Five Regional Prisons

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The Brown commission was an essential report, stating that the treatment and current conditions of female prisoners as “utterly indefensible” (Barker, 2008). The report brought about major change in Canada’s history referring to incarcerated women’s treatment (Barker, 2008). Although Brown’s report addressed issues of the current prison conditions and some changes were made to improve the conditions, change did not come as quickly as you would expect. It wasn’t till 1934 that the first institution for women was built (Csc-scc.gc.ca, 2015). And even though the individual prison for women was supposed to improve dilemmas of the criminal justice system, reports continued to be published that recommended the closure of the facilities. The Archambault …show more content…
For the next 60 years, reports similar to the Archambault continued (Barker, 2008). They all had a consistent theme that women did not require the high security that federal facilities provided, they were a great cost to Canada to continue providing expensive and ineffective prisons for female offenders (Barker, 2008). In 1990 a Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women (TFFSW) addressed management of federal women’s prison and focused on developing a plan to address specific needs of incarcerated women (Pollack, 2009). Five regional prisons were opened between the years 1996-1997, as a result of the report (Pollack, 2009). With the creation of the task force it brought forward the challenges that changing the prison system would have but also allowed a perspective to what the benefits could …show more content…
This mandate later developed a report, Creating Choices, which echoed earlier reports that needs were not being met within the women penitentiaries (Barker, 2008). Unfortunately, they were met with many factors that hindered their plans for change (Government of Canada, 2015). Prior to starting the investigation there were major factors that hindered the task force, such as: their mandate had a limited scope, they failed to receive enough perspective from aboriginal women, needed to move away from the original thought of comparing female to male prisons, lack of time, and the concern that this task force was being used to delay the change needed (Government of Canada, 2015). As the task force new before beginning their investigation they had challenges ahead, in the end the discovered what challenges still lied ahead for the development of women’s correctional institutions. In their report Creating Choices noted six factors that would impede creative change (Government of Canada, 2015). Firstly, Canada has a deep-rooted tradition to incarcerate their criminals (Government of Canada, 2015). This is proven true from statistic stating that incarceration for male and females is increasing (Government of Canada, 2015). Secondly, the high population of aboriginal women incarcerated speaks to the racism and cycle of violence