On May 22, three women incarcerated at the Nova Institution for Women federal prison filed civil suits against the Attorney General of Canada, alleging they were each sexually assaulted by correctional officer Brian Wilson over the course of the past five years. The allegations included in the lawsuits are harrowing: when the first of the […]
Nurse: We should support prisoners’ demands for better health care
"There have been claims that health care is better at Burnside than outside. This is simply not true."
Martha Paynter is a nurse, nursing PhD student, and director of Women’s Wellness Within. On August 21, the prisoners at the Burnside provincial jail launched a peaceful protest, in solidarity with a large prisoner strike in the United States, to call for basic improvements in health care, rehabilitation, exercise, visits, clothing, food, air quality and […]
“No Reason to Treat Us Like Garbage”: Life and Death in Canadian prisons
1. The Weekenders Recently, news stories circulated about incarcerated women in Arizona being denied access to menstrual products. When we hear stories about prison conditions in the United States, people in Canada often believe that these injustices do not happen in our prisons and jails. This is a mistake. I have been hearing for a […]
Now there’s a reason to go to the community mailbox: Morning File, Wednesday, October 11, 2017
News 1. Women in prison “The number of women in federal prisons has jumped significantly in Canada in the last decade, and advocates say that’s evidence of what happens when community support programs are cut,” reports David Burke for the CBC: There are 37 per cent more women behind bars than there were 10 years ago, according […]