing practices, the Handbook of basic principles maintains that non-custodial sentences should be the main priority, which is consistent with the guiding principle of last resort. As stated in the Tokyo Rules (as quoted in the Handbook of basic principles, 2007: 26), “Non-custodial measures should be used in accordance with the principle of minimum intervention.” Similar to pre-trial, pre-conviction and pre-sentencing alternatives to detention, there are a host of alternatives for people who are found guilty by the legal apparatus. For instance, sentencing may include economic sanctions, confiscation, restitution to the victim, conditional discharge, suspended sentence, probation, community service or referral to an attendance centre among many other options – all of which contain a punitive element lesser than imprisonment. In all of these cases the sentenced person retains a sense of dignity, which is consistent with the Tokyo Rules (Handbook of basic principles, 2007). As a means of upholding the basic rule of law it is important for all non-custodial alternatives to be clearly defined e.g., days of week, hours, location, task, etc.

When it comes to special populations such as, drug users, people struggling with mental illness, women and overrepresented groups, the Handbook of basic principles (2007) stresses the need to consider the effective design and implementation of decriminalization and diversion strategies and in some cases pardons. In terms of drug users, the Handbook of basic principles clearly states, “[…] treating offenders for their addictions is more effective than processing and eventually punishing them through the criminal [in]justice system” (63). Furthermore the Handbook of basic principles states, “While drug courts are powerful tools for making use of alternatives to imprisonment, there are also other methods to ensure that drug addicts who enter the criminal justice system are not imprisoned unnecessarily. This is important because, despite authorities’ best efforts, drugs are often freely available inside prisons” (65). When it comes to people struggling with mental illness, the Handbook of basic principles states, “mentally ill persons are better treated outside than inside prison” (66). In all cases involving mental illness the Handbook of basic principles maintains, “[…] authorities should make special efforts to divert persons in this intermediate category from the criminal [in]justice system entirely” (67).

When it comes to women the Handbook of basic principles recognizes that the decriminalization of various non-violent offences (e.g., drug mules) may be an effective strategy. In addition, women with children may benefit from diversion strategies aimed at keeping families together. In the case of fines (versus imprisonment) the Handbook of basic principles warns, “As women tend to be poorer than men overall, particular attention may need to be focused upon ensuring that, if they default on fines, they do not end up in prison automatically” (70) e.g., “administrative of justice offences.” The Handbook of basic principles also recognizes, “Women are often good candidates for early release, be it conditionally or unconditionally. Systems that use amnesties or pardons by the head of state may give them special consideration” (70).

In terms of over-represented groups, such as Indigenous peoples in Canada, the Handbook of basic principles stresses the application of effective diversion strategies designed to keep Indigenous peoples out of the criminal (in)justice system. While the examples in this section do not work towards abolishing the existing cages in our society, which is the long-term objective, they do highlight some effective normative alternatives – all of which are designed to keep people out of a system historically bent on punishment, isolation, exclusion and premature death.

Back to Ontario’s carceral hellhole

When it comes to Ontario, Canada, the John Howard Society (n.d.) has meticulously documented the fact that while Ontario contains some alternative measures to incarceration the entire system is best described as outright broken (findings that are confirmed by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s 2024 document Still Failing: The Deepening Crisis of Bail and Pre-Trial Detention in Canada).

According to the John Howard Society, the system is dysfunctional at all levels e.g., police, courts, bail and jail, simply put, the entire criminal (in)justice system. According to the John Howard Society (2013), the criminal (in)justice system is suffering from “organizational risk aversion” (5) – that is, at every stage of the system decision-makers are “playing it safe” and dishing out harsh punishments versus using a greater level of discretion (e.g., police laying charges and dumping people in jails versus issuing a “promise to appear”). Another example of organizational risk aversion occurs during the bail stage when the court is assessing “risk” levels. At this stage in the process, John Howard Society (2013) maintains, “subjective assessments of accused persons, rather than objective processes or facts, are determining factors in decisions to ultimately release or detain individuals” (8). To make matters worse, John Howard Society (2013) also points out that instead of calculating objective risk courts are making decisions pertaining to bail based on whether or not their decision will negatively impact the overall reputation of the criminal (in)justice system. It is worth asking: How did Ontario end up with a system that prioritizes the subjective risk to public image over the objective risk of the accused? Clearly, the infusion and normalization of subjective standards (versus objective standards) is concerning. In the words of John Howard Society (2013), “In order to successfully implement a ladder approach, a serious re-examination of how “risk” is defined by criminal court professionals, and the polices informing them, is required” (8).

As gatekeepers, police need to learn how to use their discretion in ways that reduce unnecessary involvement with the criminal (in)justice system. Despite popular conceptions, police have a fairly wide range of options at their disposal such as, taking no action at all, issuing a verbal warning, arrest or mental health diversion among others. As stated by the John Howard Society, when it comes to Ontario’s courts and the bail system, “Most people with mental health issues go through the regular court process, despite needing more treatment-based options. Accessing bail is a challenge and when they are released, people with mental health issues are often given conditions that are difficult to adhere to,” (10) which sets people up for failure in the form of mounting “administrative charges.” In the words of the John Howard Society, “People will often agree to all conditions requested by the courts, since the alternative is staying in jail” (11). As observed by the Canadian Liberties Association, “[…] bail courts are filled with people who are struggling to survive – grappling with mental illness, trauma, and the criminalization of substance use and poverty. People cycling through bail court are often facing multiple intersecting crises in different areas of their lives. These crises drive people into bail courts and have a direct impact on their trajectory through the criminal [in]justice system” (vii). In addition to the unrelenting chaos of the bail system (versus the often assumed functionality and effectiveness of it all), the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (2024) points out that despite the courts persistent denunciation of using jails as a stand-in for food, shelter and mental health services, the inhumane and debasing practice of jailing the most vulnerable groups continues.

Adding salt to injury, John Howard Society (2013) states, “Ontario has witnessed the erosion of the presumption of release before trial, as well as the disregard for the letter of the law outlining a ladder approach to forms of release” (7). As a case in point, John Howard Society (2013) states, “[…] studies have demonstrated, the presumption of surety release in Ontario (without even considering less onerous [emphasis added] forms of release) has become increasingly entrenched, irrespective of the ladder approach that the Criminal Code directs” (7).

In addition, John Howard Society (2013) points out that one of the root problems revolves around a greater application of reverse onus measures, which require the accused person to demonstrate why they should be released – particularly in the case of enumerated offences. In the words of John Howard Society (2013), “The reverse onus provision set out in Section 515(6)(c) of the Criminal Code – which includes all administrative of justice charges – casts a particularly wide net” (7). Systematically setting people up for failure in this manner overloads the courts and fills Ontario’s cages with people who are – for the most part – low risk, vulnerable and struggling with mental illness and substance use. The research is clear, “over-supervising or over-treating individuals who are low-risk can actually do more harm than good, which is counter-productive to the Ministry’s objectives” (John Howard Society, 2013: 8). 

When it comes to Ontario’s jails, the John Howard Society maintains, “Jails are not designed to provide care to people with mental health issues. Conditions associated with incarceration can create mental health issues or make existing issues worse” (13). While some attempts have been made to address this issue at both the provincial and federal levels, understaffing, overuse of segregation, lack of resources and treatment options pose significant barriers to administering effective and consistent health care inside environments built to control and punish. Upon release, the John Howard Societymaintains, “Homelessness is what awaits many individuals with mental health issues exiting jail” (16). Unfortunately, Ontario’s discharge and planning system from jails is inadequate at best and leaves formerly caged people in – yet again – a vulnerable position. Where exactly is a person with no social supports supposed to go?

When it comes to the relationship between release and housing, the John Howard Society states, “A primary concern for individuals leaving jail is lack of adequate housing. Homelessness and mental health are closely intertwined, as housing instability can create or further intensify mental health and addiction problems, while having mental health problems increases the likelihood of experiencing homelessness” (17). In addition, the forces of social stigma are ever-present and add yet another barrier to life on the outside (John Howard Society).

Conclusion

Despite popular perception, prisons are not inevitable, rehabilitative or productive. If policymakers and administrators have come to conceptualize carceral spaces as inescapable the question arises: How can civil society breakdown such self-defeating political position? If well-founded alternatives to caging human beings exist, why are we stalling? While this is a complex question, I suggest that one reason we might be stalling is related to an overarching force called neoliberalism – that is, an ideology that has not only leveled any meaningful dialogue and construction of the common good and community, but also, transferred all notions of social failure and blame onto the individual. Point being, without any meaningful conceptualization of the common good and community we are likely to remain stuck in a position that perpetually ponders, “As a person on the “outside,” what do prisons have to do with me?” Without a deep sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, we are doomed to replicate (versus challenge and transform) longstanding prison mythologies, prison construction projects and the long list of human rights violations that go far beyond the removal of liberty. With this in mind a final question arises: If carceral spaces do not work for those on the “inside,” do not work to reduce crime and do not work to keep communities safe, who do they work for?

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The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Madela Rules). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, n.d., https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf. Accessed 10 December 2024.

Universal Declaration of Human of Human Rights (UDHR). United Nations, n.d., https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights. Accessed 10 December 2024.

Walmsley, Roy. World Prison Population List. Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR), n.d., https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_prison_population_list_11th_edition_0.pdf. Accessed 10 December 2024.

Wright, B. McM. “Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists.” Prison Research Education Action Project, 1976, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/prison-research-education-action-project-instead-of-prisons.a4.pdf. Accessed 10 December 2024.

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Mounting deaths in Ontario’s jails points to a failing system

Seek The Alternatives (STA) December 6, 2024

On Friday, Nov. 29^th, 2024, concerned citizens gathered outside Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre calling attention to Ontario’s failing jail system.

Participants (left to right): Gregg Gills, Jozef Konyari, John and Jean Ouellette.  

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The Ministry of the Solicitor General’s (2024) mandate is crystal clear: to operate “a safe, effective and accountable adult corrections system […] across the province [of Ontario].” The problem is: the ministry is failing on all three accounts.

Recent victims of Ontario’s jails include five men (Timothy Anderson, Murray Balogh, David Cowe, Michael Croft and Jahrell Lungs) at the Niagara Detention Centre (NDC) between 2018-2022 and another six men (Jason Archer, Paul Debien, Nathaniel Golden, Igor Petrovic, Christopher Sharp and Robert Soberal) at the Hamiliton-Wentworth Detention Centre between 2017-2021, which places the ministry’s ability to meet its obligations into serious question.

Unfortunately, these deaths are only tip of the iceberg. According to Tracking (In)justice (2024), there have been a number of deaths in provincial custody since the year 2000. For instance, Maplehurst Correctional Complex, Milton, Ontario: 45 deaths, Hamiliton-Wentworth Detention Centre, Hamiliton, Ontario: 35 deaths, Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, Ottawa, Ontario: 28 deaths, Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre, London, Ontario: 25 deaths and Central North Correctional Centre, Penetanguishene, Ontario: 25 deaths.

