It’s a Tuesday morning, and I’m sitting in courtroom 302 of the Halifax Supreme Court watching two prisoners, Geevan Nagendran and Tyquan Downey, face the lawyer for the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility (Burnside). I text Hanna Garson, “I’m watching the most upsetting habeas in court right now.” She texts back, “what courtroom?” Two minutes […]
“Needlessly institutionalized” hearing continues
Panel hears that the wait list for people wanting to move from mental institutions to homes in the community continues to grow.
The second day of a human rights inquiry about whether people with intellectual disabilities continue to be “needlessly institutionalized” in Nova Scotia heard from an expert public policy researcher on the topic. Michael Bach has spent 35 years as the managing director of IRIS, Ontario’s Institute for Research on Inclusion in Society. In late 2012,...
Needlessly institutionalized
People have been locked into a psychiatric ward at the Nova Scotia Hospital for "no medical or legal reason," says lawyer Vince Calderhead.
A board of inquiry got underway yesterday into a complaint under the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act which has the potential to change the way the provincial government treats people with disabilities. “The outcome of this case,” says Jean Coleman, “could make a good life in the community possible for all people with disabilities.” Coleman...
A prisoner on prisons: “Habeas Corpus in a Nutshell”
Dylan Gogan was incarcerated in terrible conditions, unable to access the most basic resources, but taught himself case law from scratch and changed how Nova Scotian prisons operate.
The Journal of Prisoners on Prisons released a special issue on October 19th. From the press release, This special issue, titled “Dialogue on Canada’s Federal Penitentiary System and the Need for Change,” features dozens of contributions written by criminalized women and men currently incarcerated in Correctional Service Canada (CSC) institutions. The writings document the counterproductive changes […]