Prisons: the New Asylums for People with Disabilities?
Our second Disability, Human Rights and the Law Series seminar for 2015-2016 examines how persons with disabilities in prisons are subject to pervasively poor and often abusive living conditions, and are routinely denied the care and equipment they need to address their mental or physical disabilities.
Historically, there were different institutions with different justifications for removing certain people from society: prisons for the ‘criminal’, asylums for the ‘insane’ and almshouses for the ‘poor’. Despite the asylums being closed, the confinement of the mentally ill persists; it is estimated that as much as 50 percent of the current prison population in Canada has a mental illness or other type of disability.
Moderated by Innocence McGill, and featuring Kim Pate of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, this event is an opportunity to discuss the practices that best meet the needs of persons with disabilities in prison, and whether prisons have become the new “asylums".
