hi everyone!

it's been a long time since i've posted anything here.  i had hoped that the blog would continue to be used by prisoners after my release, and although it's been a slow start, i still hope that will happen.  i've been in touch recently with a woman named Jeanette Tossounion who is currently serving a sentence at Vanier.  she asked me to post the following piece to Bored But Not Broken.  it's a really good example of the pettiness of the institution's need for control, and of the significant consequences it can have on the inmates there. 

i have a piece from an inmate at Edmonton Institution that i'll post here soon.  please keep reading - there are so many people looking to tell their stories to people who give a shit.  and if you're in touch with any prisoners please do let them know that they're welcome to post stuff here.  thanks!

the inquiry into the death of Ashley Smith in a Federal Penitentiary five years ago has been shining a much needed light on policy and procedure at Correctional Services Canada, and on the behaviour and attitudes of some of the people it employs.

recently some people on my unit were discussing a newspaper article about the inquiry.  this led to a conversation about the lack of proper care for people with physical and mental health needs here at Vanier, and the ways in which they're often neglected and mistreated.  i asked if anyone would like to write their stories down for the blog and i got four back, to which i've added two of my own.

if you're not familiar with the incarcerated female population, there's one very important thing to know: the vast majority of inmates suffer from depression, trauma, and/or addiction, and many deal with illnesses such as schizophrenia and severe anxiety disorders.  when you read about the conditions in jails and the way prisoners are treated it's especially important to keep that in mind.

recently a visitor asked me what jail is like.  he then went on to say that of course he didn't except me to be able to describe it.

he's right – i don't think i can properly describe what it's really like to be here.  but his question made me think about how i'd sum up this experience, and i'm going to give it a shot.

i've tried in this blog to give you a picture of my surroundings, a sense of what the days are like, an idea of the kind of things that go on.  what it feels like, though. . .that's harder.  at the risk of sounding melodramatic, the closest i can come to it is this: it makes me feel diminished as a person.  the real me is not allowed.  the person that i am is disrespected and devalued.  i'm infantilized, and i struggle to hold on to a sense of dignity.  and it's 24/7, day after day after day.

words are weak.  i think it's something you have to experience to fully understand.

november 3 2012 - today is my one month left celebration!  that means candy, and a strange, as yet to be determined concoction involving a melted chocolate bar. 

it also means my time here is running out, so i need to get my shit together and assess what i can realistically get done in the few weeks i have left.  what am i going to have to set aside for later?  where am i just going to be forced to admit defeat?

i've been thinking a lot lately about how i'll be able to contribute to prisoner justice work from the outside.  one thing i'd really like to do is keep this blog going.  the people who run and work in jails are aware that people on the outside don't really know what goes on in the inside, and have very limited contact with prisoners.  they benefit from this and to some extent they rely on it at the same time prisoners want to share their stories – that became obvious when we put together the peak special issue on ontario prisons over the summer. 

september 8, 2012

laundry day!

on this unit we're issued clothes, bedding and towels on arrival and they're ours to keep for the duration of our stay.  twice a week we have the opportunity to wash them – everything except the blankets, which are exchanged once a month.  laundry days for my wing (C) are tuesdays and saturdays, and this is how it works: we line up our laundry bags along a wall in the common room, and shortly after breakfast a guard calls “LAUNDRY!” over the loudspeaker.  there are four washers and four driers so we work through the line four at a time, with switchovers happening every 45 minutes or so.  the laundry room is in the basement.  a guard at the desk keeps track of who comes down, and two laundry workers (inmates) supervise the process.  this is to make sure people aren't washing blankets or pillows, or using cold water or short cycles or half-load settings (as always, Vanier doesn't care about conserving water or energy), or using shampoo.  Tide is available off canteen, and Bounce sheets, but jail issue detergent is available for those who need it.

my new unit is usually for people who haven't been convicted and/or sentenced yet, so every weekday morning a few people are woken up early for court.  a few weeks ago i was one of them!  i had been asked to testify at a G20-related preliminary inquiry, the subpoena and the judge's order had been delivered to the jail, and i was prepared for a long, cold day in the court cells of toronto's Old City Hall.  going to court is a big part of life at Vanier for many inmates so i thought you might be interested in what it's like.

today i'm continuing my observations of the social interactions and dynamics of Canada Geese.  they hang out outside my window every day, in various combinations, small groups and pairs merging and breaking apart in a never-ending series of aggressive, defensive and protective manoeuvres.  i'm starting to understand the meanings of their calls and behaviours, and to recognize individuals.  there are the bullied, the injured, the ones who are allowed at the outskirts of the group - so close and no closer.  it's fascinating and heartbreaking . . .i want to go out there and scold the jerks, take care of the weak, and replace this whole survival of the fittest thing with a community based on mutual aid and solidarity.  hey, wait a minute, isn't that pretty much why i'm in jail?  and since i'm locked up, there's absolutely nothing i can do about the shunned bird who can barely walk, who's constantly being driven off and who seems to have been abandoned by the partner who was with her until yesterday.  and there it is again, the feeling of being powerless to do anything about the suffering all around me.  ugh.  jail.

