Surviving Incarceration: Inside Canadian Prisons

By Rose Ricciardelli

Chapter Seven
Rose Ricciardelli
Chapter seven speaks to what the future of Criminal Justice in Canada may ‘look like’. The changing infrastructure of prisons is also examined alongside how such changes may affect prisoner well-being and rehabilitation in the future. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Release date: May 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781771120555

Rose Ricciardelli

Rose Ricciardelli is an assistant professor at Memorial University. She has published in academic journals such as , Sex Roles, and Theoretical Criminology. Her research interests include evolving conceptualizations of masculinities, vulnerabilities and risk as well as experiences of prisoners, police, and correctional officers within different facets of the criminal justice system.

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acceptance.

INTRODUCTION

Do keep in mind as you read this narrative that the events described leading to the narrator’s conviction of manslaughter occurred between three teenagers despite the adult discourse and articulation. The interviewee is a twenty-three-year-old black male who was released from prison after serving a five-year sentence for manslaughter beyond his previous experiences of incarceration. He was first introduced to the system in his youth and has watched far too many people—kids, truly—die unnecessary deaths in his few years.

NARRATIVE. JUST A KID: FOREVER HURTING

I was in jail for five years. I first went as an adolescent. Being rebellious, my mother would kick me out of the house, and, in turn, getting kicked out of the house, I started hanging around with people that were involved in crime and/or selling drugs; you know, just all walks of life. And eventually, I got tied up. I was getting money, getting cars, getting girls or whatever. I always had an abundance of you know, but I never looked at the bigger picture. I started selling a little bit of drugs, fights, violence, and got my first charge—assault. An ex-dude was selling and a white guy called us ‘niggers’ because of whatever reason. I beat him up, got charged for it. I’m actually half Portuguese, half Jamaican. [Author: Do people still use those derogatory slurs?] All day every day; the music that we listen to says it itself. I was sixteen [when convicted], fifteen when I got charged. They actually gave me two years on probation, and I pled guilty.

Then my second charge was truancy because I wasn’t going to school at all, and they charged me and put a curfew on me. That’s when the bullshit started. We were living in [a city] at the time of the assault, and my mom thought it would be better to move to [another city]. So we moved [to a new city in a bad area]. We did a little bit of migration, but that’s when the bullshit started. I was supposed to go to school, but I didn’t go to school, so the truancy officer got involved. I got charged, and they put a curfew on me. It was for little stupid things, like my mom would ask me to go to the store, and it would be a half an hour to my curfew. I would go to the store and on the way back I’d get pulled over, and they’re like, ‘You hang out with so-and-so.’ I should mention that the people I hung out with didn’t have a good rapport with the cops. They were always harassing and antagonizing and being ignorant, and when they [the officers] showed aggression, I would be aggressive in my own nature and get right back at them. So I’d get resisting arrest or some other violence, and that’s where it all started.

We were just straight enemies. I would see a cop or he would see me. He’d bust a U-turn in the middle of the street with full traffic, cut off cars just to get at me, pull me over, jump out of the car, grab me, and throw me up against the car. They’d be like, ‘You’re a tough guy. Come into the station,’ and then I’d go to the station and get beat up for about half an hour, and they’d release me again with a promise to appear [in court]. That was not fun. … Then I was selling drugs, and I’d have people that would want to rob or try and rob me or something along those lines, so I decided to get protection, and the protection just made it worse because I felt like Scarface, like I could just do what I want when I want; if someone had a problem, I could end it. It was scary at times because certain situations occurred where violence was not necessary, but because of the people and the situation in general, people did get hurt. It got to the point where I felt I don’t need this anymore, so I would get rid of it. But before I got rid of it, I did robberies and stuff like that. It’s a sly game nowadays, and at the end of the day it can happen to anybody. There are a lot of things that happen in the world today that doesn’t get played on the news. People die every day, and I’ve lost three of my best friends growing up; one of them was killed by the police.

And him [points at his tattoo], he got stabbed. He got stabbed and killed. And my other friend got killed by his girlfriend—how awkward that sounds. But he [points] was a [names a specific sport] player, and, basically, he was not like us. We saw how he was growing and were like you can’t do what we do—do something positive. You need money to get a car; you need money to play [the sport]. He was a kid. He had a chance. He was stabbed. He actually got into a fight with a buddy, and he beat up Buddy and Buddy couldn’t handle it, so he came back and stabbed him after school. Now, Buddy got bail; he’s out on bail right now. So that’s how that goes. My guy, he got stabbed and killed by his girlfriend in the neck. She’s in jail right now. But jail isn’t good for anybody. It just makes the whole situation worse.

