Thursday Thinkpiece: Policy, Practice and Privatized Prison Telephones in Saskatchewan

• Author: Administrator
• Date: November 07, 2019

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Policy, Practice and Privatized Prison Telephones in Saskatchewan
(2019) 8:1 Can J Hum Rts 1

Sarah Buhler is an Associate Professor at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law. Amanda Dodge did legal and systemic advocacy at the Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon Inner City (CLASSIC) for 8 years. She is currently the director of peace and justice programs at Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan.

Excerpt: Abstract & Part V: At Ground Level: Themes from the Study
[Footnotes omitted. They can be found in the original via the link above]

Abstract

Governing law and policy in Saskatchewan mandates fair and reasonable telephone access for prisoners in provincial correctional centres. Our community-engaged, qualitative research project investigated the state of telephone access in Saskatchewan correctional centres from the point of view of former prisoners. Our research shows that prisoners’ experiences of telephone access cannot be described as fair or reasonable. Rather, telephone access is experienced by many prisoners as a precarious privilege that is perpetually at risk of revocation by guards. Former prisoners also placed the issue of telephone access squarely within a larger context of institutional violence and deprivation. Finally, our research highlights the ways in which the profit-seeking motives of a private prison telephone company impact prisoners’ day-to-day experiences of unfairness with the telephone system, both in terms of technological problems and cost barriers that include and also go beyond the cost of individual calls.

…

V. At Ground Level: Themes from the Study

Saskatchewan legislation and policy recognize a right to reasonable telephone access for prisoners, however, there is little detail in official policy or rules outlining how access to the system is to be allocated and monitored. The provincial Corrections Inmate Telephone System Policy provides guidelines and standards for the institutions and their staff to follow as they “allow inmates to have reasonable contact with family, friends and professional counsel.” The Policy specifically affords discretion to the directors of the institutions to establish relevant rules. Section 1.3 provides that “each correctional centre director is responsible for establishing local rules for offender access and utilization of the inmate telephone for personal and business calls.” Section 2.4 of the Policy provides that an internal review process be developed so prisoners can apply for telephone fee waivers on the basis of “exceptional financial and emotional hardship.” Despite this, it does not appear that such a process has been officially developed. The policy also provides that a few categories of calls are exempt from fees (e.g. for remanded and immigration hold prisoners) and that certain types of calls (e.g. to lawyers or the Ombudsman) are free. The institutions and their staff, therefore, have a great deal of discretion in the implementation of telephone access.

We argue that reasonable access should include, at minimum, a telephone system that is accessible, reliable and affordable. Our research shows that the telephone system in Saskatchewan provincial correctional centres cannot be described as such. As noted above, the government announced several changes to the system in 2017, including a universal free call per day plus a new flat rate for both local and long-distance calls. However, our research reveals deeper and persistent problems with the operation of the telephone system at ground level. We turn now to the themes and issues raised in our interviews.

A. The Guards Make the Rules

For the participants in our research, telephone access was a fragile privilege always at risk of being revoked. Not one participant referred to reasonable telephone access as a right held by prisoners. None referred to an awareness, while they were in prison, of the existence of official legislation, policy or institutional rules mandating reasonable telephone access for prisoners. Participants made it clear to us that on the ground in prisons, corrections staff make the rules. One participant explained that telephone access takes place within the larger context of how things work in prison, stating: “In jail, it’s different, it’s a whole different set of rules, it’s totally different from the outside. It’s all about eat or be eaten I guess.” Another explained that the entire telephone system could be shut down at the behest of the staff, stating: “[T]he guards do have control, overall, control in the office. They can shut [the phone system] off.” Another former prisoner stated that when it comes to telephone access, “[t]he staff don’t tell you what the rules are, they just tell you what you are going to do.”

Without awareness of a legal or policy framework that meaningfully supports the concept of reasonable telephone access including, for example, free calls in the case of emergency or emotional hardship, participants explained that telephone access was precarious and fragile. Telephone access was subject to arbitrary interventions by staff to allow and withdraw access. Participants indicated that telephone access was often contingent on prisoners’ relationship with correctional officers and, in particular, their attitude of respect and good behaviour. One participant noted that “if you are caught arguing on the phone … you can lose all access to your phone calls.” Another said: “You know if you ask politely and reasonably, [the staff will help you]. They’re not going to give it to you if you’re going off and your phone doesn’t wanna work.” Another explained:

[S]ay [an] inmate … put in a request for a trust deduction to be put in his Telmate account, but he got along with that guard … they’re buddy-buddy, they talked about this and that. Now, by the end of the week he’ll have his phone calls, you know, his money, but the other guy, the guy [the guard] didn’t like … all of a sudden he’s going “I’m still waiting on … my money’s not in my account yet”.

A woman who had been incarcerated at Pine Grove Correctional Centre indicated that telephone access could be cut for two days for prisoners who attempted to prolong a call longer than the allotted time. She said the following of her experience:

If you’re on for more than 15 minutes, they cut it off right away and then I get cut off for 2 days … And I can’t talk for two days on the phone. So I- I always get cut off for two days because I try to talk to my mom longer. My mom is 70 so I try to talk to her and let her know that I love her and that and make sure she’s ok.

These accounts by participants are not reflective of written policies. The accounts support the idea that, on the ground, the implementation and operation of telephone access is unhinged from official policies, related more to the power and whims of individual staff members.

Most participants explained that they had to learn the rules and protocols of telephone access “by trial and error” or from fellow prisoners. One explained:

[I learned the rules] by trial and error … it was more or less, told upon inmate to inmate, upon asking you know. Like a new person would come in and say, “well can I phone home”, you know, “yeah, you’re allowed to phone home but you’re only allowed 15 minutes on the phone” … so that’s how the other person understood the restrictions of the phone.

Similarly, another participant stated: “[I learned the rules from] my brother actually. Because he did time before me”. Another participant noted: “[I learned the rules] by other inmates, they told me how to go about it”. Others noted that they became aware of policies as circumstances arose. For example, one participant talked about being allowed to use the staff phone at no cost when his mother died, becoming aware for the first time that a free call might be available in an emergency situation. Prisoners were left with an uneven and unclear understanding of policies and procedures and an ongoing sense that telephone access could be revoked at any time.

Some might argue that what prisoners understand as unfair treatment is simply the operation of official discretion. After all, correctional officers have significant discretion in prison contexts generally, and specifically, in administering telephone access. What our study suggests, however, is that corrections staff make decisions and respond to telephone access requests in certain, patterned ways that are obvious to prisoners. These patterns can be described as a form of policy. As Matthew Diller points out, when viewed in the aggregate, exercises of discretion very often can be shown to “have distinct patterns that, in effect, become the operative policy of the agency.” Similarly, Evelyn Brodkin explains that discretion can very often be “structured by factors that influence informal behaviours to develop in systematic ways.” As observed by Gillian Metzger, “incarceration by its nature entails exercise of substantial discretion in closed environments with little public visibility. Given their extreme dependence and vulnerability, prisoners face a particularly acute potential for harm from abuse of these powers.” Prisoners’ inherent vulnerability to unfair treatment is compounded by the stigma of their constructed social...