According to the ministry, a mandatory coroner’s inquest is held when “a death occurs while a person is in custody or being detained (unless, in some circumstances, a death investigation determines the death occurred from natural causes in which case the inquest is discretionary).”

Typically, there is a verdict and a series of jury recommendations on how to prevent similar deaths. Problem is, jury recommendations are non-binding, which has led some lawyers to conclude that mandatory inquests are both worthwhile and worthless. Worthwhile in so far as getting to the root cause of a death in custody or detention and worthless in so far as the ministry’s failure to implement jury recommendations.

According to the grassroots organization, Seek The Alternatives (STA), “a failure to implement a legally binding approach that guarantees the full implementation of jury recommendations is negligent and works against the ministry’s mandate to ensure community safety for all people.”

Organizers believe that the notion of non-binding recommendations is offensive to family members of the deceased struggling to ensure that their loved ones don’t die in vain. Organizers maintain that if the ministry is truly interested in fulfilling its mandate, making all jury recommendations legally binding would be a step in the right direction.

According to one organizer, “the ministry can begin without further delay by implementing all 57 recommendations made to prevent tragic deaths similar to that of Soleiman Faqiri at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, in 2016. And once those are implemented, the ministry can adopt all 66 recommendations made to prevent deaths similar to the five men at the Niagara Detention Centre between 2018-2022.”

Similar to INQUEST, a UK-based charity that struggles for policy change alongside families of those who have died in prison, STA aims to support families struggling to bring about constructive policy changes to Ontario’s failing jail system.

*Interested in supporting STA’s call for legally binding jury recommendations? Go to: https://www.change.org/p/make-all-coroner-jury-recommendations-legally-binding.

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Carcerality: The lifeblood of settler colonialism

Seek The Alternatives (STA) December 5, 2024

“It is not enough just to endorse a movement, support an issue or reach out among ourselves, inside and outside prisons. As abolitionists we must look to the future and examine the long-term impact of their present reality. We must be creative and inquisitive. We must understand our direction and abolition must be that direction because the entire system of punishment has failed. Abolition is not a toothache, but a people’s right to erase useless waste of human life, time and money.”

– M. Sharon Smolick #AF01850 (Prolog to Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists)

“Conceptualizing abolition as presence, not an absence, is key to understanding the work prison abolitionists do. Buring down the prison is meaningless if the people know nothing other than how to rebuilt it.” – Lex Moulton (Contributor to SUNFLOWER Radical Journal)

Skin-deep carcerality

On one level, the notion of carcerality refers to imprisonment or organized punishment for those deemed “guilty” (Moulton, 2020) by the overarching Eurocentric legal apparatus. As a structure of perpetual dominance and control, the Eurocentric legal machinery is bent on heavy-handed laws and notions of retribution, proof, guilt and punishment versus Indigenous ways of life founded on relational accountability, trust, understanding and respect” (Fox et al., n.d.).

When a person is incarcerated, they are forced to exist in a confined space (more precisely referred to as a cage). Upon confinement to a cage, two fundamental rights are immediately eliminated: freedom of movement and agency (Moulton, 2020). In the words of Moulton (2020), “Incarceration demands control of an individual’s movement and actions, confining them to a specific location and restricting who they can interact with and what they can do” – an approach that lies in stark contrast to the abolitionist principle of maximum care and minimum intervention in the lives of all people (Davidson et al., 1976).

In essence, the cage is a technique of social control and domination (Moulton, 2020) over “criminalized populations and marginalized people deemed disposable” (Ayers, 2024) – that is, a system designed to intensify fear, conformity and passivity under the liberal falsehoods of “order,” “peace,” “protection” and “safety.”

Exposing the complexity of carcerality

On another level, the notion of carcerality goes far beyond the use of federal prisons, local jails, immigrant and juvenile detention centres, military prisons (Tapia, 2020) and carceral control schemes such as, parole, offender registries, cash bail, house arrest and voter disenfranchisement (Moulton, 2020). According to Tapia, “carcerality captures the many ways in which the carceral state shapes and organizes society and culture through policies and logic[s] of control, surveillance, criminalization, and un-freedom.” For Tapia, the carceral state’s use of “punitive orientations” obscures the possibility of humane approaches to social issues.

In addition to Tapia’s notion of “punitive orientations,” which is the state’s never-ending scare tactic of criminalization and incarceration, Moulton (2020) maintains that carceral logics are unconsciously internalized in the process of growing up in a modern state. In the words of Moulton, “Early in their adolescence, most children have already internalized the concept of the “bad guy” – an irredeemably evil character who must be punished and captured.” Similarly, schools – among other social structures – reproduce and normalize carceral logics every time they threaten, punish, detain and suspend “delinquent” youth (Moulton).

In the words of Moulton (2020), “Once we have an understanding of the carceral, we begin to see its influence all over. Homeless shelters. Factory jobs. Zoos. The prison’s presence can be found anywhere.” As a set of disciplinary orientations and logics, Tapia adds, “carcerality is […] a central organizing principle of our society and culture, and therefore affects and diminishes us all” – albeit unevenly.

Digging deeper: History, carcerality, genocide and slavery

Case A: America’s captivity machine

Beyond the discourse of Eurocentric organized punishment, punitive orientations and carceral logics exists an historical relationship between carcerality and “[…] the native American genocide, trans-Atlantic slave trade, imperialist expansion, and capitalist exploitation” (Moulton, 2020). As discussed by Fox et al. (n.d.),

“Native people have a long history of forced confinement resulting from government policies. Forms of confinement included removal and relocation from home territories, internment in forts and on reservations, forced placement of children in boarding schools and orphanages, commitments to “insane asylums,” mental hospitals and incarceration in jails and prisons. It is no surprise that the effects of these practices continue to reverberate in the lives of Native people today, contributing to disproportionate incarceration rates and systemic inequities” (2).

With respect to disproportionate incarceration rates in the United States, Prison Policy Initiative reports,

“Native people are vastly overrepresented in the criminal legal system. Native people are incarcerated in state and federal prisons at a rate of 763 per 100,000 people. This is double the national rate […] and more than four times higher than the state and federal prison incarceration rate of white people […]. These disparities exist in jails as well, with Native people being detained in local jails at a rate of 316 per 100,000” (“Native Incarceration in the U.S.”). 

When it comes to understanding the practice of over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples in the United States, Fox et al. (n.d.) stresses that the “incongruence between Western and Indigenous ideologies and worldview, inherent systemic racism, and a legacy of ongoing violence toward Native people” provides the historical context. Similarly, Dr. Ciara Hansen (as quoted in Davis 2023) states, “Like many modern challenges in Indian Country, over-incarceration of Indigenous people is intimately tied to colonial violence and upheld by policies throughout the years.” Hansen adds, “Paternalistic solutions applied to Native communities often miss the important step of seeking to understand the issue from the community’s perspective” (Davis 2023).

With respect to slavery, mass incarceration and prison abolition in the American context, Ayers (2024) observes that caging, controlling and dominating

“[…] is a major part of the afterlife of slavery, and prison abolition is the next step in that long historic project of abolition and Black freedom. And, as we imagine dramatic change, we should also anticipate future attempts to contain and control, for just as Jim Crow followed abolition, and mass incarceration followed Jim Crow, some evil expression of white supremacy and Black containment yet unseen lurks just around the corner.”

Furthermore, Ayers (2024) adds,

“The ‘prison nation’ is an intolerable abomination. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and joining the insurgency becomes an urgent necessity. Modern misdemeanor law can be traced directly to the Black Codes after slavery that criminalized ordinary actions […] precisely to control formerly enslaved people.”

In Ayers’s reading of history, every century of a nation’s evolution contains defining features. While slavery was a defining aspect of American history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, mass incarceration and racialized un-freedom are defining characteristics of America today. In the words of Ayers,

“We may look back, just as we look back at slavery, with astonishment and anguish as we realize that the prison-industrial complex was a bad choice: it generated super-profits for a few while it vitalized white supremacy, ruined millions of human lives, devastated social capital, destroyed entire communities, and diminished our society.”

In order to abolish carcerality as an organizing force of control and domination, Nkechi Taifa (2016), Advocacy Director for Criminal Justice at the Open Society Foundations, argues that an examination of U.S. history reveals that the “cumulative impact of destructive treatment against Blacks in the criminal [in]justice system, combined with challenging conditions of life negatively impacting generations, constitutes institutionalized genocide” (14).

While the notion of “institutionalized genocide” remains a highly contested concept due to the challenge of proving an “intent to destroy,” Taifa maintains, “In the criminal punishment context, institutionalized genocide is the aggregate impact of discriminatory treatment of a community – embedded in laws, policies, and practices of institutions involved in policing, prosecution, and sanctions – which has the effect of destroying, in whole or substantial part, a racial, ethnic or religious group” (7).

Taifa (2016) makes the case that the UN General Assembly’s 1948 International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which includes destructive acts such as, (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [or] (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, constitute the ongoing material reality of African Americans. As a case in point, Taifa states, “the conditions of life in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty often result in the destruction of not only individuals, but also entire families and generations. The cumulative effect of these conditions almost guarantees the involvement of many young inner-city Blacks in the criminal justice system” (7). Put succinctly, “unmet social needs provide fuel for the cycle of incarceration” (Taifa, 2016: 7).

Case B: Canada’s captivity machine

In the settler colonial context of Canada, a report from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples unequivocally states (as quoted in Beaver, 2024), “the most fundamental explanation for Indigenous overrepresentation in the criminal [in]justice system is colonialism.” Similarly, Clark (2019) states, “The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) identified three viable explanations […] colonialism, socio-economic marginalization, and culture clash. Systemic discrimination against Indigenous people is also a serious problem” (2). In the clear-cut words of Pam Palmater, the chair in Indigenous governance at Toronto Metropolitan University (as quoted in Beaver, 2024),

“In order to truly understand the over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples in Canada […] you have to go back to contact. When colonial governments established themselves on native territories in order to steal our territories and our resources, they had to find ways to oppress us, contain us, control us, and remove us from those territories: trapping us on reserves, sending our kids to residential schools, scalping bounties, forced sterilization.”

Palmater adds (as quoted in Beaver, 2024), “It’s always for the same purpose: to get our lands and resources.” While some may conceptualize the issues of over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples in Canada and genocide as unrelated, Palmater points out that the over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples is a “form of genocide” (recall Taifa’s notion of “institutional genocide,” which draws specific attention to the “aggregate impact of discriminatory treatment of a community”).

