OTTAWA-
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino today issued new guidelines on the use of “dry cells” to prevent inmates from bringing contraband into federal prisons.
Prisoners suspected of concealing contraband, such as drugs, in their bodies are held in a cell with no sanitation facilities on the assumption that all items will be expelled.
Ministerial Direction to the Correctional Service of Canada requires prisons to provide written justification when inmates are held in such cells for more than two days.
It also requires the service to consider the “physical and mental well-being” of offenders when assessing this justification.
In this year’s budget, the federal government banned the practice for women suspected of carrying contraband in their vaginas, in response to a Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruling last year that found the practice illegal.
But critics, including Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger, have condemned the use of dry cells for any prisoner as too restrictive and demeaning.
Mendicino’s directive requires that written notice and justification be provided to regional headquarters when a prisoner is expected to be in a dry cell for more than 48 hours, and to national headquarters when it exceeds 72 hours.
The directive further specifies that detainees should be provided with adequate bedding, nutritious food, clothing and toiletries.
Zinger said in his 2020 annual report that three days is too long, writing that in his opinion, “beyond 72 hours, there can be no other reason or justification for detaining or keeping a person under such depriving conditions”, and “after three days, this procedure surely becomes unreasonable, if not strictly punitive.”
At the time, the Correctional Service of Canada rejected that recommendation, saying some people could avoid having a bowel movement longer than that.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 29, 2022.