Two former inmates reveal what it's really like at the Clarenville women's prison

Some nights it was so cold inmates slept with gloves on. "Nuisance" prisoners were put in segregation cells. Tensions rose as medications were cut.

Those are just some of the complaints about theCorrectional Centre for Women in Clarenvillefrom two former inmates, moved to reveal details of prison life in the wake of two inmate deaths within two months, news that left them shocked and unsurprised.

"I was blown away. The first thing I thought was: Wow, what is going on with that place?" said Jennifer Pittman, who served a 16-month sentence for several offences, including attempted robbery and possession of a weapon, before being released in February of this year.

"I'm kinda surprised it didn't happen sooner."

Skye Martin died on April 21; RCMP have said it appearsthe 27-year-old choked on her lunch. However, a statement from the province's justice department on Wednesday said "the matter is currently under investigation and therefore an official cause of death, as determined by the Chief Medical Examiner, cannot be released at this time."

Samantha Piercey died on May 26;her mother says she was told her 28-year-old daughter died by suicide. Bothdeaths are currently under an independent investigation.

• Mother of dead inmate seeks answers as independent investigation launched
• Woman, 27, choked to death at Clarenville women's prison, police believe

"I agreed to do this [interview] for the change, to make some changes," said Jennifer Jorgenson, who was sentenced to 15 months for trafficking oxycodoneand released from Clarenvillein June of 2017.

"For Skye."

'It was a sin'

"She was always colouring and drawing pictures. She was really sweet. I loved her," said Pittman.

"She definitely didn't belong there. It was a sin."

Provincial Supreme Court documents show Martin had a long history of mental health issues, criminal offences and stays at the Waterford Hospital, Newfoundland and Labrador's psychiatric facility. For an armed robbery in September of 2015, she served a year sentence and was released back into the community, butin January 2017 she committed numerous offences both in and out of the Waterford, from attacking nurses to robbing a convenience store at knife point.

It was while Martin was serving her sentence for those crimes she met Pittman and Jorgenson.

"The guards aren't well-equipped, the prison is not equipped to deal with mental health. So they really didn't have anything to do with her. They just put her down in the cell and they [left]here there," Pittman said.

"In segregation, you're not even supposed to have a pair of pants or a bed sheet," Jorgenson said.

"She had sheets, she had blankets, she had pillows. She had everything that we had. They just housed her in segregation because of ... Skye being a little bit of a nuisance."

Jorgenson admitted Martin's behaviour which ranged from making a scene to self-harming sometimes warranted segregation. But Jorgenson felt Martin often ended up being segregated simply because staff couldn't cope with the amount of attention she demanded.

"It was actually pretty sad to see. We had to hear her banging on the doors for hours down there, screaming out, telling someone to go get the guards and nobody would ever come."

"I've actually seen guards cry"

Both Jorgenson and Pittman don't hesitate to statethey believe Martin's constant segregation directly contributed to her death, but neither of them lay blame totally at the feet of the correctional officers on the front lines.

"I know everyone there was thinking the same thing:that Skye shouldn't have been there,that things need to change," Pittman said.

"I've seen guards with tears in their eyes. I've actually seen guards cry," Jorgenson added.

In an interview Wednesday, Justice Minister AndrewParsons said while it was "no surprise" there are inmates in Clarenville with mental health issues and addictions, he objected to the complaint that staff aren't adequately trained to deal with them.

"We're dealing with more complex issues than ever within our institutions, but to say that our staff aren't trained or able to handle this I don't think is accurate, in any way, shape or form. They all have mental health and first aid training," Parsons said.

At the same time, Parsons said correctional officers are just that correctional officers and not meant to replace health professionals who work in the prison system.

Medication changes

Jorgensonand Pittman have no shortage of complaints about one health professional on staff: the prison's psychiatrist, Dr. David Craig.

"Everybody's medication gets cut as soon as you go in, whether you've been on them for all your life or whether you've been on them a week," Jorgenson said.