As the late Australian Historian Patrick Wolfe (1949 – 2016) points out, the ongoing and complex construction of European settler colonial society is a violent process that involves constantly shifting strategies. In the words of Wolfe, “As a process, invasion occurs first, and it is generally a violent process because nobody gives up their land voluntarily. Whatever the Europeans say about Natives rolling up their blankets and fading away, like the Israelis say about Palestinians, dissolving into the night – that doesn’t happen” (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018: 347). What does happen is best articulated by the late Indigenous leader and activist from the Secwepemc Nation in British Colombia, Arthur Manuel (2017), “Indigenous peoples who try to defend their land are met with swift repression and land defenders are overwhelmed by military or paramilitary forces and carted off to jail” (72).

As a system, settler colonialism required (and continues to require) expropriated land, subordinate labour and the complete elimination of Indigenous peoples as a means of maximizing surplus profit for the dominating class (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018). Since Indigenous peoples do not simply disappear “give up places where their old people are buried, where they have been born and bred for generations, where they’ve lived, where their gods are” (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018: 347), the colonizer imposes a Eurocentric way of life and goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure that Indigenous peoples make the “right choice” between complete assimilation or premature death. Either way you conceptualize it, it boils down to gradual versus fastmoving forms of annihilation. In the words of Wolfe,

“Now, the colonizers have to establish a colonial society in their place, on their land. To do that, you have to have a system of laws and regulations; the playing field has got to look level […] A rule of law has to be applied and applied consistently, otherwise the incoming settler society would get out of order. Therefore, the Natives who have survived the initial catastrophe of invasion and violent dispossession, you can’t just carry on shooting them on sight. It doesn’t work for the settler rule of law that has to appear to be conducted fairly and legitimately” (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018: 347).

As a contemporary case in point, McGuire & Murdoch’s (2022) work demonstrates the way Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) co-opts Indigenous cultural practices under the seemingly polite liberal rubric of “cultural sensitivity.” In the words of CSC (2024),

“Federally, sentenced Indigenous peoples have unique cultural and spiritual needs. Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) actively provides culturally specific interventions, support and resources to address these needs. This helps them return to and remain in their communities as law-abiding, contributing members of society.”  

According to McGuire & Murdoch (2022), these claims amount to nothing more than “a generic pan-Indigenized approach that permeates its policy and programming” (541). As discussed by McGuire & Murdoch,

“No amount of appropriated items and practices – eagle feathers, circles, or red roads – embedded in pan-Indigenized correctional programming will do anything to heal Indigenous women [and peoples]. These women [and peoples] have sustained compounded trauma and CSC’s programs reinforce and perpetuate harm while continuing to subjugate Indigenous women [and peoples] in Canada to state rule” (539).

Powered by “goodwill” and “good intentions” CSC employs programs with tender titles such as, Continuum of Care, Circles of Change, Pathways, Spirit of the Warrior, Red Road and Healing Path (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022) as a means of softening the ceaseless colonial blow. As mentioned by McGuire & Murdoch, “These terms suggest some sort of singular Indigenous identity. The reality is that most unifying factors among Indigenous people are their experiences with racism, genocide, and trauma” (540).

Such wholesale construction of Indigenous identity fulfills the settler state’s late-stage commitment to a “softer” form of control and dominance. On the surface, nobody can claim outright violence and extermination; however, a deeper look reveals an array of “assimilatory destructive programs tak[ing] place within the carceral space of the prison” (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 540). The concrete reality is: “CSC is part of the settler state that has granted itself the authority to control and imprison Indigenous women [and peoples] from hundreds of sovereign First Nations bands (upwards of 50 Nations) across the land they now call Canada” (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 541).

To add salt to injury, McGuire & Murdoch (2022) point out that CSC engages in hiring practices of institutional elders to pose as counsellors and guides. Instead of adhering to cultural norms connected to earning the status of a respected community elder based on the acquisition and application of intergenerational knowledge, CSC hires Indigenous peoples based on responses to competitive job postings. When institutional elders are hired, McGuire & Murdoch report, “Elders are employed by CSC, and thus, are a part of the system that many prisoners have a ‘long-standing mistrust’ of, thereby leading to issues in establishing trusting relationships” (542). Restricted by CSC-approved directives, McGuire & Murdoch state, “Elders working for CSC report feeling isolated, vulnerable, and uncertain […]” (542).

In this instance, Indigenous folks are forced into the seemingly inescapable settler colonial system through both incarceration and wage-based slavery. Point being, Indigenous peoples are held captive on both ends of the system “inside” and “outside” – that is, a violent dynamic that can be more accurately conceptualized as the antithesis of truth and reconciliation. In the words of the Preface to, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada(2015),

“Getting to the truth was hard, but getting to reconciliation will be harder. It requires that the paternalistic and racist foundations of the residential school system be rejected as the basis for an ongoing relationship. Reconciliation requires that a new vision, based on a commitment to mutual respect, be developed. It also requires an understanding that the most harmful impacts of residential schools have been the loss of pride and self-respect of Aboriginal people, and the lack of respect that non-Aboriginal people have been raised to have for their Aboriginal neighbours. Reconciliation is not an Aboriginal problem; it is a Canadian one. Virtually all aspects of Canadian society may need to be reconsidered [emphasis added]” (VI).

Unfortunately, instead of reconciliation and a future worth looking forward to, MacDonald’s (2016) work suggests that Indigenous peoples are getting “new residential schools” in the form of state jails and prisons – a grim reality that echoes Dr. Taiaiake Alfred’s (as quoted in Manuel, 2017: 201) description of “ reconciliation as recolonization.” According to Clark (2019), “The incarceration numbers for Indigenous people are worsening year by year” (1). In the words of MacDonald,

“While admission of white adults to Canadian prisons declined through the last decade, Indigenous incarceration rates were surging: Up 112 per cent for women. Already, 36 per cent of the women and 25 per cent men sentenced to provincial and territorial custody in Canada are Indigenous – a group that makes up just four per cent of the national population. Add in federal prisons, and Indigenous inmates account for 22.8 per cent of the total incarcerated population.”

With respect to Indigenous youth, Clark (2019) states, “In 2016-2017, Indigenous youth (12 to 17) accounted for 8 percent of all youth in the provinces and territories. However, in 2016-2017 they accounted for 46 percent of young people admitted to the corrections system” (1). In terms of the Indigenous female youth population, Clark observes, “In 2016-2017 [they] accounted for 60 percent of all female youth admitted to provincial and territorial corrections systems” (1). As discussed by the Arthur Manuel, “Canadian jails are full of our young men and women. That is colonialism. That is oppression. One breeds the other” (73).

When it comes to policing and bail practices the system is equally cruel. According to Clark’s (2019) assessment, state policing practices are troublesome as Indigenous peoples are both targeted and neglected. In terms of bail practices, Clark maintains, “They [Indigenous peoples] are also denied bail more frequently and therefore held in remand […] or pre-trial detention […] more frequently and for longer periods than non-Indigenous offenders” (2).

When it comes to so-called collaborative approaches, McGuire & Murdoch (2022) observe, despite CSC’s requirement under section 82 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (1992) to seek insight and advice from Indigenous groups such as the National Aboriginal Advisory Committee (NAAC), CSC “continues to hold infrequent meetings with the NAAC and to ignore their recommendations regarding correctional services for Indigenous offenders” (539). At this stage of the settlement project, it is evident that the “indigenization of corrections” (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 539) plays an integral part in what historian Patrick Wolfe refers to as the appearance of fairness and legitimacy (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018).

In the words of Alex Birrell (as quoted in McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 540), no matter the so-called good CSC claims to do it is “a means of controlling the lives of Indigenous people, providing the state with a new pass system, allowing it to regulate the movements of First Nations people by invoking a Criminal Code […] they never consented to.” Similarly, Patrick Wolfe observes,

“[Historically] If you’re a settler, theoretically at least, you’ve come with a social contract, you’ve done all those European things involving subjecting yourself to the rule of the sovereign and you’ve consented, the whole deal. Natives never did that; their rule of law was prior to colonial rule, independent of it. It springs from a separate source. The colonizers’ legal system simply can’t deal with that. It can’t deal with something that originates outside of itself” (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018: 347).  

McGuire & Murdoch (2022) suggest that if Indigenous peoples have access to CSC programs, they may implement strategies of refusal among other tactics such as full or partial compliance as a means of fulfilling specific requirements built into release conditions. In the words of McGuire & Murdoch, “Coercing participation in Indigenous programming and forcing identity upon Indigenous individuals in custody is oppressive” (541).

Taken collectively, the generic pan-Indigenous framework enforced by CSC amounts to nothing more than an “Indigenous prison” running within the highly regulated and guarded boundaries of CSC (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022). As discussed by McGuire & Murdoch, “it is important that Canadians recognize that Indigenous peoples cannot simply get over past injustices when genocidal harms are ongoing” (544).

Moving beyond genocidal carceralities

Abolishing “genocidal carceralities” (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 543) in settler colonial states such as, United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Israel-Palestine, will not only take time; but also, high levels of political organization and an anti-colonial mentality capable of resisting and radically transforming everything that has come to appear inescapable. Without such resistance settler states will continue to advance the settler objectives of control, dominance, assimilation, dehumanization (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022) and extermination (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018).

With international declarations such as, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (2007), which received Royal Assent in Canada on June 21, 2021 (Government of Canada, 2021), Indigenous peoples and their aligned comrades have at their fingertips a powerful political instrument for universalizing all 46 Articles including Article #3, which states, “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development” (8). In the words of Arthur Manuel (2017), “UNDRIP calls for the cessation of violence against us […]. It demands our protection from ‘any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing us of our lands, territories or resources’” (52). With the complete implementation of the UNDRIP we can take a vital step in the long march towards ending genocidal carceralities and get substantively closer to achieving the broader anti-colonial objective of complete decolonization. 

References

Ayers, Bill. “A Thousand Possibilities.” INQUEST: A Decarceral Brainstorm, 24 Sept. 2024, https://inquest.org/a-thousand-possibilities/. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Clark, Scott. “Overrepresentation of Indigenous People in the Canadian Criminal Justice System: Causes and Responses.” Research and Statistics Division, Department of Justice Canada, 2019, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/oip-cjs/oip-cjs-en.pdf. Accessed 4 December 2024.

CSC. “Indigenous corrections.” Government of Canada, 28 Aug. 2024, https://www.canada.ca/en/correctional-service/programs/offenders/indigenous-corrections.html. Accessed 4 December 2024.

Davidson, Amy, et al. Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists. Faculty Press, 1976. The Anarchist Library Online, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/prison-research-education-action-project-instead-of-prisons. PDF Download.

Davis, Matt. “Over-Incarceration of Native Americans: Roots, Inequities, and Solutions.” Safety + Justice Challenge, 13 January 2023, https://safetyandjusticechallenge.org/blog/over-incarceration-of-native-americans-roots-inequities-and-solutions/. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Fox, L. Desiree, Hansen, D. Ciara & Miller, M. Ann. “Over-Incarceration of Native Americans: Roots, Inequalities, and Solutions.? Safety and Justice Challenge, n.d., pp. 1-17, https://safetyandjusticechallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/OverIncarcerationOfNativeAmericans.pdf. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Government of Canada. “Backgrounder: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.” Canada, 12 Oct. 2021, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/declaration/about-apropos.html. Accessed 4 December 2024.

Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf. Accessed 4 December 2024.

Kauanui, Kehaulani and Wolfe, Patrick. “Patrick Wolfe on Settler Colonialism.” Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders, edited by J. Kehaulani Kauanui, University of Minnesota Press Stable, 2018, pp. 343-360, https://www.mauicounty.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Wolfe_Interview.pdf. Accessed 3 December 2024.

MacDonald, Nancy. “Canada’s prisons are the ‘new residential schools.” MacLean’s, 18 Feb. 2016, https://macleans.ca/news/canada/canadas-prisons-are-the-new-residential-schools/. Accessed 4 December 2024.

Manuel, Arthur. The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land Rebuilding the Economy. James Lorimer & Company, 2017.

McGuire, M. Michaela & Murdoch, J. Danielle. “(In)-justice: An exploration of the dehumanization, victimization, criminalization, and over-incarceration of indigenous women in Canada.” Punishment & Society, vol. 24, no. 4, 2022, pp. 529-550. Sage Journals, http://doi.org/10.1177/14624745211001685.

Moulton, Lex. “What Do We Mean When We Use the Word ‘Carceral?’” SUNFLOWER Radical Journal, 2 Dec. 2020, https://sunflowerradicaljournal.medium.com/what-do-we-mean-when-we-use-the-word-carceral-8da00333d8f3. Accessed 2 December 2024.

“Native Incarceration in the U.S.” Prison Policy Initiative, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/native.html. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Ruby, Tapia. “Introduction: What is the carceral state?” Documenting Criminalization and Confinement, a research initiative of the U-M Carceral State Project, Oct. 2020, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7ab5f5c3fbca46c38f0b2496bcaa5ab0. Accessed 2 December 2024.

Taifa, Nkechi. “Racism in the U.S. Criminal Justice System: Institutionalized Genocide?” American Constitution for Law and Policy, 2016, pp. 1-15, https://www.acslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Racism_in_the_U.S._Criminal_Justice_System.pdf. Accessed 3 December 2024.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. United Nations, 13 Sept. 2007, https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf. Accessed 4. December 2024.

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Conceptualizing prison abolition 101

Seek The Alternatives (STA) November 28, 2024

“Incarceration is so embedded in our society – even in our way of looking at the world – it may seem hard to even broach a conversation on abolition.” – John Washington (staff writer at Arizona Luminaria and author of The Case for Open Borders)

On Sunday, Nov. 24^th, 2024, concerned citizens staged a die-in outside the

notorious Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) in Etobicoke, ON. Concerned

citizens posed the question: How many more coroner inquests will it take

before people stop dying in Ontario’s jails?

If one were brave enough to contemplate prison abolition they might conceptualize a society without physical prisons; however, prison abolition is much broader in scope. According to John Washington (2018), prison abolition includes, “addressing community tensions, understanding why people turn to police, and trying to break the self-perpetuating cycle of violence and imprisonment,” which is normalized in and through our everyday lives. Mia Mingus (2019) adds, prison abolition recognizes the necessity of bringing numerous structures of violence to their knees, which includes, capitalism, poverty, trauma, isolation, sexism, transphobia, white supremacy, misogyny, ableism, mass incarceration, displacement, war, gender oppression and xenophobia.

Similarly, Julia Sudbury (2005) maintains that prison abolition work on a local and global scale demands an understanding of “the ways in which punishment regimes are shaped by global capitalism, dominant and subordinate patriarchies, and neocolonial racialized ideologies.” Point being, “Violence does not happen in a vacuum” (Mingus, 2019); but rather, arises out of specific socio-economic, political and cultural conditions. Expanding on this insight, Patrisse Cullors (2021) adds, “It [violence] is connected to the conditions that we live in, and we all participate in creating those conditions, and we all have a collective responsibility for ending violence, harm and abuse” (161).

With respect to larger institutional power structures Mingus (2019) argues that we must move beyond the popular perception that prisons, police and border patrols constitute some form of safety and protection. On the contrary, such violent systems produce the very forms of harm they claim to be against and do so as a means of sustaining social control over mass populations. As a case in point, Mingus (2019) states,

“State responses to violence reproduce violence and often traumatize those who are exposed to them, especially oppressed communities who are already targeted by the state. It is important to remember that while many people choose not to call the police, many communities can’t call the police because of reasons such as fear of deportation, harassment, state sanctioned violence, sexual violence, previous convictions or inaccessibility.”

Linda Evans points out (as cited in Sudbury, 2005: xxvi), “penal institutions are the embodiment of a militarized society,” which reinforces the critical point that prison abolition cannot be realized without the complete dismantlement of symbiotic structures of belligerence such as militarism.

According to Washington (2018), prison abolition is about consciously challenging and rethinking our conceptualizations associated to the notion of “crime.” Without such examination of long held beliefs and assumptions we fall victim to what the late American anthropologist and anarchist activist David Graeber (1961 – 2020) refers to as a right-wing political ontology that normalizes the use of force. In the words of Greber,

“Whenever we hear this word [force] invoked, we find ourselves in the presence of a political ontology in which the power to destroy, to cause others pain or to threaten to break, damage, or mangle others’ bodies (or just lock them in a tiny room for the rest of their lives) is treated as the social equivalent of the very energy that drives the cosmos” (87).

Washington (2018) points out that the abolitionist refusal to label human actions a “crime” creates a critical space to see and understand things in a new manner, which enables us all to respond versus passively turning things over to institutions of hyper-power and force such as armed police and prisons. According to Justin Piche, (as cited in Washington, 2018),

“If a population stops thinking of vagrancy or sleeping on a park bench as crimes, and instead considers them problems with unemployment, inequality, and a paucity of mental-health services, we can stop hailing the cops so much. We need to open up the possibility to react to wrongdoing, injury, difference and culturally ingrained prejudice without merely seeking to punish or encage someone.”

The Prison Research Education Action Project (1976) draws attention to the importance of all people critically examining (i) society and its connection (or lack thereof) to people categorized as “criminal,” (ii) our ideals, perceptions and beliefs about the incarcerated and the incarceration system as a whole, and (iii) our sense of responsibility to local and global social change. As discussed by the Prison Research Education Action Project,

“It is important that we learn to conceptualize how a series of abolition-type reforms, partial abolitions of the system, and particular alternatives can lead toward the elimination of prisons. Abolitionists advocate maximum amounts of caring for all people (including the victims of crime) and minimum intervention in the lives of all people, including lawbreakers. In the minds of some, this may pose a paradox, but not for us, because we examine the underlying causes of crime and seek new responses to build a safer community.”

The prerequisite for such radical alternative relies heavily upon the recognition that there is nothing inevitable about the dehumanizing and barbaric aspects of the social world that we live in. In the words of Bill Ayers (2024),

“The way things are is not the way things have to be. We have choices to make and worlds to build. And none of this is possible in the absence of collective action and a social movement for radical transformation – we need to work collectively on a vision as part of the fight for abolition. We can abolish the ironclad logic of misbehaviour = police = punishment = the cage, which leads onward and downward without end, and replace it with a logic of compassion and repair with incarceration as the last and least worthy alternative before us.”

Of course, such radical shift in our thinking and social relations is difficult and exhausting due to what Ayers (2024) refers to as a longstanding “culture of discipline and punish” and pro-police propaganda (“copaganda”). Point being, if our individual and collective political imaginations fail to construct and yearn for what lies beyond the current hyper-violence, chaos and control we will never liberate ourselves. In the words of Ayers, “Without alternative ways of thinking and being, we become destined to be confined in a lockup state of mind,” and consequently, a locked up materiality that is destroying us all – albeit unevenly due to varying social locations within the belly of the beast. As mentioned by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, (as cited in Ayers, 2024),

“Abolition is not best understood as a deletion or an erasure, but rather as a collection of creative and complex acts of ‘world-building.’ What kind of world would we need to build in order to have no slavery? our forebears asked. And what kind of world could we begin to create today that would render prisons and police and militarism obsolete, predation and exploitation relics of a cruel past?”

Making the leap from the current social disorder to a decarcerated future requires us to recognize that our efforts are not entirely new as our abolitionist forebears have laid the groundwork. For instance, Ayers points out that “[…] just as the abolition of slavery was unimaginable to most Americans then, a society with no prisons or no police is difficult for many people to wrap their heads around now.” In order to get the motionless abolitionist wheels turning we need to liberate ourselves from what Ayers (2024) refers to as the “[…] dogma of incarceration and the totalizing logic of captivity and control.” How are we going to shut down the carceral state if we cannot shut down the totalizing logic of detention and control? A failure to see the critical connection between the two renders us all captive to pro-carceral worldviews, beliefs, assumptions and institutional practices. As Karl Marx pointed out in the mid-19^th century,

“Men [people] make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”

Abolitionist movements and organizations such as, Critical Resistance, INCITE!, the Movement for Black Lives, the National Lawyers Guild, and Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (Washington, 2018), are working tirelessly to confront the nightmare of carcerality and introduce the world to a vision and a set of human relations that permit for everyone to flourish. Without such radical thinking, organization and struggle we run the risk of perpetuating and intensifying existing inequalities, which render some people worthy and others disposable. In principle, abolitionists reject the notion of disposability and struggle to replace it with material conditions aligned with universal notions of dignity, worth and respect. It is one thing to preach notions of “inherent dignity” and “inalienable rights of all members of the human family […]” (see preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and another to make it a concrete reality. This is not a theoretical question; but rather, an invitation to political unity and direct action!

According to the Prison Research Education Action Project (1976) (as cited in Washington, 2018), there are three identifiable pillars of abolitionism (also referred to as the “Attrition Model”): (i) moratorium, (ii) decarceration and (iii) excarceration. The first pillar, moratorium, refers to ending the practice of constructing carceral spaces. Point being, if there are no additional carceral spaces less people will be caged. Decarceration, which is more complex, refers to discovering ways to get people out of existing carceral spaces. According to Washington, abolitionists maintain that “a lot of people in prison right now represent no threat to society, and therefore shouldn’t be languishing behind bars” (e.g., imprisonment for the possession and/or use of illicit drugs). The final pillar, excarceration, refers to discovering ways of preventing people from entering the carceral complex in the first place. As discussed by Washington, abolitionists maintain, “[…] many of the reasons people end up coming into contact with law enforcement can be solved through more humane means” (e.g., decriminalizing drug use, combating homelessness and decriminalizing mental-health episodes, which all function like a drainpipe into various carceral institutions).      

