Canada prison staff treating inmates based on own will: Survey

The “ethical climate survey” of Correctional Service Canada (CSC) staff included 2,200 participants and the results were obtained by the Canadian press and published on Sunday.
 
The respondents were asked about “treating offenders with respect as human beings,” but their answers lacked unanimity, which led to the CSC to drop the results from the final report.
 
“Most probably, the [corrections] community does not share a common understanding and expectations regarding respect toward offenders,” said the report.
 
    “Apparently, social values around respect toward offenders have not been encouraged within CSC to the same extent as values of respect toward the organization and co-workers - leaving this aspect to each individual’s discretion.”
 
 
Without proper training, the report continued, the employees are relying on “what is deeply ingrained in their beliefs” to shape their behavior toward offenders.
 
As a response to the survey, Kim Pate, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, said the obvious lack of agreement from CSC staff on humane treatment should serve as a wakeup call for prison authorities and added, “Instead of burying it or ignoring it and taking it out of the survey, some sort of concerted effort to address this should be in order.”
 
She continued by saying that the survey highlighted a shift under President Stephen Harper’s government toward punishment of prisoners and away from rehabilitation.
 
“One of the most consistent complaints I’ve heard from staff, particularly [those] who work with women in prison, is that they don’t receive a lot of training in how to support and assist prisoners - that the priority seems to be on how to use force,” said Pate.
 
These results come as a coroner’s inquest was launched on September 20, 2012 into the 2007 death of Ashley Smith, a troubled teenage girl inmate who died by chocking herself at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ontario, while prison guards who stood watch outside her cell were ordered not to intervene.
 
This latest survey reached similar results as previous polls in 2007 and 2009 regarding ethics within the correctional system. A subsequent audit on the earlier polls determined that most participating correctional centers did not follow up on the advices presented in the reports.