on november 14, 2011, Julian Ichim published a blog post about his experience as the target of an undercover cop in the lead up to the G20 Summit in Toronto in 2010.  you can read the post here.  the following day the crown decided to press charges against him, and he was arrested by Waterloo Regional Police at his house one week later.  the charges/  three counts of Disobey Court Order - one for each time he used the cop's alias Khalid Mohamed.  the reason?  at the preliminary inquiry into the case against the G20 Main Conspiracy Group the judge had ordered a publication ban on the real and fake names of both undercover cops.

the following story is based on informal conversations and an interview with an inmate being detained by Immigration Canada and not for any (alleged) contravention of the Criminal Code.  unless i refer to myself personally i wasn't a witness to any of the events described.  i  wrote her story as it was told to me and she approved the final draft. the language barrier was quite a challenge, and i'd like to thank the other Russian-speaking inmates on our range for their help with translation.

 i should point out that for safety reasons i  had some misgivings about printing the person's real name, but after a long discussion she assured me that she really wanted it to be there. after thinking about it more and in consultation with people on the outside, I decided to change the name after all.  it's been done without her knowledge or consent and i still feel conflicted about it.

On Prisoners’ Justice Day in every jail in Canada and in prisons around the world inmates will go on a 24-hour hunger strike. We do this to remember Eddy Nolan who died in Millhaven Penitentiary in Ontario on August 10th 1974 as a victim of the inhumane conditions in that prison at that time. We do this to remember all of the inmates who fought and the two who died in a four day riot in April of 1971 at Kingston Penitentiary. Both of those incidents led to major reforms in the Canadian prison system. We fast so that we ourselves remember. We strike to remind the institutions and the world that even behind bars we are still entitled to human rights and human dignity, and we can still fight for both.

this week i'm handing my blog over to another inmate who recently went home after spending almost two and a half months here.  this post started off as a written interview, but the questions ended up just being guidelines so we removed them from the text.  i think it took a great deal of courage, and i'm grateful and very happy to be able to bring her story to you all.

 thank you to the author.  wherever you are i hope you're doing well and enjoying your freedom!

 The justice system is only too happy to help you believe that you are a piece of shit

 My charges were theft under $5000 and breach of probation.  Although I was arrested December 24^th, the next time i went to court (besides the bail hearings) was January 11^th.  Disclosure was partially done and at that point they offered me 71 days on a guilty plea.  When I went for sentencing on January 31^st the Crown read out a 90 day sentence (31 days was not mentioned), but my release date is March 4^th which is in fact 71 days served out of 90 – that's more than the 2/3 required.  I'm not sure why that is, I was not given the opportunity to inquire in court that day.

june 20th, 5:45am

 today is the summer solstice.  through the tiny crack in the frosted covering of my cell's window i can see little bits of pink in the sky.  it's all i'll see of the sunrise, and later it will be all i'll see of the sunset.  usually i would try to spend this entire day outside. . .but how do i celebrate the longest day of the year in a place like this?  i have such a limited relationship with the Earth these days - with weather, temperature, light and darkness, cycles and season.  our time outside is short, our glimpses of the outdoors are constricted and brief, our cell lights are off for daytime "quiet time" but are on all night, our unit is air conditioned.  i've been plucked right out of nature and dumped into a zone of extreme alienation.

today i went to a program: Anger Management.  it was my first and will probably be my last – a lot of programs are offered here but most of them don't apply to me or my current situation.  i told myself i would do one while i am here so i can tell you all about it, and Anger Management seemed like the most useful option.  it's one of four in the “Change is a Choice” Core Programming offered by Elizabeth Fry Peel-Halton.  Change is a Choice programs have five or six hour-and-a-half long sessions and the other topics are:

   -substance abuse

   -connections (i think this one's also known as “anti-criminal thinking!”)

   -taking control & making healthy relationship choices

unit two is a maximum security section of Vanier Centre for Women, where everyone starts out but many don't stay for long.  it's the only section of which i have any experience.  there are six different wings, or ranges, on the unit: 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, 2E, 2F. A, B, F wings are General Population.  inmates can be bounced from one to the other because for all intents and purposes they are interchangeable, aside from the fact that 2B is bigger and has single cells which means that one person has to sleep on a mattress on the floor.  because of the overcrowding 2B tends to be on lockdown more often than A or F wing.  I also hear that each Gen Pop range has a distinct culture – for example Leah (2A) is generally considered to be rowdier than mine (2F) and 2B is said to be dirtier.

i am slowly learning about the other three wings by piecing together information from inmates who have spent time in them.  unit 2C is segregation – the hole.  2E is Intensive Management And Treatment (IMAT) and Protective Custody (PC).  i don't know what 2D is called, but it's where inmates are taken for psychiatric analysis and it's much more restrictive than 2E.