[I got] manslaughter. There was money involved and a female that worked the streets, and she was basically under my wing—she was working for me. I gave her drugs; she made money and brought it back to me, et cetera, et cetera. She was a dealer, but I would say she’s like a prostitute now. At the end of the day, she was staying with me at my house, and I gave her my house keys. I had to run and do something, and when I went, she disappeared for two weeks. I couldn’t get in my house. Luckily my mom was there. My mom would open the door for me. I can’t tell her that somebody else has the keys. I have valuables in my house, so I would always be at home. I wasn’t able to do certain things. I would call the phone, her phone. It wouldn’t answer or pick up for about two weeks. So eventually I got angry. I didn’t necessarily put out a hit or anything but put out a search for her throughout the homies and stuff. They found her and some indication of where she was at. Being under the influence of anger and, I would say, greed, I had made the decision to start problems. But I went out there, and my intention was to get my house keys, number one. I didn’t care about the money or drugs, but there was a quantity that she had and it really wasn’t on my mind. I wanted my house keys and also my dog. I went to go get my house keys, and before I could get to the location, I saw her and some dude walking and I confronted her. I asked for my belongings back.

She was bitching at me, giving her attitude. I couldn’t take that. I draped her up and grabbed her by the collar. Basically, I explained—no punches, no hands, nothing like that, no physical stuff besides grabbing and putting her up against the wall. Basically told her how I felt—pissed off, obviously. And I wanted my fucking house keys: ‘If you don’t give them to me and I know you have them on you. … It’s been two weeks, you disappeared—I catch you now—call your phone, can’t get a hold of you. You are holding onto my work, my money.’ She says, ‘Oh, I have money for you.’ I replied, ‘Okay, yeah, that’s good. I want my keys.’ She said she didn’t have them on her. So the violence came out. I say, ‘You don’t have my keys! Where the fuck are they? Are you trying to rob my house? What are you trying to do?’ So it turned into an on-the-spot search. I started going through pockets, clothes, whatever. I can’t find them. But she has a secret pocket, and it’s on the front of her panty liner, whatever. So I go in there. My keys are there. Pull them out. And now Buddy tries to intervene. But the thing he doesn’t know is me and this female had sexual relations. So he doesn’t know what’s going on, but he thinks that I am like doing something fucked up, or that’s what I’m thinking after the fact. … All of this happened.

So now he intervenes, and I’m like, ‘Oh bro, mind your business. This is not the time or the place, because you can get hurt. Just be quiet. I can get hurt. No, no, no you don’t know me.’ So now he started getting bravado, like boasting. Basically, I’m like, ‘Yo bro, you don’t know what’s going on here, so just shut the fuck up. She’s been woofin’ [repeatedly lying in a manner that cannot be comprehended].’ While I was searching her pockets there was drugs and money in there, and I took that too. It’s like, ‘You’re done working for me. You can go work for somebody else. I don’t care.’ So I take that out of her pockets, take the keys. He intervenes and says, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘Yo, mind your business, et cetera, et cetera.’ And then it gets to violence talking and threats are said. I said, ‘Bro, you don’t know, shut up; go for a walk this has nothing that pertains to you; keep it moving.’ He basically said that I will hurt you. ‘You’ll hurt me? Get out of here.’ He says, ‘I’ll dump you.’ ‘Dump you’ is street terminology that basically means kill or gutter life or something along those lines. But he said, ‘I’ll dump you.’ [I said], ‘Ya, you’re gonna dump me? You’re a little bitch!’ I forcefully pushed him; a two-handed push to the chest. He took a couple steps back. He came did the same thing to me, and I was like, ‘What’s goin’ on here?’ Then, I start to snap in my mind: ‘Yo bro, if you’re bad, then do something. Shirt up. If you’re bad, then do something.’ Then the fuckin’ asshole reaches behind him like he has a gun or something—I didn’t know. But my instinct was to get him first, and I didn’t have a gun on me at the time ’cause I made the choice not to take it with me, but I had a knife, and I stabbed him in the chest in a downward motion which killed him and, ah, yeah. Eventually, I left the area. By that time, me and him [were] getting into a conversation; she’d already left when me and him were doing our thing. I left, but in my mind I was thinking that the stab wasn’t that bad or severe. I walked around the block and saw him lying on the floor and thought, ‘Oh shit, this could be serious now.’ I stepped over him and he’s like gargling, coughing up blood, and I’m like, ‘Bro, see. You should have listened. Like fuck, I’m not playing with you and it got to the point where … Oh, my God!’ Still, but I left. He eventually died of his injuries. He bled out or, whatever, bled in … I left the scene, and I was gone for three days.