Unlike the neoliberal consumer ethic of our time, which promotes instant results, abolitionist work moves at a snail’s pace. According to Critical Resistance’s “Abolitionist Toolkit” (as cited in Washington, 2018), the ethic of abolitionism is “[…] not a hierarchical strategy with a single key or solution, but an alternative way of thinking about society.” As discussed by Washington (2018), the “Abolitionist Toolkit” is all about “chipping away at oppressive institutions rather than helping them live longer.” Similarly, Andrej Grubacic’s preface to John Holloway’s 2016 book, In, Against, And Beyond Capitalism: The San Francisco Lectures, states, “Revolution [like abolition] is imagined as a double movement, negative and creative, an interstitial movement that creates cracks in the texture of domination” (xv).

In short, “Abolitionists don’t stop at the prison walls, however: They aim to reshape our society as a whole” (Washington, 2018). We are constantly challenged to ask ourselves: Are we treating the symptoms or the illness at its core? In the words of Italian political theorist and activist, Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937), “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

References

Cullors, Patrisse. 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World: An Abolitionist’s Handbook. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2021.

Graeber, David. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. Melville House, 2016.

Grubacic, Andrej. Preface. In, Against, And Beyond Capitalism: The San Francisco Lectures, by John Holloway, Kairos, 2016, pp. vii-xvii.

Sudbury, Julia. “Introduction: Feminists Critiques, Transnational Landscapes, Abolitionist Visions.” Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex, edited by Julia Sudbury, Routledge, 2005, pp. xi-xxviii.

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Carcerality, rampant custodial deaths and the bureaucratic violence of non-binding jury recommendations

Seek The Alternatives (STA) November 21, 2024

The overarching problematic: Carcerality

According to Ruby Tapia (2018), Professor of English and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, carcerality is pervasive and goes well beyond our normative conceptualization, which is often connected to specific spaces such as, prisons, jails, immigrant and juvenile detention centres and military prisons as well as programs like probation and parole. As discussed by Ji Seon Song (2023), healthcare spaces should be added to this list as they are vital to any system of mass incarceration. In the words of Song, “Like police interrogation rooms, jails, and prisons, hospitals often incorporate carceral practices.” For instance, Song adds, “They care for injured and ill people on their way to and from jails and prisons. Such patients are often shackled to their beds, no matter how ill they are or how little danger they pose.” But it doesn’t end there. For Tapia, “The concept of carcerality captures the many ways in which the carceral state shapes and organizes society and culture through policies and logic of control, surveillance, criminalization, and un-freedom.” Instead of constructing and implementing humane approaches to social problems the carceral state employs “‘punitive orientations’ that revolve around the ‘promise and threat of criminalization’ and the ‘possibility/solution of incarceration.’”

While abolishing the overarching problematic of carcerality remains the central objective for abolitionists, Julia Sudbury (2005) points out that, “This abolitionist vision does not reject legal reform and service delivery but rather views them as stepping stones on the path to a broader, more radical vision of social change” (xxvi). Similarly, Bill Ayers (2024) states, “Some of this [legal reform] may sound a bit like fiddling with the machinery of caging, but let’s not be dogmatic hard-liners when actual people could breathe more freely with just a bit of tinkering.”

With this in mind, the following article explores the social issue of pervasive custodial deaths in Canada and advocates for a long overdue legal reform to the province of Ontario’s mandatory inquest process that produces non-binding jury recommendations linked to, for instance, an “unnatural” death in a provincial jail. It is important to note that, according to Tracking (In)justice (2022), mandatory inquests in provinces like Ontario are conducted by the Office of the Chief Coroner, Solicitor General’s (SOLGEN) Correctional Services Oversight and Investigations (CSOI) office and SOLGEN Corporate Healthcare (versus federal penitentiaries, which are overseen by Correctional Service Canada (CSC), a Coroner and the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI)).

Until the day we radically transform the carceral state let us do what we can to put a stop to custodial deaths and permit human beings on the “inside” to “breathe more freely.”

From federal and provincial “guardianship” to graveyard

According to Tracking (In)justice (2023), Canada incarcerates thousands of people every single day in a number of carceral spaces such as, federal prisons, provincial/territorial jails, police holding cells, immigration detention centres, hospitals and forensic psychiatric facilities.

On average, Canada’s prison population, which includes pre-trial detainees, hovers around 35,485 (34,986 adult and 499 in youth custody) (World Prison Brief). According to the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia (2023), “as many as 8,000 migrants are detained in Canada annually, either in immigration holding centres or in criminal facilities like provincial jails” (an inhumane and degrading practice that Canada’s provinces have vowed to end).   

Adults and youth caught up in Canada’s carceral machinery do not only live under conditions of hostility, hyper-surveillance and control, they also die.

Custodial fatality figures

According to Tracking (In)justice (2024), there are more than “2,131 deaths in [federal, provincial/territorial and police] custody across Canada since the year 2000.” Some of the institutions and number of custodial deaths include, Millhaven Institution, Bath, Ont. (58 deaths); Pacific Institution, Abbotsford, B.C. (52 deaths); Maplehurst Correctional Complex, Milton, Ont. (45 deaths); Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre, Hamilton, Ont. (35 deaths); Regional Psychiatric Centre, Saskatoon, Sask. (33 deaths); Royal Canadian Mounted Police (145 deaths); Ontario Provincial Police (15 deaths); and in my own backyard Toronto South Detention Centre, Etobicoke, Ont.(16 deaths since the “$1-Billion Hellhole” opened in 2014) (see full list of institutions at Tracking (In)justice).

Beyond the chilling fatality facts and figures lies countless heart-wrenching stories of the struggles that families of the deceased go through to make sense and meaning of custodial deaths – many of which have been deemed avoidable. According to Associate Professor Alexander McClelland’s research team on the Tracking (In)justice project at Carleton University, “910 deaths [nearly half of the 2,131] were ‘potentially preventable.’”

As a case in point, consider the inexcusable and horrendous death of 30-year-old Soleiman Faqiri in the Central East Correctional Centre in Kawartha Lakes, Ont. on December 15, 2016. According to reporter-editor Shanifa Nasser (2023), “Faqiri died after being repeatedly struck by guards, pepper sprayed twice, covered with a spit hood and left shackled on his stomach on the floor of a segregation cell after being moved from a shower stall […].” In the end, it was determined that Faqiri’s death was a homicide.

Like Faqiri’s tragic outcome in Ontario’s deplorable jail system, five men (Timonthy Anderson, Murray Balogh, David Cowe, Michael Croft and Jahrell Lungs) who tragically died in Niagara Detention Centre (NDC) between 2018-2022 may still be alive today if it weren’t for Ontario’s normalization of “punitive orientations” (Tapia) – an orientation that is clearly exemplified by Patrick Sproat, NDC’s deputy superintendent, when he says, “They’re here as punishment, not for punishment” (as quoted in Chandler, 2024). According to Chandler, “None [of the men] were more than 10 days into their time at the facility when they died.” Could these deaths have been prevented too?

Unfortunately, jail-related deaths like these are only the tip of the iceberg: 39-year-old Abduraham Ibrahim Hassan, 31-year-old Justin St. Amour, 59-year-old Moses Amik Beaver, 26-year-old Jordan Sheard, 30-year-old Cleve Geddes, 27-year-old Yousef Hussein, 30-year-old Adam Kenneth Reed, 23-year-old Clayton Cromwell, 24-year-old Murray James Davis, 24-year-old Kevon Junior O’Brien-Phillip, 36-year-old Dustin McMillan, 69-year-old Euplio Cusano and many more (see detailed provincial/territorial online memorial at Tracking (In)justice).

As McClelland’s work suggests, there are systemic factors behind these tragedies and much of the information about custodial deaths is concealed from public view. If Canada is to meet its domestic Constitutional (e.g., Charter sections 7, 12 and 15) and international obligations (e.g., Mandela Rules) it needs to be transparent. As mentioned by Jackson (2023), “In the complex world of democracy, transparency and ethics serve as the guiding principles that ensure government accountability and trustworthiness. These two elements are the heart and soul of good governance.” Evidently, without transparency legal notions of accountability and responsibility fall flat on their faces, which jeopardizes Canada’s claim to democracy.

Time to ditch the non-binding jury recommendations

Typically, in a province like Ontario, when a death in custody occurs (unless the cause is labelled a “natural” death, which is a highly contested term) a mandatory coroner inquest takes place to determine the facts of the case. While one might expect this to be a legal norm McClelland points out that provinces such as, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, do not have this mandatory legal mechanism. Often, directed by a coroner before a jury, the public hearing concludes with a list of jury recommendations designed to prevent future tragedies (Ministry of the Solicitor General).

Clearly, inquests are a public good because they have the potential to save lives; however, there is one major problem built into the bureaucratic machinery: jury recommendations are non-binding, which translates into a slap in the face of every family fighting to ensure that the fatally departed do not die in vain.

According to the Ministry of the Solicitor General, “Although the jury’s conclusions are not binding, it is hoped that any recommendations suggested, if implemented, will prevent further deaths.” Such wording trivializes the importance of jury recommendations and implies that the families of the deceased should be content with mere hope versus a legallybinding guarantee of adoption and immediate implementation.

All the Ministry rhetoric about “careful review” of inquest recommendations and “potential ways to inform policies and procedures” plays out like a cruel joke. If anything, the non-binding structure of jury recommendations functions like a double-edged sword.   

Consider three (out of 57) recommendations that came out of Soleiman Faqiri’s 2023 verdict of inquest:

-Take immediate steps to make sure anyone suffering an acute mental health crisis in custody is admitted to hospital for assessment and, where appropriate, treatment.

-Adopt a principle of equivalence so that those in custody receive equal quality health care as they would outside.

-Establish an independent provincial corrections inspectorate with the power to investigate individual and systemic complaints in correctional facilities.

If jury recommendations such as the implementation of an independent provincial corrections inspectorate would save lives, why would the recommendation be classified as non-binding? The bureaucratic violence of non-binding jury recommendations rests on the absurdity of trivializing lifesaving measures after a life was tragically lost. Such institutional incompetence should be changed to a system of legally-binding recommendations without delay for three obvious reasons: (a) increase the probability of saving lives on the “inside”, (b) out of respect for the families of the deceased and (c) fulfill Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General’s mandate, which revolves around operating “a safe, effective and accountable adult corrections system.” Replacing a non-binding framework with a legally-binding one seems like an effective move for an institution caught up in producing rampant custodial deaths. How many more Faqiri’s will there be before jury recommendations are made legally-binding?

Step-by-step towards a decarceral future

Despite popular perception, there is absolutely nothing inevitable about prisons, jails, immigrant and juvenile detention centres and military prisons. Similarly, there is nothing inevitable about Ontario’s non-binding jury recommendations. Taking the necessary and overdue step of making all non-binding recommendations legally-binding does not abolish jails; however, it is a “stepping stone on the path to a broader, more radical vision of social change” (Sudbury, 2005). In the words of Bill Ayers (2024), alternatives to the existing carceral state “liberate all of us from our own culturally imposed mental prisons, our dimmed consciousness and constrained imaginations. Without alternative ways of thinking and being, we become destined to be confined in a lockup state of mind.”