it's been quite the celebratory month here on Unit 2F at the Vanier Institute for Women. 

first was easter, which we observed by eating huge hot breakfasts on friday and sunday.  some guards were perhaps a little too into in: i counted three of them wearing pink bunny ears.  that's right, bunny ears.  this got mixed reviews from the inmates but my favourite comment came from a woman sitting at my table who said “they'd better be shitting out chocolate eggs or they can take those fucking things off.”  indeed. 

on april 13th i marked the passing of my third month in this place.  at lunch i handed out jellybeans to all the tables, and i drank hot chocolate instead of tea (wild, i know. . .but we have limited options in here) at dinner my table split a caramilk bar and in the evening i ate a bag of lays barbeque chips.  as you can see, my celebrations are all about food.

leah henderson wrote these and requested that they be posted here on Mandy's blog:

 march 29, 2012

Why Me?

 So, this can't normally be said in jail: everything has changed.

For those of you who don't know me, I am Mandy's co-accused and I've been on a maximum security range at Vanier for the last 100 days. I've been approximately 50 feet from Mandy (though not allowed to nor able to communicate with her) and the day-to-day that you've read about on this blog is very similar to what my experience has been.

 Today, I was going about my regular routine when, after lunch, during quite time, I was brought out of my cell (which is not normally done during lockup) to see a social worker. She informed me that I would be moving to Unit 3, a medium security work-range for sentenced people. Now I am sure many of you were wondering what I was: Why now, half-way through my sentence? I will get to that part of the story in a minute. However, the question I hope we can all ask, often and loudly, is: Why me?

 Why me? When women here on immigration matters are kept on maximum security?

 Why me? When women here, for protecting themselves against domestic abuse are criminalized and kept on maximum security?

ok, i've re-sent this blog post twice through the mail and have waited over three weeks for it to arrive. it still hasn't arrived. here it is, dictated over the phone.

this post is going to be a bit of a downer, so i wrote myself a reminder to start it on a happy note. now what can i write about that's happy? i wondered, and immediately a whole lot of things came to mind – which made me realize that i am obviously doing pretty well. so while there are some honourable mentions- the bird making a nest above the light in the yard, the amazing book i just finished, the great visits i've had and have been looking forward to – the best thing of all is that two full months into my sentence i'm still feeling quite positive about this whole situation. In the words of a friend who knows what it's like - i appear to be winning at jail.

and now on to the important things.

at the moment i'm being distracted by the bad pop music coming from the TV.  as well as being bad, it's muffled because once again we're on lockdown and it's coming through the door of my cell.  my cellie got out this morning so i'm all alone in here, you'd think that would help me focus on work but instead it seems i'm distracted by the lack of distraction.

it looks like we might be in here all day.  all day i will be forced to look at the sticky bun sitting on my window sill.  will i eat it?  or will i save it for later?  such are the Big Questions in the air here in Cell 12, Unit 2F.

today is Family Day.

it seems like an appropriate time to talk about how the state uses the criminal justice system and the prison-industrial complex to rip apart families in poor, marginalized and targeted communities. ostensibly, this is to protect the families of the upper and middle-classes - you know, the people who count.

well, i've been here almost four weeks now, i'm all settled in and i've got the routine down.  so now it's time for me to answer the question i get asked the most by folks on the outside: "so what do you do all day?"

come, spend a day on Unit 2F, in the maximum security wing of Vanier with me!

the lights come up in the cells around 7:45am.  this gives us about 15 minutes to get up, get dressed, and strip our bed (folding the sheets and blankets neatly in a pile at the end of the bed, as per the photo posted out on the range).  by the time the lights go on i've been up for at least an hour or two doing a full warm-up and stretch - conveniently remembered from my days of competitive gymnastics - while my cellie sleeps.  being up that early means i get to see who's being taken out for court - they get taken at 6am so they can wait in holding cells for hours.  it's inefficient and kind of mean.  anyway, around 8am the loud buzzing sound means the cells are now unlocked, and we head out to breakfast.  the cell door locks behind us.

it's sunday january 22nd and this is my tenth day.  so far things are going well, there haven't been any problems and i have no regrets about my decision to do this time.

since i got here i've been taking it easy and learning the lay of the land - which hasn't been very complicated since i'm in Unit 2F, the same one i was in while waiting for bail.  not much has changed since the summer of 2010 - just some little things, like now we get compostable "ecotainer" cups instead of styrofoam, and instead of real soy milk there's this horrible SMART MILK non-dairy milk replacer powder.  kosher, vegan and gross.

this is going to be a short post because i do not have any paper or pencils yet and i am dictating this over the phone.  when i have the ability to write i will make longer, more in depth posts.

i am at vanier on unit 2 maximum security.  everything is fine here, my cellmate is great.  i am not on the same range as leah.

i want to say a big thank you to everyone who came out to court yesterday.  i could hear all the chaos from the video room - it was really amazing.