Defence Union backs guards in report on death of troubled teen Ashley Smith

A1

Rob Linke
Telegraph-Journal

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

7 Comment(s)

Ashley Smith choked to death in her prison cell as guards agonized over whether their managers would discipline them for going in to save her, the national corrections union claims.

1 of 2

Robert Wilson/The Waterloo Region Record

Union of Canadian Correctional Officers Jodi Truemner, left, and Gary Sanderson, right, walk an information picket early Thursday in front of the Grand Valley Institution in Kirchener, Ont. The union representing guards at the federal women’s prison held a press conference later in the day to release its findings into the death of inmate Ashley Smith, inset right, who died at the institution in 2007.

The Canadian Press

Smith was the emotionally disturbed 19-year-old inmate from Moncton whose death on Oct. 19, 2007 in the Grand Valley Institution for Women resulted in charges of criminal negligence causing death against three guards and a supervisor, as well as the firing of two prison managers.

The last moments in Smith's life were captured on video.

That morning, she is seen kneeling on the floor, wedged between the bed and wall of her segregation cell.

"She has tied a ligature so tightly around her neck it disappears under folds of skin," the report states. "Her face is dark purple and her breathing has become laboured and infrequent."

Smith choked herself as often as several times a day. Then she would fight prison staff as they intervened, compelling them to use force to subdue her.

The repeated confrontations prompted concerns among senior corrections officials. National headquarters started investigating whether staff's use of force was excessive.

Grand Valley managers dictated new policies just for Smith's choking episodes, then convened a special session to train guards in the rules about entering her cell.

"We were instructed specifically to wait until she stopped breathing," says a correctional officer quoted in the report.

That session was held 10 days before she died.

Six days before she died, a guard sent an email to the union describing the concerns the managers' directives were raising among frustrated staff.

"I told (the official) I would rather go to court defending why I went in the cell rather than why I didn't go in time," it reads. The threat of disciplinary action was "making staff second-guess themselves and hesitate."

The morning Smith died, the first guard to respond went in the cell to check that she was still breathing, then left to confer with others.

They called nurses and entered a second time. They cut the ligature from Smith's neck, and left again.

"Agonizing moments tick by as officers try to determine whether the now-inert woman is breathing or not," then they call the nurses again and go in, awkwardly place the 245-pound Smith on her back.

They began CPR and continued until paramedics arrive. They couldn't revive Smith, who was pronounced dead in hospital.

Kitchener police and other investigators have been careful not to describe her intentions or death as suicide. Like a June report from the federal correctional investigator, the union report finds the death preventable.

"Ashley Smith did not have to die," the report states.

The union said guards were demonstrating at 58 federal institutions across the country in a show of solidarity with their members facing charges.

"We want to make sure that justice is served for our members and that this never happens to another correctional officer in this country again," Jason Godin, regional union president, said Thursday in calling for a full public inquiry.

Since 2005, the union has been calling for the construction of a special handling unit for extremely challenging women offenders like Smith.

Prison staff are "perplexed" at how a 15-year-old girl who threw a crab apple at a mailman could end up four years later confined 23 hours a day in a segregation cell in a maximum-security unit at a federal prison for women.

Kim Pate, national director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, knew Smith and acted as her advocate.

She reviewed the union report Thursday and said the union had highlighted much that made Smith's behaviour seem worse, "but there's no acknowledgement that had there been different treatment, Ashley might have reacted very differently.

"Every parent or person who deals with young people knows that if the only attention they can get from you is from negative behaviour, that's the behaviour you'll get," Pate said. "In the prison system, women end up having their needs interpreted as risk factors, and they end up being dealt with by security measures rather than appropriate therapeutic intervention."

Smith was first jailed at the New Brunswick youth centre in Miramichi, where she was convicted of dozens of offences. Most were assaults on staff.

Smith was transferred to the federal system after turning 18. Her combined sentence was six years, one month and 17 days.

Smith was soon involved in serious incidents no matter where she was in the federal system.

In her first six weeks at the Nova Institution in Truro, N.S., there were 18 such episodes, including breaking out of her handcuffs to assault an officer.

At the regional psychiatric centre in Saskatchewan, 72 serious incidents were recorded over four months. It was a period of "almost unrelenting violence," says the report.

Officers were forcefully removing ligatures from her neck as many as seven times a day while she would wrestle, spit on or bite them. The choking was so severe her face was permanently discoloured.

Several officers took stress leave after she was at Nova.

At Joliette Institution in Quebec, Smith was the most "problematic" inmate in the prison's 10-year history, according to a report by the union local.

Yet many staff at Grand Valley and elsewhere found her "likeable" when she was not disruptive. She was intelligent and funny. Smith's mental health was tested many times but she was not found mentally ill.

Smith told guards she had learned the "choking game" while in youth custody, said one guard.

The report speculates the dangerous practice, which can result in a temporary sensation of euphoria before the person passes out, may have provided Smith with brief relief from the overwhelming boredom of her confinement.

After her many transfers, Smith landed at Grand Valley again in August 2007.

The pilot of the correctional service plane was so worried about a disturbance in the air that he apparently had Smith duct-taped to her seat.

Once at Grand Valley, Smith was still "incredibly unstable," according to a casework report.

In early October, a manager reviewed a videotaped use of force which showed an officer opening the cell door to check on Smith, who again had a ligature around her neck.

The tape shows Smith's face was clearly purple.

Said the officer: "The manager told me, 'That's the hardest thing, but you have to close that door again.'"

A spokesperson for the Correctional Service said the prison service was not commenting on the union report until it could be thoroughly reviewed.

New Brunswick ombudsman and child and youth advocate Bernard Richard investigated Smith's treatment as a young offender.

He issued 25 recommendations last June, including more effective mental health services for incarcerated youth, restrictions on the use of segregation and more use of alternative sentencing.

Richard's report also included a poem Smith wrote while, at 18, she was jailed in Miramichi. It began: "My life I no longer love/I'd rather be set free above."