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v o i c e s Newsletter of the Psychiatric

Survivor Archives of Toronto

………………………………………………………………………...

Searching for Fred Unearthing ancestral truths in the Archives of Ontario

By Louise Bark and Ruth Ruth Stackhouse

ave you ever wondered how to search for the past medical history of a loved one? Well,

PSAT Board Member Ruth Ruth Stackhouse did. As a student in the Critical Disability Studies program at York University, one of her assignments was to join the Archives of Ontario and search for source material that was relevant to her study. Since her study was Mad People’s History, she took the opportunity to search for her Great Uncle Fred. Family folklore held that Fred, her maternal grandmother’s older brother, had died in an Ontario mental hospital of a broken heart—but, as a psychiatric survivor, she knew there had to be more to

the story. Her assignment gave her the perfect opportunity to dig for answers.

Since 1903, the Archives of Ontario have been collecting, managing, and preserving Government of Ontario records, including medical records. If she were to find a record of Fred, it surely would be here. Ruth Ruth said that joining the Archives of Ontario was easy. Much of the application process could be done online; however, most material documents had to be accessed in person. The staff at the Archives of Ontario were extremely helpful and they suggested she search the Psychiatric Patient Master Index system to verify if and when her Great Uncle had been institutionalized.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

H

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You Don’t Speak for Me! An Unpublished Letter to the Toronto Star

By Don Weitz Dear Editor,

I strongly object to the recent letter by June Beeby (“Leave mental health care to experts,” June 29, 2012).

Beeby, a self-appointed spokesperson for people labelled “schizophrenic” and their families, continues parroting the psychiatric myth that schizophrenia is a “brain disease” or “physical disease,” yet cites no scientific study to support her belief—because, contrary to popular belief, no such study exists. To paraphrase the internationally respected dissident psychiatrist and critic Thomas Szasz, “schizophrenia” is a strategic label like “Jew” in Nazi Germany; its social-political purpose is to get rid of people whose “weird” or “strange” behaviour others can’t or refuse to understand. Dr. Peter Breggin, another respected dissident psychiatrist, has pointed out that people labelled schizophrenic are not medically diseased but going through an existential crisis.

I was once labelled “schizophrenic” while trying to deal with an identity crisis when I was a twenty year-old college student in the early 1950s. Two months after being locked up in Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, I was forcibly drugged with 110 insulin subcoma shock treatments and released 15 months later with severe anxiety attacks.

After psychiatrists tortured and traumatized me, I was helped by friends—peer support, which Beeby dismisses as ineffective.

It’s time to get rid of “schizophrenia” and all the other unscientific and stigmatizing labels in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychiatry’s bible of character assassinations.

Don Weitz Antipsychiatry activist and author ■

October 2013

Vol. 4, No. 3

Co-Chairs

Louise Bark

Emily MacNaughton

Co-Archivists

Erick Fabris

Christina Foisy

Co-Treasurers

Tracy Lynne Mack

Ruth Ruth Stackhouse

Secretary

Hilda Smith

Additional Board Members

Maria Das

Kevin Jackson

Heinz Klein

Managing Editor

Eugenia Tsao

Photographs on front page are

courtesy of “Raysonho,” via the

Wikimedia Commons.

Psychiatric Survivor

Archives of Toronto

(PSAT)

100 Charles St. East

Toronto, ON

M4Y 1V3

(416) 661-9975

info@psychiatricsurvivorarchives.com

psychiatricsurvivorarchives.com

In this issue

Searching for Fred: Unearthing Ancestral Truths in the Archives of Ontario (Louise Bark and Ruth Ruth Stackhouse) • You Don’t Speak for Me! An Unpublished Letter to the Toronto Star (Don Weitz) • Planning vs. Human Rights? The Case of Minimum Separation Distances (Lilith “Chava” Finkler) • How Canada’s Prison System Killed Ashley Smith: A Case Report on Canada’s War Against Rebellious Youth (Don Weitz)

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PPllaannnniinngg vvss.. HHuummaann RRiigghhttss??

TTHHEE CCAASSEE OOFF MMIINNIIMMUUMM SSEEPPAARRAATTIIOONN DDIISSTTAANNCCEESS

BY LILITH “CHAVA” FINKLER

unicipal bylaws, written thirty years ago by progressive planners, can be viewed as discriminatory today. For

example, municipalities enacted bylaws to ensure group homes and other forms of housing for persons with disabilities could be located in their jurisdiction. In the 1970s and 80s, as provinces implemented deinstitutionalization, bylaws regulating group homes were seen as positive developments by disability advocates. Today, thirty years later, these same bylaws can cause consternation and conflict between persons with disabilities and planners.