"He says that he takes you off and then monitors you to see if you really need it, and then puts you back on. I don't think I've seen him put anyone back on," Pittman said, with a rueful laugh.

Craig's methods of taking inmates off their medications has been well-documented, and hehas faced criticism for his tactics before. Parsons said complaints about the doctor are "not a newsflash by any means," but that Craig is trained and his methodspeer-reviewed.

• Prison psychiatrist David Craig explains prescribing methods in new article

• N.L. inmates 'suffering' without their medications

Craig is not the only doctor specializing in mental health that servesthe jail, and the two former inmates spoke highly of the prison's psychologist, although they both said his services were high in demand, and they often only saw him every three weeks.

Understaffed, overworked

Pittman said during her time in Clarenville, she saw correctional officers understaffed and overworked a situation that made following safety protocols, such as having a guard constantly monitoring inmates in segregation via video camera, difficult.

"They're supposed to have a staff [member] that is constantly watching those cameras and half the time they don't have the staff," Pittman said, adding she can recall times when inmates were locked in their cells simply because there weren'tenough staff to supervise them otherwise.

While both are quick to say staff were decent to deal with personally and professionally, Jorgenson saidshe's seen guardspulled away from the security monitors to oversee the distribution of methadone to prisoners on the program. And both of them said understaffing grew worse at night.

"In the night it was pointless, you could bang on the door for hours," said Jorgenson, recalling a time when Pittman knocked for three hours, trying to get the guards to turn off the lights they'd mistakenly left on.

Staffing at status quo

Although Minister Parsons acknowledged a rise in the "complex issues" prison staff are dealing with, hesaid staffing levels have stayed static.

"The staffing level there is the same that it's been for virtually two decades and has not changed. I've not had any complaints," Parsons said.

Parsons said the normal amount of correctional officers on duty at any one time is four: three guards and a captain.

In a recent visit, Parsons said there were 22 inmates present, below the prison's capacity of26. The prison has been overcapacity several times in the recent past, with inmates moved temporarily to Her Majesty's Penitentiary in St. John's, an all-male facility.

• Overcrowding in Clarenville not an isolated problem, needs solution, says justice minister

Trying to break the cycle

As they adjust to life on the outside,bothJorgensonand Pittman wish more had been done behind bars to help them prepare.

Pittman said what programming is offered to the inmates is often of no real use, mostly amounting to arts and crafts sessions where inmates coloured pictures and made cards.

"Instead of just housing ya, they should help you, give you skills," she said.

"I want help with relapse prevention. I want life management skills. Debt consolidation, maybe, financial help, how to budget your money. Stuff like this. How to get a job," Pittman said, adding one government program that was offeredfocused on how to apply for social assistance once released.

"Most of those women in there are repeat offenders. They're in and out of there their whole lives, and they're not giving them the skills to make it on the outside."

"Stella Burry if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have gotten any addictions [help], we wouldn't have gotten any behavioural management skills, we wouldn't have gotten anything," Jorgenson said, referencing the non-profit group also known as Stella's Circle, which provides programs to inmates.

In an attempt to effect change while still incarcerated, both Jorgenson and Pittman served on the inmate committee, which offers a means for inmates to offer their input on the day-to-day operations at the institution. The lack of programming was raised consistently by Jorgenson during her time on the committee but she said the general attitude from officials was, "What more do they want?"

'People need to speak up'

What Jorgenson and Pittman want now is clear: concrete changes to theprovince's justice system, a desire that impels them to speak out, rather than put their prison sentences behind them.

"Not only does the correctional facility down there need to make changes, it's the judges, it's the Crown prosecutors," said Jorgenson.

"It's the people in the positions that are sentencing people to have to go there in the first place when they should be going to a hospital. They should be going and getting treatment in another facility that is better able to deal with those types of situations."

"I feel like people need to speak up," Pittman said.

With the independent investigation into the recent deaths underway, Parsons could not give a date for its conclusion, but did say there was an "urgency" for the reviewto be completed.

Read more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador