Ontario Human Rights Commission renews call to abolish solitary confinement

The Ontario Human Rights Commission says there's an "alarming and systemic overuse of segregation" in the province's jails, the day after the ministry of correctional services said solitary confinement should be curbed but not completely eliminated from its institutions.

• Solitary confinement use to be curbed in Ontario jails
• Ontario ombudsman calls forend to indefinite segregation in jails
• Ottawa jail task force recommends segregation limits

Ontario is under pressure to reform the use of solitary confinement in its jails following reports of poor conditions at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, as well as a call from the province's ombudsman earlier this year to abolish indefinite segregation.

Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services David Orazietti said Monday that solitary confinement should be used "under the least restrictive conditions possible," but said total elimination "doesn't really stand the test of the practical realities in the institutions, where an individual may need to be segregated for their own safety or the safety of others."

On Tuesday, the Ontario Human Rights Commission renewed its call to abolish solitary confinement, pointing to statistics that suggest the province has a history of long-termisolation for inmates.

During a three-month period in the fall of 2015, 19 per cent of prisoners nearly 4,200 were put in solitary confinement at least once, while nearly 1,400 of those inmates spent at least 15 days alone.

The commission called on the province to release data annually on the use of segregation.

"These statistics underscore how critical it is to have data about what is happening behind the closed doors of Ontario's correctional facilities," the commission said in a news release.