We see this tension between the past and the present in a human rights case currently before the courts. The Dream Team, a housing advocacy group comprised of psychiatric survivors (persons with a psychiatric disability), insists that minimum separation distance bylaws discriminate against persons with disabilities. The City of Toronto denies that claim. Separation distance bylaws, a common planning instrument, are typically applied to separate incompatible land uses. Distance bylaws, used in Ontario and (in some, but not all, other Canadian provinces), also state that group homes, residential care facilities and other forms of housing for persons with disabilities must be a specific distance away from housing of a similar function. The Dream Team argues that this second type of separation

distance bylaw discriminates against persons with disabilities. Homes for non-disabled persons are not subject to a separation distance.

In January 2012, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) issued an interim decision and ruled that the Dream Team could present the substance of their human rights complaint. However, in March, the City of Toronto filed an application for judicial review in Divisional Court. The City argues there is no evidence that persons with disabilities have experienced discrimination as a result of the bylaws and, further, that the HRTO does not have jurisdiction to hear the case. Rather, Toronto lawyers assert arguments should be heard before the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), the provincial tribunal adjudicating land use disputes. The City asks the courts to declare that the complaint should be heard not by the HRTO, but by the OMB. If the courts concur with this assertion, the Dream Team could be forced to present their arguments anew. The prospect of lengthy and expensive litigation looms large on the horizon.

Two Perspectives Municipalities typically justify the use of separation distances by describing design considerations such as the need to separate

FINKLER, CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

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This article was originally published in the summer 2012 issue of Plan Canada (vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 21-25). PSAT gratefully acknowledges Plan Canada and the Canadian Institute of Planners for permitting us to reprint it.

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Searching for Fred — CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

To conduct a search of this system

however, she needed to obtain

special permission. The Freedom

of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, 1990, and other privacy legislation, restricts access to

records 100 years old and younger. Ruth Ruth said her best guess at the dates of Fred’s incarceration

was between 1920 and 1940. She wrote a letter to the Information and Privacy Unit of the Archives,

expressed her intent, and asked if a search could be conducted. This request was granted and within a

few weeks she was told Fred’s card had been found. A photocopy of the record was given to her.

Between 1870 and 1975, a Master Index Card was maintained for every patient admitted into an

Ontario psychiatric institution. The purpose of the card was to create a patient identity reference to

locate and check a person’s movement in the system. ‘Form 501’ is pre-printed in the bottom right

corner of the form. Centred on the top are two lines that read:

CENTRAL REGISTRY ONTARIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH – MENTAL HEALTH DIVISON

In preordained little boxes categorizing specific details are the name of the patient, their birth date,

marital status, address, and details of their admission. Ruth Ruth saw that her Uncle’s full name was

typed in as Frederic James Foote. He was born on December 6 th 1888. He was married and lived at 183

Fern Avenue in Toronto. On May 3rd 1931 he was admitted into the Toronto Psychiatric Hospital. On

June 16th 1931, he was released. On July 31st 1931 he was admitted again and was confined until August

18th 1931. On January 30th 1932, Fred was admitted into Whitby Psychiatric Hospital and he was never

released. On July 12th 1933, Fred’s index card stated with a rubber stamp, “DECEASED.” He was only

44 years old. The card, displayed below, shows very little else in the way of detail.

When interviewing Ruth Ruth for this article, I couldn’t help but think, “they didn’t even give

him the dignity of an identity by listing his father’s name in one of those little boxes.” Instead, they

wrote Whitby PH

(Psychiatric Hospital)

in the box. It was as

though the Hospital saw

themselves as the

“father.” How sad that

no effort was made to

identify who his ‘real’

father was.

The sparse details

led Ruth Ruth to search

for yet another form:

Fred’s certificate of

death. It too was stored

on microfilm at the

Archives of Ontario.

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In 1869, civil registration in Ontario made it mandatory to record all births, marriages and deaths

within the province of Ontario. This information must be reported to the provincial government, kept

for permanent record, and archived (Roberts 2013). In the case of death certificates, the Office of the

Ontario Registrar General holds the information for 70 years and then transfers it to the Archives of

Ontario, where it is stored on microfilm. When Fred died, a mandatory certificate of death was issued

and it eventually found its way to the Archives of Ontario. That’s how Ruth Ruth was able to find it

when she took the time to uncover the secret truth about her great Uncle Fred.

The term ‘death certificate’ can describe a document issued by a medical doctor certifying that a

person is deceased, or it can be signed by an authority registering the person in the historical populace.

In 1933, efficient Ontario used Form 6 (as it is referred to) to serve both purposes. Unlike Fred’s index

card, his certificate of death was filled in by hand.

The form listed 20 numbered items ranging from ‘Place of Death’ to ‘Did an operation precede

death?’ Like the index card, the certificate of death is officious and ambiguous. They are records that

are designed by institutions for institutions, for the purpose of gathering cold statistics and complying

with law. They illustrate a web of government bureaucracy. However, death certificates also provide

more details that can breathe life into impersonal medical index cards. This is what the death

certificate looked like:

If you look closely, you

can see that Fred was an

express clerk for railroad.

He was married and he

lived with his wife, Edith,

in a house in a middle-

class neighbourhood in

Toronto. His parents,

Isabel and Oliver, lived

not too far away.

All I could think,

as I assimilated this

information shared by

Ruth Ruth, was that Fred

was a living, breathing,

‘normal’ human being—a

man who had been well

enough to work, raise a

family, and even afford a

house in a decent

neighbourhood. “How,” I thought to myself, “could he have fallen so far and lost so much?” Ruth Ruth

said she could relate to Fred because she came from a middle-class family. Actually, I suppose I can too

because I, too, am a survivor.

Upon further research, Ruth Ruth found a quote that seemed to reflect what we both were

thinking: “Members of the middle class that offend against, react or who are unable to cope with the

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“Why, then, was the exhaustion

that Fred experienced attributed to an ‘acute mental disease’

instead of bronchial pnemonia?” Could it be that, because he was

in a mental institution, there was a need to record his cause of death

as something related to that?

values of alienation, individualism, competitiveness, and striving for success, are seen as a threat to the

class values and therefore the class position” (Irwin et al., in Curtis et al. 2000: 26). Was this why Fred

had been sent away?

Dr. Stevenson, Fred’s doctor, noted as the primary cause of death, “exhaustion of acute mental

disease.” The secondary condition was named as bronchial pneumonia. What?! Now it’s time to ask

questions. As a non-medical professional and outside observer, even I could see something was weird. I

know pneumonia can kill. I also know pneumonia can put a person flat on their back, especially before

the era of the antibiotics. When illness strikes, a body’s

natural defense mechanisms kick in to fight off illness.

This is what makes you tired when you’re sick. Why,

then, was the exhaustion that Fred experienced

attributed to an “acute mental disease” instead of

bronchial pnemonia? Could it be that, because he was in

a mental institution, there was a need to record his cause

of death as something related to that?

Where was the humanity when naming the true

cause of death? Why were choices made to relegate Ruth

Ruth’s Great Uncle Fred into one who had no birth

father named and as one who was a mere faceless and

impersonal mentally ill, not physically ill, statistic?

With a stroke of a pen, Whitby Psychiatric Hospital managed to dehumanize her Uncle Fred by using

a vague description—one that typically supports the medical model and didn’t describe the real truth.

By doing this research, Ruth Ruth said she was able to paint for herself a more realistic and

humane picture of her uncle. He is now no longer is a faceless statistic of one who died seemingly alone

(and perhaps unloved) of a broken heart. Thanks to the Archives, Ruth Ruth now knows her Great

Uncle Fred was a person of substance with a family, a house, and a job, no different from anyone else.

By learning how to search archives, such as the Archives of Ontario and the Psychiatric

Survivor Archives of Toronto, one can learn more about the past lives of psychiatric survivors and

psychiatric patients. More importantly, by reading those files and thinking critically, we can all learn

the importance of changing how we report things, so the truth is revealed and some dignity can be

brought back into the lives of loved ones. ■

References Archives of Ontario Government Record Series RG 10320, Psychiatric Inpatient Master Index Card – Frederick James Foote, 1933.

Archives of Ontario, Index to Deaths 1869-1938, M5937, Reel 21, Form G, Certificate of death Frederick James Foote.

Irwin E., et al., 1974. “The Fish Pamphlet' : The Need for a Mental Patients Union.” In Mad Pride: A Celebration of Mad Culture. Curtis et al., 2000, ChipmunkaPublishing.

Roberts, 2013, Death Certificates in Ontario <www.olivetreegeneology.com>

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FINKLER, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

incompatible uses and the benefits of community integration for persons with disabilities. Separating manure storage facilities from residential developments in rural areas protects homeowners from noxious odours. Separation of land uses in the agricultural context supports farming sustainability and improves health of local citizens. Similarly, some planners insist municipalities separate single family dwellings from group homes as the two uses may also be incompatible. For example, small families typically shop at local groceries. Group homes may receive bulk food supplies from delivery trucks, causing excessive noise.

Planners may also support separation distance bylaws in the belief they facilitate community integration. Planners argue that dispersing group homes encourages relationships between tenants with disabilities and non-disabled neighbours. In the latter argument, separation distances are good for persons with disabilities. In the former, separation distances are good for everyone else.

In contrast, the Dream Team asserts that persons with disabilities want to live in residential areas, like non-disabled persons. By imposing separation distance requirements on disability-specific forms of housing, the City effectively restricts the location and number of persons with disabilities who can live in any one neighbourhood. The Dream Team also argues that separation distance bylaws make it difficult for housing providers to locate an appropriate development site, particularly in central locations, close to public amenities and social services. Housing providers may be forced to appeal denial of a development permit to an appellate body such as the OMB, leading to increased legal costs and lengthier development timelines. Government funds initially allocated to bricks and mortar may be diverted to pay legal fees. Ultimately, litigation can result in decreased housing for persons with disabilities. The Dream Team argues, then, that minimum separation distances constitute a barrier for

persons with disabilities and cause economic difficulty for housing providers.

A Disability-Centred Response In assessing the arguments, we must examine underlying assumptions. First, the legal definition of “group home” in Ontario permits between three and ten inhabitants. Shopping patterns may depend on size. Group home tenants may shop locally. There does not appear to be empirical evidence that group home tenants buy in bulk disproportionate to the general population.

Second, “community integration” is perceived to facilitate relationships between persons with disabilities and non-disabled persons. However, some research suggests that being in the “community” has resulted in social isolation for persons with disabilities as they are no longer in contact with one another and are either overtly

rejected or ignored by non-disabled neighbours. Indeed, non-disabled homeowners have constructed high fences, double layered trellises or even frosted their windows specifically to block sightlines with adjoining

disability-related housing. Non-disabled homeowners sometimes wish to avoid seeing persons with disabilities.

Favouring community integration over social solidarity also assumes that non-disabled persons know better what is best for persons with disabilities than persons with disabilities know themselves. This “I know what’s good for you” attitude suggests condescension.

Using community integration to justify dispersal of group homes also negates the importance of relationships between persons with disabilities. The dramatic increase in peer support groups provides a persuasive reply to planners’ dispersal recommendations. Peer support facilitates community organizing—and can lower rates of re-hospitalization.

Finally, the concept of community integration incorporates the idea of normalcy, the idea that some persons embody conventional behaviours and others do not. In that analytical framework, persons with disabilities integrating

As sociologist Erving Goffman, states, “the normal and the stigmatized are not persons,

but rather perspectives.”

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with non-disabled others would learn, as if by osmosis, socially accepted behaviour. However, as sociologist Erving Goffman states, “the normal and the stigmatized are not persons, but rather perspectives.” The suggestion that community integration of persons with disabilities with non-disabled persons will lead to social betterment for the former group belies a lack of acceptance of the unique contributions persons with disabilities can offer.

As a result of a lower labour force participation rate and the corresponding higher poverty rate, persons with disabilities are disproportionately likely to live in subsidized housing or in “affordable” private market accommodation. Group homes and boarding homes (housing in which tenants share a bedroom with others and pay for both food and rent) are common forms of accommodation for psychiatric survivors or persons with developmental disabilities, especially those discharged from institutional settings.

This article does not claim that group homes are an ideal form of housing. Tenants with disabilities have indicated a strong preference for privacy, a wish to control who enters their home and from whom they receive support services. Scholars whose research investigates housing preferences note that the majority of persons with disabilities wish to reside in their own apartments rather than in congregate settings.

However, persons with disabilities, like some members of various ethno-specific groups, may prefer to live in proximity to others who share their disability experience. They do not necessarily wish to live in the same house but rather, want to be within walking distance of one another. For example, some psychiatric survivors in Toronto prefer to live in Parkdale (an area known for its psychiatric survivor population) because of the sense of community they find amongst peers and because of the proximity to social services. Implementation

of minimum separation distance requirements may mean psychiatric survivor friends living in boarding homes cannot be close to one another. If persons of similar cultural heritage, sexual orientation or religious practice can live in the same vicinity, persons with disabilities ought to be able to do so as well.

