End to prisons urged

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Canada's federal prisons are in a "soup of chemicals," the living conditions in them are terrible, they are doing society more harm than good, says Burke Baker, the lawyer for the Boucher family. He charges that the enquiry into William Boucher's suicide has led to no "forthright conclusions," and avoids the real reasons Boucher and so many other inmates committed suicide.

"I think the enquiry could have concluded that some of the medical practices that were applied to William Boucher were improper. They didn't say that. The report didn't choose to say that out loud. That would have been a "forthright statement" for which there would have been ample support in the evidence that we heard," said Barker.

Barker has asked for another public enquiry into the use of "nonmedical" drugs in prisons. This was not ordered by the commissioner in charge of the enquiry.

The Boucher enquiry was compared to the hearing on the suicide of Kevin Laurila. "There were similar concerns expressed there, similar kinds of evidence. Some of the doctors were the same; some of the drugs were the same. There were great similarities between the two cases and of course they both had a similar outcome; both death by hanging," said Barker.

He suggested as well that these suicides were not just accidents. "Now there may even be some - one is always left with the thought that when you think of these two cases that there was some connivance on the part of the authorities. You have no evidence that there was, but you have this thought that will not go away that 'might there have been?'"

The nontherapeutic use of medical chemicals is not uncommon in prisons, says Barker. In fact, from the Boucher and Laurila enquiries, and from his conversations with inmates, Barker has concluded that drugs are essential to their operation. "The prisons are impossible to operate without drugs. The conditions are such that human beings cannot to let them unless they are provided with chemicals. The 20th century Canadian cannot tolerate the conditions within Canada's federal maximum security prisons without in many cases the use of drugs at some time or other. The conditions are so stressful that the human being breaks down. It becomes impossible to live with, so chemicals are provided in order to operate the prison. The bars are not just steel; they're chemical."

Barker says the use of drugs paints a picture of national politicians' or prison wardens' needs to control the "dangerous" and "useless" in our society. "It's the same with the elderly in the nursing homes; the parallels are there, says Barker. "You can't operate nursing homes without the use of these drugs as well. The elderly are drugged beyond any humane medical need, as are prisoners in the federal maximum security prisoners. So the two groups come together in a soup of chemicals."

Prisons are very expensive to operate. The Canadian government, in its attempt to cut costs, is seeking more efficient methods of containing people, says Barker. Drugs comprise one. Another is the new electronic monitoring devices used in hospitals and now for mandatory supervision. With these devices, whole Indian reserves can be controlled without bars, or guards or even drugs, says Barker.

"The essence of the modern Canadian state- any state - is the police and the prison system. We're not in a democratic or totalitarian system," says Barker. "We live in a prison system.

"Canada's prisons are like a bomb in the cargo hold of a 747, and that 747 contains society. The real terrorists are the prison operators," says Barker.

The solution to the chemical abuse and suicides and violence does not like in constantly watching prisoners in health wards to keep them away from drugs. "That's bizarre - that's mad. First of all you create a condition in which they're likely to commit suicide, and then you watch them so that they don't. I mean, why create the situation in the first place? So that you can then turn cameras on themso you can watch them? That's illogical."

Instead, Barker pushes the same sort of change proposed by the John Howard Society; less prison sentences, shorter sentences, less security arrangements, and no jail terms for nonviolent offenders. In short, he suggests that we "start the long process of prison abolition in Canada.

"That's the alternative to increasing chemical dependence - increasing institutional chemical dependence in Canada."

Getting rid of prisons won't make Canada worse, says Barker, it will make it better. "We lived for centuries without prisons. The prison is a modern creation. It's a 19th century phenomenon, and it's common use is really a 20th century development.

We would be more secure without prisons. We would have a less violent society without prisons."

Yet, he does not see any move away from prisons, in any form. If chemicals and electronic surveillance is cheaper than jail, then those will be used, says Barker. Canada is slowly imprisoning the poor, the unwanted - the Native. This will not change," he says, "not until the last Native has disappeared, integrated or died. It will never change."