By: Myrna El Fakhry Tuttle
PDF Version: Administrative Segregation and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Case Commented On: R v Prystay, 2019 ABQB 8 (CanLII)
On January 4, 2019, Madam Justice Dawn Pentelechuk found that Mr. Ryan Prystay’s lengthy stay in administrative segregation at the Edmonton Remand Centre breached section 12 of the Charter. Consequently, she granted him enhanced credit of 3.75 days for each day spent in administrative segregation.
Administrative segregation is used in remand centres to keep an inmate away from the general population for safety or security reasons. It is not intended to be used as a punishment and can be indefinite, while disciplinary segregation is imposed as a penalty and has to be for a specified period of time.
Unlike in disciplinary segregation, inmates in administrative segregation have the same rights and privileges as other inmates, however, the operational reality is that one’s experience in either form of segregation is drastically different from that of inmates in the general population (at para 27). Inmates in either form of segregation are kept in a cell alone for 23 hours a day. They have two half-hour blocks outside of their cell during each 24 hour period where they can shower, exercise, watch television or use the phone in the “fresh air” room. Inmates stay alone during those activities. Administrative segregation inmates may have visits via CCTV (closed circuit television) (at paras 28-29).
On October 16, 2018, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, introduced in the House of Commons Bill C-83, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and another Act. The purpose of the bill is to strengthen the federal correctional system in a number of ways including ending administrative segregation and disciplinary segregation and creating “structured intervention units.”
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