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369COVID-19
in Canadian Prisons: Policies, Practices and Concerns
people who await trial or serve short sentences are placed) or a
federal penitentiary (where people serve sentences of two years or
more). Correctional Service Canada (CSC), the governmental agency
responsible for the management of the federal prisons, and the pro-
vincial prison systems have a duty under international standards and
national laws to provide incarcerated individuals with health services
comparable to those in the community.2 The Corrections and Conditional
Release Act (CCRA), which governs the federal correctional system,
states that an individual must have access to essential health care and
reasonable access to non-essential health care, both of which are to be
provided at “professionally accepted standards.”3 The Office of the
Correctional Investigator (OCI), the federal prison ombudsperson,
has interpreted the CCRA4 to implicitly impose an obligation on CSC
to seek alternatives to incarceration for those whose health becomes
incompatible with imprisonment.5 Similarly, most provincial correc-
tional systems contain statutory duties owed to incarcerated people,
particularly as they relate to health care.6
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed limitations to the govern-
ments’ ability or willingness to discharge these duties and to ensure
the safety of those in custody. Given the background of the enhanced
vulnerabilities of prisoners and of the risks posed by congregated liv-
ing spaces generally, and prisons in particular, the response needed to
protect those in custody in times of crisis must be principled, immedi-
ate, and multifaceted. First, as also discussed by Jennifer A Chandler
et al, in Chapter D-10 of this volume, it is difficult, if not impossible,
to implement necessary preventive measures (particularly physical
distancing and cleanliness)7 in congregate living spaces, including
2. The United Nations Standard for Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners
(the Nelson Mandela Rules), GA Res 70/175, UNGAOR, 70th Sess, UN Doc A/
RES/70/175 (2015) at Rules 24–35.
3. Corrections and Conditional Release Act, SC 1992, c 20, s 86 [CCRA].
4. Ibid, s 121.
5. Canada, Office of the Correctional Investigator, An
Investigation
of
the
Correctional
Service’s
Mortality
Review
Process, (Ottawa: Office of the Correctional Investigator,
December 2018) at 7.
6. See e.g. Correctional Services Act, SNS 2005, c 37, s 25; Correctional Services
Regulations, NS Reg 99/2006, s 45(2)(b); Ministry of Correctional Services Act,
RSO 1990, c M 22, s 24(1); The Correctional Services Act, 1998 CCSM c C 230, s 37.
7. On public health measures see “Infection Prevention and Control During Health
Care When Novel Coronavirus (nCoV) Infection is Suspected” (19 March 2020),
online (pdf): World
Health Organization Publications <perma.cc/5WNC-7URB>.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Titel
- VULNERABLE
- Untertitel
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Autoren
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Verlag
- Ottawa Press
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Seiten
- 648
- Kategorien
- Coronavirus
- International