References

Sudbury, Julia. “Introduction: Feminists Critiques, Transnational Landscapes, Abolitionist Visions.” Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex, edited by Julia Sudbury, Routledge, 2005, pp. xi-xxviii.

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‘It’s absolutely heart wrenching’: Locals hold vigil for Toronto senior killed in jailhouse attack

Locals paid tribute to Euplio Cusano, a former long-term care resident killed in a jailhouse attack on Oct. 3. 

Updated Oct. 28, 2024 at 5:24 p.m.

Oct. 28, 2024

A makeshift memorial for Euplio Cusano, a former long-term care resident and “beloved” hairdresser, after he was killed in an attack inside the walls of the Toronto South Detention Centre earlier this month.

By Abby O’Brien Staff Reporter

Outside the Toronto South Detention Centre, a small handful of observers laid flowers and lit candles on Sunday as part of a makeshift memorial for Euplio Cusano, a brain-injured senior killed inside the walls of the Etobicoke jail earlier this month.

As organizer and Toronto-area school teacher Jozef Konyari read out a list of those who have lost their lives inside the walls of the facility, he marked Cusano, a former long-term care resident, as the latest addition.

“As a person who lives in Etobicoke South, this is happening in our backyards and it’s absolutely heart wrenching,” Jozef Konyari, a Toronto area high school teacher and organizer of the vigil, told the Star. 

A handful of people gathered outside the Toronto South Detention Centre on Sunday afternoon to hold a vigil for Euplio Cusano. 

Cusano, a 69-year-old man who’d lived with a brain injury for decades, was killed in an attack at the jail on Oct. 3. 

Arrested after an altercation with two fellow long-term care residents in March, Cusano spent seven months in custody without a bail hearing. Repeatedly, Cusano’s counsel told court that a bail plan was in the works, but that more time was needed to review case files and secure his client a new housing arrangement outside of the jail.

In all, the proceedings were delayed more than 30 times before Cusano, considered legally innocent, was killed in a case experts have called “horrendous.” 

After reading the Star’s coverage on the case, Konyari said he was struck by a desire to take action, so he called upon his loved ones, neighbours and colleagues to join him in commemorating Cusano.

“I just felt that we had to do something,” he said. “We can’t have any more of these stories – this needs to stop.”

Armed with flyers and signs reading, “Is This Ontario’s Definition of ‘Provincial Supervision?’” and “Why Are Legally Innocent People Dying In Ontario?”, the group arrived at the corner of Horner and Kipling Avenues late Sunday afternoon. While unsure of what to expect initially, Konyari said many passersby shared their concerns.

“People were rolling their windows down, they were taking flyers, they were asking who died and what had happened,” he said.

On one side of the handouts was Cusano’s photograph and, on the other, statistics from the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s report on conditions at Toronto South. Authored in 2020, the report found that inmates at the facility were subject to confinement, outbreaks of diseases, and undue stress caused by repeated lockdowns – a set of ongoing conditions that have since been repeatedly disavowed by Ontario judges within public court rulings.

“What kind of society do you have to live in for an elderly person to go from a long-term care facility into one of Ontario’s worst detention centres? It literally makes no sense,” Konyari said.

As they neared the front of the detention centre, participants set up a vigil with pictures, candles, and art pieces, along with combs and a blue-framed mirror to honour Cusano’s time as a hairdresser.

“For me, there’s a rage that exists, that should exist within everybody,” Konyari said. “Because, I may not have met Mr. Cusano or his family, but it doesn’t take me very long to realize that we’re related by the virtue of living in a community together.”

On Monday, when Konyari returned to the site of the vigil less than 24 hours later, he said it had been removed.

“Are you telling me that Mr. Cusano’s life is not worth one day? Even a single day?” he told the Star following the discovery.

The experience, he said, has sparked a desire to launch a community organization geared toward breaking down the barriers between the public and incarcerated population.

“That’s what I’m thinking, because we all want to know how many more inquests it’s going to take,” Konyari said. “We’ve had so many, but the deaths keep coming.”

A sign commemorating the life of Euplio Cusano can be seen, right, alongside a handful of attendees at a vigil held for the former long-term care resident on Sunday.

Source: O’Brien, Abby. “‘It’s absolutely heart wrenching’: Locals hold vigil for Toronto senior killed in jailhouse attack.” Toronto Star, 28 Oct. 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/it-s-absolutely-heart-wrenching-locals-hold-vigil-for-toronto-senior-killed-in-jailhouse-attack/article_a6fb1ea4-955a-11ef-bc46-33145e6b3180.html.

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Euplio Cusano: The Latest Victim of Ontario’s Failing Detention Complex

By: Seek The Alternatives (STA) November 1, 2024

The fatality machine strikes again

69-year-old Euplio Cusano (September 15, 1955 – October 4, 2024) was a man that family and friends described as a creative soul filled with love, appreciation, devotion and joy. As a son, brother and beloved uncle to many, Cusano will be deeply missed after his life was cut short in one of Ontario’s most notorious jails, Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC). Tragically, instead of making it to his 70^th birthday he became the city’s 70^th murder victim.

Despite Toronto South’s elegant and sophisticated exterior (compliments of former Premier Dalton McGuinty and Zeidler Architecture), surviving it is no walk-in the park. According to a 2020 report conducted by the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC), TSDC contains a “high proportion of Indigenous and Black prisoners,” which speaks volumes about the system’s relentless racial violence, as well as a “high prevalence of mental health disabilities and addictions among the provincial remand population.”

Despite the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s (CCLA) longstanding battle to raise awareness and curtail the use of segregation in Ontario’s adult correctional facilities (see  CCLA’s 2016 submission to the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services), the OHRC notes, “[…] TSDC management and front-line workers routinely use segregation, restrictive confinement, lockdowns and “time in cell” sanctions that raise serious human rights concerns” – a disturbing practice that is difficult to track due to an overall lack of institutional transparency (CCLA). In the eyes of the CCLA, all forms of segregation are “seriously concerning, given the impact they may have on inmates’ health and well-being.” As demonstrated in the OHRC’s report, the CCLA observes, “Yet despite the profusion of reports, taskforces, studies and coroners’ inquests, the practice of segregation remains common in Canadian prisons and jails.”

To make matters worse the OHRC reports, “Prisoners face several systemic challenges to maintaining family and community contact, which has a disparate negative impact on prisoners with caregiving responsibilities.”

In an attempt to shatter the falsehood that Ontario’s correctional system is akin to a vacation, the John Howard Society of Ontario states,

Some people think that prisons in Ontario are easy places to “do time” – using the metaphor of a country club to describe what they think it is like inside a prison. Anyone who have actually been to a prison knows the reality and doesn’t for a moment imagine they’re like a trip to Club Med. These are tough, punitive and overcrowded places.”

The John Howard Society of Ontario adds, “You might expect that there are numerous programs dedicated to education, counselling and rehabilitation. You would be wrong.” While the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s mandate states, “[…] the ministry operates a safe, effective and accountable adult corrections system that includes correctional facilities and probation and parole offices across the province,” the concrete reality on the “inside” shows the complete opposite. Under the existing leadership public pronouncements of “safety,” “effectiveness,” “accountability,” and “integration” act as a cruel joke cast upon some of our society’s most marginalized and vulnerable groups.

While Cusano, who suffered from a long-term brain injury, was apprehended and charged (not convicted) with two counts of assault and one count of assaulting a police officer outside his former living quarters at Hawthrone Place Care Centre (O’Brien, 2024), the question remains: Was Toronto South the best place for Ontario’s legal apparatus to house a 69-year-old with complex mental health needs (or any other human being for that matter)?

While earlier media accounts emphasize that a 54-year-old inmate had been charged in connection to Cusano’s death there were no accounts that drew attention to Patrisse Cullors’s political insight that “Violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum” (151).

The pervasiveness of violence

While a 54-year-old inmate may eventually be held accountable for Cusano’s final breath the question remains: Who will be held accountable for a system that authorized the detention of an elder with complex mental health needs in a notorious jail without a bail hearing for several months? Any suggestions?

Well, here is a running list of possibilities: Toronto South Detention Centre’s (TSDC’s) Superintendent and senior command, Ministry of the Solicitor General (SOLGEN) leadership, Deputy Solicitor General (Correctional Services), Assistant Deputy Minister (Institutional Services) and Directory (Toronto Regional Institutional Services), members of the TSDC Community Advisory Board (CAB), Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS), Ministry of Long-Term Care and the Premier of Ontario.

With so much attention focused on Cusano’s alleged murderer the public may be blind to what Austrian philosopher and theologian Ivan Illich (1926 – 2002) refers to as “disabling professions.” In the words of Illich et al., “a profession, like a priesthood, holds power by concession from an elite whose interests it props up. As a priesthood provides eternal salvation, so a profession claims legitimacy as the interpreter, protector and supplier of a special, this-worldly interest of the public at large” (17).

With Illich’s insight in mind, a couple of questions arise: Whose political interests are truly protected and advanced in and through Ontario’s jail system? If we peel back shallow notions of “community safety” and “correctional services” we might see what Illich et al. refer to as, “The business of modern society” (69). In the words of Illich et al.,

Within this [business] framework, the client is less a person in need than a person who is needed. In business terms, the client is less the consumer then the raw material for the servicing system. In management terms, the client becomes both the output and the input. His [her/they/them] essential function is to meet the needs of servicers, the servicing system and the national economy. The central political issue becomes the servicers’ capacity to manufacture needs in order to expand the economy of the servicing system (74).

As the “raw material” for the servicing system, people in jails are an economic necessity for Superintendents, politicians of all stripes and construction companies to list a few. In the case of the steady and reliable work of Superintendents and politicians in Ontario, Glassdoor estimates that a jail Superintendent makes between $100K – $159K/yr. while, according to Ontario’s Sunshine List, the Premier of Ontario makes $208.974K/yr., which is a lot better than what formerly incarcerated people in this country make after serving time in Canada’s “correctional” system.

According to Prison Policy Initiative (2022), “Formerly incarcerated people face huge obstacles to finding stable employment, leading to detrimental society-wide effects.” Furthermore, Prison Policy Initiative draws critical attention to the alarming fact that,

Harsh parole conditions, a lack of social welfare programs, and a tough job market are forcing formerly incarcerated people – already a low-income, majority-minority demographic – into the least desirable jobs. But not everybody is losing: Businesses have found a way to capitalize on the desperation of applicants with conviction histories and exploit the fact that these individuals have less bargaining power to demand changes in conditions of employment, such as better wages benefits and protections. This results in lower overall wages and more harmful working conditions in certain industries.   

In addition to Superintendents and politicians who benefit directly from our existing punishment system, there are a host of companies that make funds from jail construction contracts. For instance, former Premier Dalton McGuinty’s fantasy to build Toronto South would not have been possible without the cooperation of EllisDon Corporation and Fengate Capital, Zeidler Partnership Architects, Johnson Controls LP, RBC Dominion Securities among other players that got a piece of the wretched profit pie (Infrastructure Ontario).

