The Wrong Question

Breese Davis in this month's edition of the Walrus, in just under two pages, succinctly sums up the issue of the Canada correctional system's poor handling of individuals who live with a mental illness. As part of that exercise he list a few of the 104 recommendations made by the coroner's inquest into the death of Ashley Smith. They are fine recommendations but that inquest and in fact the whole article asked the wrong question. It is not surprising therefore that the recommendations have not been implemented . As long as we continue to ask what we can do to help people who live with a mental illness and who have been incarcerated within our provincial and federal correctional system - the solutions will be at best unworkable. The fact that there are so many people incarcerated who are struggling with mental health issues is only a symptom of the problem. The question that we should be asking is - why are there so many people struggling with mental health issues being incarcerated and what can we do about that?

A number of years ago, in another life, I spent a lot of time in court. I was at that time working for a community based agency that supported some individuals who had a dual diagnosis. That is - individuals who had been labelled both as being developmentally challenged and as having a mental illness. On occasion some of those individuals committed a crime. Most of the crimes were of the nuisance variety although occasionally the charges were more serious. Some of their activities put themselves at risk. Again and again I attended court with these individuals, trying to get the defence lawyers, the Crown and the judges to be creative in their sentencing. Again and again the lawyers wanted me and my colleagues to provide treatment solutions.

There were no solutions. What few programs there were, were underfunded and had extensive waiting lists. There were times when we recommended that jail time be given to the individual in the hopes that some consistent structure and some sort of program would be better than anything available in the community. I can remember clearly when a judge, in open court, expressed his frustration at seeing one of my clients for the umpteenth time by saying " stop using my court as a behavioural management program!". He was right - in the absence of anything else - I along with many of my colleagues across the province were attempting to manipulate the courts to get services for people. It was inappropriate for us to do so - but we were desperate to find any solution that made an individual's life safer.

In the twenty or so years since that judge's comments, nothing has changed. There are still not enough services to support people who are living with a mental illness. According to the Globe and Mail, a Corrections Canada report in 2009 suggested that 33% of all women and 10% of all men incarcerated had a mental health problem. More recent reports suggest that those numbers have only increased. People are being convicted and sent to jail because there are insufficient  supports in the community. Canadian jails are being used as behaviour management tools because there are no programs in the community.

I, along with many social service workers were delighted when the government announced that they were going to close institutions. Some of us had spent years fighting for that very decision. However, we were told that all of that funding, and more would flow into the community to provide the necessary supports. That never happened. The community members who needed special support s lost access to intuitional programs - but nothing was made to replace it.

The issue of people who struggle with mental health issues in Canadian prisons will not go away until we provide community based, treatment options for them. Pouring money into the correctional system to fabricate  programs will only mask the problem. The solution does not lie within the correctional system because the problem originates within the community.

As long as we only deal with the symptoms - we will never create the solutions.