As planners, we must regulate the land use, rather than the users. Housing for persons with disabilities may be structurally no different than housing for non-disabled persons. While group homes may house up to ten inhabitants, extended families may also live together. Minimum separation distances can be helpful in separating incompatible uses but applying the planning instrument to disperse concentrations of persons with disabilities suggests discriminatory intent. ■ Acknowledgements Thanks to Professor Jill Grant for her helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Lilith “Chava” Finkler, Ph.D., is a planner, former Trudeau Scholar and Postdoctoral Fellow at Memorial University. Lilith is the author of many articles regarding disability, law and town planning, and researched the use of minimum separation distances for six years. She can be reached at

lfinkler@mun.ca Example of affordable housing project that went to the OMB because homeowners next door thought tenants who would live in the building would be able to see in their windows. Photo credit: Chava Finkler.

An illustration of how non-disabled neighbours wish to create distance from prospective tenants. Photo credit: Chava Finkler

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How

Canada’s

Prison

System

Killed

Ashley

Smith

A Case Report on Canada’s

War against Rebellious Youth

By Don Weitz

anadian prisons—euphemistically, the

Correctional Service of Canada (CSC)—

are essentially torture chambers and

death traps. Thousands of women prisoners

are self-harming by cutting or slashing their

arms and other parts of their bodies; many

others are driven to suicide. Their reasons are

many, tragic, and preventable.

This is a brief report about Ashley

Smith. Born in Moncton, New Brunswick, in

1988 and adopted as a young child, Ashley

was a very troubled and rebellious teenager.

By the time she was thirteen, she was getting

into trouble in school—she frequently

refused to attend or dropped out. On one

occasion, Ashley was charged with the crime

of “throwing crab apples at a postal worker,”

convicted and sentenced to a youth

detention jail in New Brunswick. This so-

called “crime” incredibly led to three years in

youth detention cells and one year in the

CSC. Throwing crab apples was obviously just

a childish prank but officials in the youth

criminal justice system and the CSC callously

and incompetently thought otherwise.

Prison guards, “correctional officers”,

correctional managers, psychologists, and

psychiatrists all psychiatrized Ashley’s

youthful rebelliousness as “acting out,” and

viewed her as a behaviour or “mental health”

problem. Initially locked up in one or more

New Brunswick youth detention centres for

three years, she was severely punished for

being “non-compliant” and frequently thrown

into segregation cells (solitary confinement)

for months or longer for resisting staff and

institutional rules.

Apparently, there is no record of any

youth detention, CSC staff or health

professional making any effort to understand

Ashley’s “non-compliant” behaviour as a form

of youth rebellion or to understand her

“acting out” as an expression of her struggle

with an identity crisis—a very common

development in adolescence. Ashley was

trying to find herself, to discover who she was

by asserting herself and stubbornly standing

her ground. The youth detention staff and

CSC’s correctional staff demonstrated

shockingly little insight into a young person’s

C

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common and understandable need to push

back against authority. They instead sought

to control Ashley up to and even beyond her

death. Nor did they offer her any form of

emotional or community support, let alone

release from imprisonment. They also failed

to inform Ashley of her rights,

especially human rights. The

CSC’s rules, regulations, and

“treatment” proved to be huge

obstacles: a lethal combination

of segregation cells (solitary

confinement), four-point physical

restraints, physical assault (“use

of force incidents”), contradictory

messages, forced psychiatric

drugging, and forced transfers to

other prisons all fueled Ashley’s

self-harm and eventual suicide.

When she was eighteen,

after being imprisoned for

almost three years in New

Brunswick’s youth detention

system, Ashley was thrown into segregation

for another year after refusing to submit to

CSC rules and cooperate with its

management and “treatment plans.” She was

soon transferred to still more prisons and

psychoprisons (psychiatric facilities). Since

youth detention staff couldn’t control her,

they wanted to get rid of her. From 2006 to

2007—the last twelve months of Ashley’s

life—they transferred her seventeen times

from the youth criminal justice system into

the adult criminal system. By this time,

Ashley had been labeled, stigmatized, and

mistreated as a “difficult” and “challenging”

inmate with a tendency to “act out.”

Numerous psychologists and psychiatrists, as

well as correctional managers, were complicit

in further labeling and demonizing her as

having “Borderline Personality Disorder”—an

unscientific grab-bag diagnosis reserved for

women—mainly because she was self-

harming by cutting and tying cloth ligatures

around her neck.

While Ashley was constantly locked up

in segregation and frequently restrained—in

addition to four-point

restraints, she was

sometimes tortured in

a device called a

“restraint chair”—

guards frequently

entered her cell to cut

the ligatures she had

tied around her neck

or to assault her

(officially recorded as

“use of force

incidents”). Given the

circumstances of her

imprisonment, this

undoubtedly made

Ashley feel more

threatened and defiant. Like a caged animal,

she lashed out in order to assert and protect

herself. Even more alarmingly—yet quite

understandably—Ashley was becoming more

desperate and suicidal. She flatly refused

CSC’s proposed treatment plan of “intensive

intervention,” such as “dialectical behaviour

therapy” (a euphemism for behaviour

modification based on rewards and

punishments such as removing “privileges,”

i.e., violating prisoners’ human rights) and

psychosocial rehabilitation (relevant and

helpful only if the person free in the

community). Locked up in continual

segregation with no peers or fellow prisoners

to talk with and sometimes even denied the

“privilege” of a pen and paper with which to

write, she correctly perceived prison guards,

psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses as

Locked up in continual

segregation with no peers or

fellow prisoners to talk with

and sometimes even denied

the “privilege” of a pen and

paper with which to write,

Ashley correctly perceived

prison guards, psychiatrists,

psychologists and nurses as

repressive social controllers

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repressive social controllers and brutal

oppressors—what Ken Kesey called

“the machine” in One Flew Over the

Cuckoo’s Nest.

uring the last eleven to twelve

months of her life, the CSC

transferred Ashley seventeen

times to nine different institutions in

five different provinces (see sidebar).

These forced moves must have caused

her severe anxiety and trauma. Ashley

was overtly suicidal and on “suicide

watch” months before choking herself

to death with another cloth ligature

on October 19th 2007 in

“dysfunctional” Grand Valley Institute

for Women (GVI) in Kitchener, Ontario.

She was nineteen years old.

The coroner’s inquest into

Ashley‘s death, under the direction of Dr.

John Carlisle, finally began in early 2013—

after the Canadian prison guards’ union

delayed the start of the inquest for over a

year by withholding videos of physical

assault, pepper-spraying, physical restraints

tantamount to torture (recall the "restraint

chair”), forced drugging and other

dehumanizing evidence of guard brutality

against Ashley. Thanks to Coroner John

Carlisle, the graphic and disturbing videos

were eventually screened in court.

According to independent reports by

Federal Correctional Investigator Howard

Sapers, during the final twelve months of her

life, Ashley was “shuttled through nine

different institutions across five provinces

before landing in Kitchener and spent most

of that time in a segregated cell wearing

nothing but a padded suicide gown.” 1, 2

These institutional moves took place every

three to four weeks—a series of institution-

initiated traumas inflicted by prison wardens

and correctional managers who couldn’t

control and wanted to rid themselves of

“inmate Ashley.” The transfers also

undermined any possibility of “continuity of

care”—they were a form of torture, as she

ended up in a segregation cell in each and

every prison. In fact, Ashley spent four

consecutive years in segregation cells: three

years in youth detention, one year in the

CSC. These prisons and psychoprisons

included the following hellholes: Grand Valley

Institute for Women (Kitchener, Ontario);

Institut Philippe-Pinel Mental Health Unit for

Women (Montreal, Quebec); Nova Institution

for Women, a CSC prison in (Truro, Nova

Scotia); Joliette Institution, a CSC prison

(Joliette, Quebec); St. Thomas Psychiatric

Hospital (St. Thomas, Ontario); Grand Valley

Hospital; Regional Psychiatric Centre

(Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), and others. 3

According to the inquest testimony of

several correctional officers and senior mana-

D

The CSC’s Transfers of Ashley Smith October 2006 – October 2007

Oct. 31 - Dec. 19/06 Nova Institution for Women (NS)

Dec. 19 - 20/06 Joliette Institution (Que)

Dec. 20/06 - Apr.12/07 Regional Psychiatric Centre (Sask)

Apr. 12 - May 10/07 Institut Phillipe Pinel (Montreal, Que)

May 10 June 7/07 Valley Institute (ON)

June 7 - 11 /07 Grand River Hospital (ON)

June 11 - 19/07 St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital (ON)

June 19 - 26/07 Grand Valley Inst., Grand River

Hospital (ON)

June 27 - July 26/07 Joliette Institution (Que)

July 26 - Aug.31/07 Nova Institution for Women (NS)

Aug. 31- Oct.19/07 Grand Valley Institute (ON)

Sept. 6/07 Grand River Hospital (ON)

Compiled by lawyer Richard Macklin

12

-gement staff at GVI and Regional

Headquarters, Ashley frequently tried to

choke herself until “her face was blue or

purple.” To escape detection, she hid the

cloth ligature and/or a piece of glass inside

her body on several occasions. On one

occasion, GVI forcibly transferred Ashley to

St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital where

medical or mental health staff tried but failed

to find any glass after strip-searching her.

Ashley sometimes cut pieces of cloth from

her “paper gown,” a degrading dress that

CSC managers force suicidal women

prisoners to wear.

Correctional managers’ orders to

guards frequently undermined the CSC’s

stated policy of “preserving life” of prisoners,

proving that this policy is a cruel sham. For

example, several orders issued by email from

GVI’s Acting Warden Cindy Berry and Deputy

Warden Joanna Pauline were confusing,

irrational and maddening—such as Berry’s

insistence that there was “no need to enter”

Ashley segregation cell if she was “still

breathing, walking or talking,” even if her face

had turned “blue or purple.” At the same

time, guards were ordered to enter her cell if

Ashley was in “medical distress,” a key term

that was vaguely defined by correctional

managers and frequently misinterpreted by

guards. However, when some concerned

guards disobeyed or ignored Warden Cindy

Berry’s “don’t enter” directives by entering

Ashley’s cell while she was breathing and

cutting the ligature around her neck, Berry

irrationally and irresponsibly criticized them

for their “excessive use of force.” At the

inquest, Berry testified that correctional

officers were supposedly trained to use their

“judgment” or common sense to recognize

whether prisoners who showed signs of

“medical distress” (such as turning blue or

purple and gasping for breath) were at risk of

imminent harm or death. Some guards were

understandably confused and hesitated to

enter the cell even when Ashley was lying on

the cell floor barely breathing; others

believed Ashley just “wanted more attention”

or was being “manipulative.”

By September 2007, approximately six

weeks before her death Ashley was overtly

suicidal: she had made daily attempts to

strangle herself with a ligature in plain view

of correction officers and with the knowledge

of GVI’s wardens. The “waiting game” that

correctional officers played by failing to enter

Ashley’s cell while her face was turning blue

or purple was obviously irresponsible, cruel,

and dangerous.

At the inquest, Elizabeth Fry Executive

Director Kim Pate, who visited Ashley a

number of times in 2007, testified that on

September 24th 2007, Ashley filed two written

complaints of guard abuses addressed to GVI

Warden Cindy Berry but they were never

delivered—they were found in a box months

after her death. Pate also testified that Ashley

should not have been kept in segregation;

instead she could have benefited from “peer

support” in the prison and the community.

However, peer support and other community

alternatives to youth detention centres and

prisons (e.g., women-centered and controlled

crisis centres, healing houses, safe supportive

houses) were discussed for only two or three

hours during the entire inquest. Had any

been offered to her, and had she given her

consent, Ashley would probably be alive

today.

Two weeks before her death at GVI,

Ashley became much more depressed,

hopeless and overtly suicidal; she made

additional suicide attempts after being

charged and convicted of physically assault-

13

-ing some guards, and sentenced to six

additional months when she was about to be

paroled. Her hopes for release were dashed,

her spirit totally crushed. So, on October 19th

2007, hopeless, in despair, and on “suicide

watch” in a GVI segregation cell, Ashley

strangled herself to death with another

ligature tied around her neck while guards

stood and watched. The guards refused to

enter her cell while following Warden Cindy

Berry’s order, ”don’t enter if she’s breathing.”

They didn’t notice or didn’t care when Ashley

had stopped breathing for several minutes.

Ashley’s parents want a public inquiry

because of compelling

video and other evidence

of criminal and medical

negligence and

inhumane treatment:

indefinite solitary

confinement, four-point

restraints, “the restraint

chair”, forced drugging,

lack of “mental health”

care, strip searches, and

physical assaults by

prison guards with the

complicity of their

managers. The brutal

tactics of institutional

emergency response teams (IERTs), who wore

Darth Vader masks and wielded heavy plastic

shields, against Ashley were videotaped and

shown in court. Also worth noting was, and is,

CSC’s systemic and inexcusable failures to

share critical information, especially on “high

risk” prisoners. According to the testimony of

a former senior mental health manager at

CSC’s National Headquarters, guards were

involved in “150 use of force” incidents

involving Ashley, “43%” of which happened

weeks before her death. Knowledge of these

incidents were not widely accessible or

shared amongst most managerial levels.

Ashley’s use of ligatures went unrecognized

as an anguished, desperate cry for help.

