09/16/2024
I have designed two prisons and have toured the men's and the women's Alouette Correctional Centres, the Aaqqigiarvik Correctional Healing Facility in Iqaluit, and the Surrey Pre-trial Holding Centre. I have been in every RCMP detachment in Nova Scotia to review and modify their holding cells. I have designed protected offices for judges.
That work and being inside these places was one of the worst things I have ever done. The tours still haunt me. The guilt for being involved in the creation of one still weighs heavy.
When designing these places there is a hierarchy of importance.
No. 1 - Make sure prisoners can't get out.
No. 2 - Make sure prisoners can be controlled quickly should no.1 fail.
No. 3 - Make sure prisoners can be seen at all times.
No. 4 - Make sure Correctional Officers have more than one way to safety.
No. 5 - Make sure prisoners can't dismantle and use something as a weapon.
No. 6 - Make sure prisoners can not be helped from outside.
No. 7 - Make sure they can't help each other.
No. 8 - Make sure surfaces can be hose washed.
All the while we have to be careful to not infringe on the bare minimum of human rights. The bare minimum.
One person high up in the Department of Corrections explained that designing a prison is mostly about trying to stay ahead of the prisoners in terms of figuring out how to hurt others, hurt themselves, and damage the property. They said "these people have all day and night to plan how to start trouble."
These are NOT places of hope.
These are NOT places of healing.
These are NOT places where people get better.
These are places where we put people to store them and treat them like horrible creatures, rabid dogs, or venomous snakes.
And today the BC NDP and David Eby announce that they are going to put people, who's only crime is having been let down by us, into those places. People who fell into homelessness due to our society's need to "level up" by putting people down. People who fell into drug addiction because it was the only way they were going to feel anything good. People who are constantly living in fear that at any time they are going to be attacked and what few possessions they have will be take from them.
They want to put these people in those places so that they can be hidden from the sight of the nice people of North America's Fifth most livable city.
