Caring Society
When there are cracks in the system, sometimes they become chasms. So deep that whoever falls into those deadly crevasses is on their own; no one will dare to venture into that dark deep unknown to attempt rescue.
It's the vulnerable, those who have no one to agitate on their behalf, society's outcasts, people with mental deficiencies, physical disabilities, the drug addicted, those who will not or can not conform to societal norms. Their very presence disturbs our comfortable lives.
We don't quite know what to do with them, how to handle their needs. And in the case of a young woman, Ashley Smith, who was abandoned to a system geared to accommodate criminals, not mentally-disturbed young women, that abandonment was complete and in the end, fatal.
She committed suicide, strangling herself, after many unsuccessful attempts. Those attempts to kill herself were unsuccessful because prison guards time and again intervened, and forcibly removed from around her neck the materials she had placed there in her attempts to end her life.
And when she was ultimately successful in killing herself at the age of 19, three prison guards and a supervisor were charged with criminal negligence. They were charged with causing her death. Unspeakable, that people employed in jails to look after the interests of society and just incidentally society's malefactors, failed to do their job.
Ashley Smith had been charged, at age 16, with tossing crabapples at a postal worker, and for that crime she was institutionalized in prison in New Brunswick for three years. During that period she continued to behave erratically and in the process acquired additional charges.
At the age of 18 she was transferred to a federal prison. While there she was in solitary confinement. No one, it would appear, had any inkling of what to do with her. She received no counselling, no treatment, no care or support. Abandoned to her personal psychological demons.
Those demons convinced her that her life was worthless and she was determined to end it. Trouble was, each time a guard attempted to help her by removing the materials she tried to use to strangulate herself, it was interpreted by prison rules as "use-of-force" and therefore forbidden.
Prison management insisted that corrections officers must handle this hopeless case in a manner that would reduce reported incidents. They were not to physically intervene, "even when her face turned purple officers were still not to enter the cell", according to the Ontario regional president for the Union of Canadian Corrections Officers.
"They held a training session to teach officers to hold back from entering Ashley Smith's cell." How is it even remotely possible that an obvious instance of a young person needing medical help is construed in a manner that demands she be incarcerated, left to her own devices, able to communicate with no one.
Anyone, under those circumstances, would be desperate, would commit to doing anything to remove themselves from this inhumane treatment. Her rights as a human being - as a Canadian citizen - to compassion and assistance were completely abrogated in a society known for its care for prison inmates.
When heartless murderers complain of inferior treatment and lodge official complaints for the most flimsy matters, and succeed in having their complaints heard and respected, how could responsible authorities conceivably flout the legal entitlements of a young woman imprisoned for a preposterously negligible incident?
Clearly, we've skewed our moral compass in the manner in which we treat vulnerable people, while acceding to the demands of society's psychopaths. What will it take to make Canadians insist on justice for those who deserve it?
It's the vulnerable, those who have no one to agitate on their behalf, society's outcasts, people with mental deficiencies, physical disabilities, the drug addicted, those who will not or can not conform to societal norms. Their very presence disturbs our comfortable lives.
We don't quite know what to do with them, how to handle their needs. And in the case of a young woman, Ashley Smith, who was abandoned to a system geared to accommodate criminals, not mentally-disturbed young women, that abandonment was complete and in the end, fatal.
She committed suicide, strangling herself, after many unsuccessful attempts. Those attempts to kill herself were unsuccessful because prison guards time and again intervened, and forcibly removed from around her neck the materials she had placed there in her attempts to end her life.
And when she was ultimately successful in killing herself at the age of 19, three prison guards and a supervisor were charged with criminal negligence. They were charged with causing her death. Unspeakable, that people employed in jails to look after the interests of society and just incidentally society's malefactors, failed to do their job.
Ashley Smith had been charged, at age 16, with tossing crabapples at a postal worker, and for that crime she was institutionalized in prison in New Brunswick for three years. During that period she continued to behave erratically and in the process acquired additional charges.
At the age of 18 she was transferred to a federal prison. While there she was in solitary confinement. No one, it would appear, had any inkling of what to do with her. She received no counselling, no treatment, no care or support. Abandoned to her personal psychological demons.
Those demons convinced her that her life was worthless and she was determined to end it. Trouble was, each time a guard attempted to help her by removing the materials she tried to use to strangulate herself, it was interpreted by prison rules as "use-of-force" and therefore forbidden.
Prison management insisted that corrections officers must handle this hopeless case in a manner that would reduce reported incidents. They were not to physically intervene, "even when her face turned purple officers were still not to enter the cell", according to the Ontario regional president for the Union of Canadian Corrections Officers.
"They held a training session to teach officers to hold back from entering Ashley Smith's cell." How is it even remotely possible that an obvious instance of a young person needing medical help is construed in a manner that demands she be incarcerated, left to her own devices, able to communicate with no one.
Anyone, under those circumstances, would be desperate, would commit to doing anything to remove themselves from this inhumane treatment. Her rights as a human being - as a Canadian citizen - to compassion and assistance were completely abrogated in a society known for its care for prison inmates.
When heartless murderers complain of inferior treatment and lodge official complaints for the most flimsy matters, and succeed in having their complaints heard and respected, how could responsible authorities conceivably flout the legal entitlements of a young woman imprisoned for a preposterously negligible incident?
Clearly, we've skewed our moral compass in the manner in which we treat vulnerable people, while acceding to the demands of society's psychopaths. What will it take to make Canadians insist on justice for those who deserve it?
Labels: Canada, Human Relations, Realities
posted by Pieface @ 7:03 PM
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