#ashlee smith

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Things I uncover in my Google drive 😂

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“Ashley Smith's mother and sister say they are furious with the Trudeau government for invoking her name in the rollout of a bill that purports to end solitary confinement in Canada's prisons -- a bill they say is highly flawed.

Coralee Smith and Dawna Ward were in Ottawa Thursday and visited the Senate, where amendments to Bill C-83 are being considered.

"We absolutely do not endorse it and especially did not endorse invoking Ashley's name to put forward this new bill. Absolutely not," Ward said.

Ashley Smith died in 2007 by self-strangulation at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont. She was 19 and had spent more than 1,000 days in segregation, moved from institution to institution. Her death continues to spark anger and grief in the eyes and words of her mother and sister.

But their anger is no longer aimed only at the prison guards who videotaped Ashley's death and did not intervene.

The two women are now also upset with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale for pledging to implement recommendations from the inquest that followed Smith's death.

That inquest produced 104 recommendations, including a call to end "indefinite solitary confinement."

"We're absolutely furious that he invoked Ashley's name and tried to push forward this ridiculous agenda that has had no significant impact on segregation in Canada," Ward said Thursday, speaking of Goodale's announcement of Bill C-83 last year.

Last October, Goodale said Bill C-83 would end the practice of segregating prisoners who pose risks to security or themselves, changes he told reporters were a direct result of the recommendations from the coroner's inquest.

Under the proposed new law, inmates who do pose risks would be moved to new "structured intervention units," where they are supposed to get better access to programming and mental-health care than people in solitary do now.

But a number of human-rights organizations say Bill C-83 offers only a cosmetic rebranding of solitary confinement with no hard time limits on isolation or separation of inmates. The current law has such restrictions on the use of segregation when it's used a disciplinary measure.

Ashley's mother says re-naming segregation cells into structured intervention units does little to address concerns about the devastating mental-health impacts of confining prisoners in isolation. Mental illness is often behind the behaviour that makes a prisoner difficult in the first place.

"Segregation by any other name is segregation," Smith said. "Segregation is a hellhole. It is inhumane treatment and we really feel it has to have judicial oversight."

A committee of senators has approved several changes to the bill -- including a key amendment to require a judge's approval to keep an inmate in isolation for more than 48 hours.

Sen. Kim Pate, who says she'd prefer the bill be scrapped entirely, sponsored many of the amendments, including adding judicial oversight to decisions about isolation.” - Teresa Wright, The Canadian Press, “Ashley Smith's family furious with Trudeau over solitary-confinement bill.” CTV News, May 30, 2019.

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Ashley Smith