Underlying reasons were overlooked or

totally ignored by correctional managers and

other prison officials including senior staff at

CSC’s Regional and National Headquarters, as

well as regional and national commissioners.

t’s time for an independent public

investigation into all federal and provincial

prisons, as well as youth assessment and

detention centres. Inquest and jury

recommendations, no

matter how well-

intentioned, are not

enough to arouse

national public concern

and government action.

Future recommendations

of the Coroner’s Jury into

Ashley’s death should

make infuriating reading,

especially those that

promote the discredited

medical model and myth

of “mental illness.”

During the inquest, it

was hard to remain silent

while Ashley was psychiatrized in death with

unscientific and stigmatizing labels like

“personality disorder” and “borderline

personality disorder.” Psychiatrists and

psychologists labeled Ashley after little or no

medical examination while she was alive, their

bogus labels accepted and repeated

thereafter as medical facts—“symptoms of a

mental disorder”—by most inquest lawyers. A

psychiatrist who briefly interviewed Ashley at

the Pinel psychoprison (“mental health unit”)

in Montreal labeled her as having “anti-social

I

CSC’s mental health professionals

failed to grasp that the “mental

health treatment” they

repeatedly advocated during the

inquest would simply have meant

more forced drugging, more

restraints, more oppression, more

“use of force” against Ashley

14

behaviour disorder.” Significantly and

incompetently, CSC’s mental health

professionals failed to recognize her

“disorders” as human life crises, dissident

behaviour and social protest—and failed

even to grasp that the “mental health

treatment” they repeatedly advocated during

the inquest would simply have meant more

forced drugging, more restraints, more

oppression, more “use of force” against

Ashley and other non-conforming prisoners.

The Harper government’s “get tough on

crime” policy that legislates building more

prisons, mandatory and longer prison

sentences have directly and irresponsibly

contributed to the epidemic of overcrowding

(“double-bunking”), solitary confinement,

suicide, and violence in virtually all federal

prisons. What’s needed is not “prison reform”

but prison abolition and community

alternatives.

Whatever the five-woman Coroner’s

Jury recommends, Ontario’s Coroner’s Act

legally forbids the coroner and jury to blame

or charge any correctional officers and other

witnesses who testify at inquests.

Nevertheless, I accuse youth detention staff,

CSC correctional guards and managers of

criminally restraining and segregating Ashley;

I accuse institutional psychiatrists and

psychologists of labeling her with bogus,

identity-destroying and stigmatizing

diagnostic labels; I accuse CSC managers and

staff of driving Ashley to kill herself by cruelly

abusing her—and then wilfully neglecting her

numerous suicide attempts.

Ashley Smith’s suicide was not

accidental. It was predictable and

preventable. CSC helped to kill her. Of course,

this conclusion won’t be mentioned in the

Coroner Jury’s recommendations expected in

November. The inquest continues, as do

more suicides of women prisoners in

Canada’s prisons. There are and will be many

other Ashley Smiths—a national shame, a

national crime. ■

Notes 1 Howard Sapers. Report of Correctional

Investigator Howard Sapers and CSC National

Board of Investigation into the Death of an Inmate

at Grand Valley Institution for Women on October

19, 2007 (February 2008). http://www.oci-

bec.gc.ca/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20080620-eng.aspx

2 “Ashley Smith Case: Secrecy surrounds suicide

case,” Toronto Star, September 3, 2010.

3 Thanks to Child and Youth Advocate Lee Tustin

and lawyer Richard Macklin for this information,

Personal communication, September 30, 2013.

Recommended Reading Armstrong, Louise. 1993. And They Call It Help:

Psychiatric Policing of American Children. New York:

Addison-Wesley.

Breggin, Peter R., & Ginger Ross Breggin. 1994. The

War Against Children. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

LeFrancois, Brenda A. 2012. “The pursuit of

meaningful collaborative consultation, and the

need to do better.” In Children’s Rights Academic

Network Final Report—4th Annual General Meeting.

Ottawa: Landon Pearson Resource Centre for the

Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights.

Weitz, Don. “We still lock up children: An expose of

solitary confinement (“the digger”) in Ontario’s

‘reform institutions’—its criminal youth justice

system. Toronto Life, May 1976.

Don Weitz is an antipsychiatry activist and psychiatric

survivor. He has been attending the Ashley Smith

inquest for several months. This article is a longer,

revised version of the original published in his e-book

Speaking Out Against Psychiatry: notes toward

abolition, Ch. 9, "Child abuse/torture/death," (2011).