You never know, perhaps, Superintendents, Premiers and cooperating companies could share some of their wealth? Afterall, their personal accumulation of wealth would not have been possible without the “raw materials” (inmates) essential to the “correctional” business. Instead of redistributing some of the wealth, Prison Policy Initiative points out,

It’s true that industries like manufacturing and construction tend to boost employment and reduce recidivism for those leaving prison. But while these jobs did, at one time, allow people to build wealth and support a family, they don’t as much anymore, meaning that they are likely not alleviating poverty among formerly incarcerated people. The fact that formerly incarcerated people are not obtaining steady, reliable work is likely related to the industries in which they’re most commonly employed.

The above-mentioned examples point directly to an often-hidden form of violence referred to as structural violence. According to David Gil (as quoted in Johnson, 2023), structural violence can be accurately conceptualized as the “extent to which fundamental human needs tend to be frustrated and human development tends to be inhibited as a result of the normal working of social institutions.” Furthermore, Jason Springs (as cited in Johnson, 2023) adds, “the power of structural violence lies in the fact that dehumanizing, repressive and exploitative conditions can seem like business as usual – to perpetrators, victims, and outsiders.” With this in mind, the question of accountability proves somewhat elusive. According to Oxford Reference, “It is difficult to pinpoint where the blame lies for this harm because the cause comes from social structures rather than any individual.” Similarly, Lee (2019) states, “Structural violence is […] the most potent stimulant of behavioral violence in the form of homicides, suicides, mass murders, and war,” – which could be highly instructive for a provincial government presumably attempting to achieve community safety.

In the words of Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law (2020) what we are really dealing with here is a “prison industrial complex […] targeting people who are marginalized by race, class, gender identity, disability, or immigration status, and who are considered to be simply a surplus to society” (9). In light of such insights, one must ponder how in the world Ontario’s “correctional” system maintains its claim to legitimacy?

Adding salt to injury

Cusano’s tragic story is only the latest in a growing list of people that have fallen victim to Ontario’s broken jail system. Many in our community are still remembering and mourning the loss of 39-year-old Abduraham Ibrahim Hassan, 31-year-old Justin St. Amour, 59-year-old Moses Amik Beaver, 26-year-old Jordan Sheard, 30-year-old Cleve Geddes, 27-year-old Yousef Hussein, 30-year-old Adam Kenneth Reed, 23-year-old Clayton Cromwell, 24-year-old Murray James Davis, 24-year-old Kevon Junior O’Brien-Phillip, 36-year-old Dustin McMillan and 30-year-old Soleiman Faqiri and many more.

To add salt to injury, when family members of those dying in our jails attempt to fight for some modicum of justice, they are expected to endure a legal process best described as excessively time-consuming, exhausting, frustrating and retraumatizing – to say the least.

At the federal level, a 2016 report titled, In the Dark: An Investigation of Death in Custody information Sharing and Disclosure Practices in Federal Corrections, reveals that when inmates die in Canadian prisons the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) interact with next of kin in ways that lack transparency and compassion (Crawford, 2016). According to the report’s author, former Office of the Correctional Investigatory (OCI), Howard Sapers,

The refusal, denial or delays to proactively share information with next of kin often leads them to suspect the worse, feel suspicious or apprehensive about what may have transpired behind bars and impedes their ability to pursue legal remedies. In cases of in-custody death (or serious bodily injury), openness, transparency, accountability, compassion, timelines and respect are important organizational and humanitarian principles that should weigh positively in the decision to release as much information as possible as it becomes available. Withholding information leads to unnecessary frustration and distrust and denies families closure as they grieve their loss (3).

At the provincial level, consider the Faqiri family’s agonizing fight for truth and accountability linked to the preventable death of 30-year-old Soleiman Faqiri in yet another one of Ontario’s notorious jails, Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont.

After nearly seven years of fighting for accountability they finally received an inquest verdict that validated what they knew all along, Faqiri’s death was a homicide. While this was deemed a significant step forward in the case the family came forward in May 2024 stating that the Ontario government failed to institute any of the recommendations geared towards eliminating similar outcomes.  

After reading through the list of recommendations it seems that Mr. Cusano’s death could have been prevented with the implementation of at least a few of the 57 recommendations listed under the categories of oversight and accountability, coordination between sectors, courts and mental health assessments, training and education.

Arguably, Recommendation #9, which calls for the implementation of “an independent Rights Advisor and Prisoner advocate at all correctional facilities for all persons in custody, regardless of security classification, status, or placement,” could have gone a long way in terms of altering Cusano tragic fate inside of Toronto South.

What we have here is best articulated by Justice Arbour (as cited in CCLA’s 2016 submission), “[t]he Rule of Law [and inquest recommendations] is absent, although rules [and recommendations] are everywhere.” As a result of this absurdity, CCLA has called for the complete abandonment of more incremental reform. In the words of CCLA, “a decisive change in direction […] is needed to adequately address the deep-seated concerns that exist […].” Furthermore, CCLA points out, “Legislative and policy protections are vital, but in order to ensure that rules on paper are translated into practice, they must be accompanied by a profound culture shift and backed by rigorous, effective oversight and accountability mechanisms” – a significant and meaningful recommendation that ought to be applied across the entire “correctional” landscape.

Unfortunately, while inquests into jail-based deaths are mandatory the detailed life saving recommendations that emanate from them are not legally-binding. How do we make sense of the futility of it all? In the words of Illich et al.,

Our major institutions have acquired the uncanny power to subvert the very purposes for which they have [arguably] been engineered and financed originally. Under the rule of our most prestigious professions, our institutional tools have as their principal product paradoxical counterproductivity – the systematic disabling of the citizenry (28).    

According to Nazish Dholakia (2023), “Jails and prisons, often overcrowded and understaffed, are frequently dangerous, dehumanizing, and traumatizing places where violence is largely ‘unavoidable.’” Point being, there is absolutely nothing inevitable about it. According to David Garland’s (1993) book Punishment and Modern Society, “Social institutions – which include the family, the law, education, government, the market, the military and religion, among others – are highly patterned and organized sets of social practices” (282).

As Garland’s insight suggests, jails and prisons are socially constructed networks, which means that the dehumanization, traumatization and violence we read about are anything but inevitable. If the political will and public interest existed, the social practices of jails among other repressive institutions could be dismantled and replaced with social institutions that meet real human needs. For the moment, it appears that we are trapped in what Illich et al. describes as, “self-interested systems with inherently disabling effects” (91).

Unfortunately, this is going to take a while. In the words of Garland, “Typically, such institutions evolve slowly, over a long period of time, so that their present character is often shaped by history and tradition as much as by the contemporary functions which they perform [or fail to perform]” (282).

Step-by-step: Moving beyond right-wing ideology and the politics of forgetting

Rather than a political response to Ontario’s failing jails reflective of sound research, Premier Doug Ford is pushing for a tough-on-crime approach, which includes building more jails, hiring more correctional officers and reopening intermittent detention facilities in the so-called post-Covid era (many of which were closed during the earlier stages of the pandemic and replaced with GPS monitoring systems). Similarly, Solicitor General Michael S. Kerzner is avoiding the core issues and propagating public messages linked to personal jail tours and new correctional hires.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Premier Ford and Solicitor General Kerzner fail to recognize and admit what research has been showing for decades: incarceration does not reduce crime. In the words of Jason Stanley (2020), author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them,

The main reason that many researchers are dubious about a link between an increase in incarceration and a drop in crime rates is because studies indicate that incarceration itself contributes substantially to an increase in crime rates (119).

As top-ranking officials within Ontario’s political apparatus, the Premier and Solicitor General have failed to do their due diligence with respect to explaining to the public how a tough-on-crime approach and additional correctional hires will in fact reduce crime rates and increase public safety. Is an explanation too much to ask for? Indeed, it is too much to ask for from a political regime bent on right-wing ideologies and the all too familiar right-wing political move of weaponizing notions of criminality and public safety as a means of legitimizing positions of power over specific populations.

The ideological conditioning that renders people in cages less than human and so-called deserving of harsh treatment and public invisibility runs deep. According to the late American anthropologist and anarchist activist David Graeber (1961 – 2020), the core of right-wing thought revolves around a political ontology that normalizes the use of force. In the words of Graeber,

Whenever we hear this word [force] invoked, we find ourselves in the presence of a political ontology in which the power to destroy, to cause others pain or to threaten to break, damage, or mangle others’ bodies (or just lock them in a tiny room for the rest of their lives) is treated as the social equivalent of the very energy that drives the cosmos (87).

There is nothing inevitable about Ontario’s detention complex and the deaths emanating from them. As mentioned by Paula Mallea (2017), “Changing such an entrenched system is akin to turning a supertanker. It will take a long time, a great deal of care, and an ability to prevail against overwhelming inertia” (20).

Given the harsh realities in Ontario’s jails, it is no surprise that correctional officers, juries overseeing inquests related to inmate deaths and unions alike have called for the complete annihilation of some of Ontario’s jails. For instance, official government reports state that an anonymous correctional officer from Toronto South stated, “Nothing can fix this jail except for shutting it down, transferring inmates out and starting over […].” Likewise, juries and unions have recommended that London, Ontario’s, Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC) be “demolished and rebuilt.”

Without a doubt, Patrisse Cullors’s insight pertaining to violence is highly instructive with respect to next steps. In the words of Cullors, “Violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is connected to the conditions that we live in, and we all participate in creating those conditions, and we all have a collective responsibility for ending violence, harm and abuse” (151). Perhaps, if we took the time necessary to reflect on these words we might realize that Cusano’s death was preventable much like all those who tragically died before him.

In order to radically change the existing system of punishment we must all begin in and through a meaningful, dialogical and political process of remembering. Whether it be passing out flyers and conversing with the public about the core issues or organizing a vigil to commemorate such tragic and unnecessary deaths, which a group of us did on Sunday, October 27^th, we need to engage with each other as a means of raising public consciousness and issuing political demands for a more humane society versus toleration and acceptance of the existing social (dis)order.

Unfortunately, for every attempt to remember people like Cusano the system of punishment will predictably respond with yet another form of violence: a politics of erasure geared towards the cultivation of public forgetting and political demobilization. Whether it be the immediate removal of our makeshift memorial for Cusano outside TSDC in Etobicoke, Ont., or the removal of memorial crosses outside Elgin-Middlesex jail in London, Ont., we must refuse to forget and find a way to ensure that the growing list of individuals dying in Ontario’s jails do not die in vain.

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” – Nelson Mandela (1918 – 2013).

References

Cullors, Patrisse. 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World: An Abolitionist’s Handbook. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2021.

Garland, David. Punishment and Modern Society: A Study In Social Theory. University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Graeber, David. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. Melville House, 2016.

Illich, Ivan, et al. Disabling Professions. Marion Boyars Publishers, 1977.  

Mallea, Paula. Beyond Incarceration: Safety and True Criminal Justice. Dundurn, 2017.

O’Brien, Abby. “A ‘horrendous’ jailhouse death: Brain-injured senior killed in Toronto prison after waiting 7 months without a bail hearing.” Toronto Star, 19 Oct. 2024, p. A1 & A24.

Schenwar, Maya & Law, Victoria. Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms. The New Press, 2020.

Stanley, Jason. How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Random House, 2020.

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Soleiman Faqiri and the consistency of cruelty in Canadian jails

Seek The Alternatives (STA) August 12, 2021

On Tuesday, Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist determined the causes of Faqiri’s death after five years of pressure; the injuries he sustained while he was restrained and beaten by guards.

For over five years, the tragic death of Soleiman Faqiri in a Canadian prison has received widespread attention in press coverage, demonstrations, and teach-ins. The case has posed a challenge to our collective conscience over how we incarcerate people living with mental illness.

On Tuesday, Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist finally determined the causes of Faqiri’s death; the injuries he sustained while six guards restrained him on his stomach, beat him, and deployed pepper spray. The pathologist’s findings triggered a third police investigation after the first two proved fruitless. While these developments are hopeful, there is reason to remain skeptical of a legal system that has failed the Faqiri family for so long.

Faqiri’s case remains on the minds of many as the latest in a centuries-long list of shame from Canadian prisons.

The consistency of cruelty

In 1993, the late Canadian poet, writer, and prison guard, Joel Michael Yates (1938-2019) wrote, “In my opinion there is not one well-managed correctional institution in North America. Not one.”

In the mid 19^thcentury, cruel and degrading punishment was routinely applied to prisoners in Canada’s notorious Kingston Penitentiary. As documented in Peter H. Hennessy’s 1999 book, Canada’s Big House: The Dark History of the Kingston Penitentiary, prisoners who transgressed behind the infamous Warden Henry Smith’s bars were subject to coldblooded punishments.   

According to the Brown Commission of 1849 which led to the removal of Warden Smith, children with “disordered” minds were subjected to vicious treatment. On one account, a teenage boy named Beauche was violently flogged for making sounds, screaming, and claiming that there was something under his bed in the middle of the night. He was eventually diagnosed as “insane” and transported to the Lower Canada Lunatic Asylum.

Since the days of Warden Smith’s atrocious rule, countries around the world and international bodies alike have developed standards aimed at protecting those subjected to the inhumanity of prison life.

Despite these developments, the consistency of cruelty persists. As a case in point, consider the appalling steps that led to the preventable death of Faqiri in a Canadian jail.

Jail instead of diversion

On December 4, 2016, a 30-year-old man with no criminal record and diagnosed with schizophrenia was apprehended by police in Ajax, Ontario. The man’s name was Soleiman Faqiri, and he was no stranger to police as he had been taken into custody 10 times under Ontario’s Mental Health Act, but December 4 was considerably different with respect to legal-medical decisions and outcomes. 

According to the Schizophrenia Society of Canada’s 2005 paper, Diversion, Mental Health Courts and Schizophrenia, “Jails are not the place to treat individuals with a mental illness.” Unfortunately, this advice is routinely ignored. But is there an alternative? The answer is a resounding yes and it is called diversion. In the words of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, “Diversion offers the opportunity to treat individuals effectively while meeting overall societal objectives of protection and justice.”

Instead of diversion, Faqiri was apprehended and taken to one of the worst prisons in Ontario: the Central East Correctional Centre. As evidence of Central East’s dysfunction, the Community Advisory Board’s Annual Report of 2015 described mounting concerns linked to lockdowns, staff shortages, ineffective family visiting and support systems, increasing presence of ceramic knives, drugs and gangs, inmate-on-inmate assaults, and a lack of mental health training.

Unfortunately, far too many people with mental illness experience inappropriate interactions with the legal system — an appalling phenomenon aptly described as the criminalization of the mentally ill. In Faqiri’s case, this was the first of many missteps.

Segregation instead of a hospital bed

The next unspeakable step involved placing a vulnerable person like Faqiri into segregation. For years leading up to Faqiri’s experience, the use of segregation was painstakingly scrutinized. According to the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General’s 2017 review, Segregation In Ontario, segregation “is so damaging […] that it has been reported as ‘cruel and unusual treatment’ by the United Nations, and can even amount to torture.”

Two years before the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s review, the Public Services Foundation of Canada released a 2015 report titled Crisis in Correctional Services. The report drew specific attention to the influx of inmates with mental health issues and the link between deficient mental health services and increasingly hazardous living and working conditions for inmates and prison guards. The report unequivocally states “segregation is the worst possible response to the overwhelming majority of inmates with these [mental health] problems.”

As far back as 2012, a report conducted by the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) points out that Canada’s 2010 ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities created an opportunity to articulate and put into practice all the legal, policy, and regulatory measures that would protect the human rights of persons with disabilities. As mentioned in the report, a vital principle of the UN convention “is to always employ the least intrusive and least restrictive interventions possible.”   

Furthermore, the report states:

“People living with mental health problems and illnesses […] should be able to count on timely access to the full range of options for mental health services, treatments and supports, just as they would expect if they were confronting heart disease or cancer.”

Given Faqiri’s identity as a racialized person, Muslim and immigrant from Kabul, Afghanistan, the commission’s report is particularly insightful when it states: “People who are immigrants, refugees, members of ethno-cultural groups or who are likely to be racialized […] face particular challenges that put their mental health at greater risk.”

Beating and death instead of care and treatment

On December 15, Faqiri was taking a shower and refused to return to his cell. In response, the guards attempted to physically remove him.

In the process of removing Faqiri from the shower he was struck by one of the guards, pepper sprayed twice directly in the face and eventually shoved back into his cell. It was here where the abuse spiralled even further out of control.

Following a code blue alert, several more guards entered Faqiri’s cell. While some pinned his limbs to the ground, other guards placed a spit hood over his head and pressured his body to the floor with leg irons. On top of these already excessive measures, which went on for an agonizing three hours, Faqiri was handcuffed behind his back in the prone position. In the end, Faqiri was found to be unresponsive and pronounced dead in a cold bloody cell far away from those who cared for him.

According to a 2017 coroner’s report, Faqiri’s body had over 50 cuts and bruises and showed many other clear signs of blunt impact trauma. Why was a person with a serious mental illness beaten to such a degree by the very people responsible for his well-being and safety?

Faqiri was the victim of a legal-medical apparatus that astonishingly concluded the cause of death was “unascertained.” How could this be?

Bureaucratic re-traumatization

To make matters worse, the legal-medical system has made healing for the family an unreachable goal. At every level of analysis, the very systems responsible for so-called justice have failed the family, instead forcing them to relive their pain and suffering.

An initial investigation conducted by the Kawartha Lakes Police Service stated that no charges would be laid against those involved with Faqiri’s death. While this investigation included almost 70 interviews with prison guards, inmates, and medical personnel, a known eyewitness named John Thibeault — located in a cell across Faqiri’s — was never questioned. According to Thibeault’s account, which was shared by the The Fifth Estate, the guards were yelling at Faqiri to “stop resisting” even though there were no signs of life.

After the failure of the Kawartha Lakes Police Service investigation, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) launched a reinvestigation, but the OPP also declared that it was not pressing any charges against those involved in Faqiri’s death.

The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services’ (MCSCS) response included a host of blame tactics, suspensions, and dismissals geared towards abolishing the claim of negligence. As opposed to a deeper analysis of institutional deficiencies linked to incident investigations, psychiatric assessments, and staff training in the use of force, negotiators, Institutional Crisis Intervention Teams (ICIT), pepper spray, spit hoods, and escort, MCSCS maintained that their employee training and processes were not flawed.

In 2021, the Faqiri family continues to seek full transparency and accountability in a legal-medical system saturated in bureaucratic re-traumatization in the form of inaccuracies, coverups, waiting games, and blame tactics. Recent findings linked to the causes of Faqiri’s death are a turn in the right direction; however, much more needs to be done to break the cycle of violence and injustice.

The insanity of the system

While one might be tempted to think of Faqiri’s death as an institutional anomaly, the reality suggests that solitary confinement, institutional brutality, and racial profiling are linked to a lengthy list of names: Ashley Smith, Edward Snowshoe, Abdurahman Hassan, Justin St. Amour, Moses Amik Beaver, Matthew Hines, Jordan Sheard, Cleve Geddes, Yousef Hussein, Adam Kenneth Reed, Adam Capay, and Clayton Cromwell. How many more will it take before we transform a broken system euphemistically classified as “corrections?”

According to the Legal Information Institute, negligence refers to “a failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances.”

Consider: would a reasonable individual take a person diagnosed with schizophrenia to a jail, let alone a disreputable jail? Would a reasonable individual place a person diagnosed with schizophrenia into segregation? Would a reasonable individual participate in a gang-like beating of a person with a serious mental illness?

As a means of understanding this legal-medical recklessness, it helps to examine a report published three years before Faqiri’s death. In the Ombudsman Ontario report of 2013 titled The Code, Ontario’s watchdog mapped out a system oozing with concealment, silence, denial, and sanitization of undesirable incidents. The report documents the ways some guards use lies, annihilate records, make deals with inmates, and strategically conceal facts as a means of protecting themselves and their co-workers.

The report spells out the fact that the application of excessive force by some guards is not only illegal and inexcusable, but also an enduring aspect of a dysfunctional prison culture that needs to be urgently addressed. The report goes into disturbing detail about cases in which restrained and controlled inmates suffering from mental illness were subjected to head kicks and other harsh attacks.

The writing was on the wall years before Faqiri’s death. Clear steps needed to be taken to prevent the ongoing victimization of people with mental illness. What we have is a negligent system that routinely ignores evidence-based measures.

The capacity to move forward

When I first learned about Faqiri’s case in 2020, my immediate reaction was to contact Soleiman’s brother Yusuf Faqiri to see if there was anything I could do to support his family’s struggle. During our initial conversation, I realized that I was talking to someone who was, on one hand, deeply shattered by the circumstances of his brother’s death, and on the other, filled with a unique love for humanity and an unshakable passion to transform a dehumanizing prison system incapable of protecting the most vulnerable members of our society.

To this day, I remain committed to the Justice for Soli Movement and believe, alongside countless other people and organizations, that people with mental illness deserve much more than jails, flogs, handcuffs, spit hoods, gang-like beatings, and death. It is time to end the consistency of cruelty in Canadian jails.

Source: Konyari, Jozef. “Soleiman Faqiri and the consistency of cruelty in Canadian jails.” Rabble.ca, 12 Aug. 2021. Retrieved from: https://rabble.ca/human-rights/soleiman-faqiri-and-consistency-cruelty-canadian-jails/.

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