The guilt was always there though. It’s always there; always been there. Cold sweats. Nightmares. Always there. Yeah, it’s always [trails off]. Never look in a man’s eyes when he is dying. I did that. I see it all of the time. It could be just flashbacks. It scares the shit out of me sometimes. When a man starts coughing up blood and gargling, and he’s not breathing—he’s just breathing in and out his own blood—he’s dying. I guess that’s how it had to go. It could have gone totally different if he didn’t reach out and I reacted. Well, this has happened to me before. I don’t know, maybe a divine intervention, but I mean … [At this point in the interview there were very long tear-filled pauses and painful breaths. We took a minute to recollect and the author opted to temporarily turn off the recording device. Recall that the narrator at this time was in his early twenties; in many ways, a child speaking like a man who had seen too much, too soon.]

A few days later, I got arrested. I knew they were coming for me. I came out of my house, and I saw a whole bunch of undercovers. Instead of them kicking off the door, finding my dog, which was a pit bull at the time—I mean, I didn’t want them to take my dog because I had another dog prior to that and they took him too—but, I mean, they fuckin’ hate me, like I’m the last of a dying breed, I guess. We are dealt with the exact same way that a pit bull is. A pit bull looks mean and arrogant and ignorant or whatever the case may be, but, I mean, on the inside they are all the same. They are lovable creatures. It depends on how you treat it and how you raise it. It’s the same way with us. They look at us the same way. They automatically want to put us in jail. So it’s like if you were to walk a pit bull down the [names a city street], a cop would eventually stop you, call the Humane Society, and put the dog in jail. You would have to fight to get that dog out, and if you don’t fight for it, it stays in. It’s like every animal is vicious; as an animal, obviously, they’re wild. Even if they are domesticated, they still have what’s in them.

[When I got arrested] I just went for a walk. I didn’t necessarily have a place to go. I called my boy. He was supposed to come and meet me at 3:00, but I got arrested at 3:00. He was there, and I was going to jump in the vehicle, but he was hot; he does his things, too. So if I got into the vehicle with him and they pull us over—and they have the right to—then both of us are going. I am not going to put him on my shit, so I told him go, to leave. I just walked down the street. They were coming for me. They’re everywhere. They took pictures, surveillance: they’re coming. So I sat there, and I got my mind ready. I was going to jail for a long time. I had my cigarette there, and they took me to jail. When they took me to jail, I thought, ‘Okay, let’s do this.’ I had one hundred emotions running through my head, like anger, pain, defeat: When was I going to see my mom, my dog, this person, that person? Like my girl, ‘What could she be doing?’ Just a whole bunch of shit running through my head, but time went by smooth because as soon as I got busted it was a high-profile crime, so they basically put me in segregation for like a month.

In seg [segregation], I was looking at four walls. So instead of going crazy, I did something productive. I started to write rhymes or whatever, poetry, et cetera, et cetera. That made my time pass easy, and then they put us back on the regular range. There were a couple dudes that were against me because they knew ‘Buddy.’ They were his friends. So there was a bit of tension, but I brought it to them straight up, and I’m like, ‘Yo, what would you do?’ At the end of the day, if they want to do something about it and defend it, then defend it. I was right here. I was not afraid of nothing. So I got into a couple fights, but most of them were had-to-be fights. When you are in jail, you have to fight. If you are looked upon as prey, then you will always be prey. If you’re weak in heart, they see that, and they would always take advantage of you. It’s simple. You can always catch yourself in trouble, and I spent five years in a [higher-security] penitentiary without getting stabbed and only getting into one fight, and that’s because somebody tried to take my chicken.

In reception, I had a celly [cell mate], too, so I had to compensate for whatever he was doing. Ah, he was lactose intolerant with milk, so. He was an older dude, right? It was like looking upon an uncle, but not a dad, because dad is dad. An older person, so I don’t get mad. And when I get mad, I’d be like, ‘You listen, bro, the toilet, courtesy flush.’ Horrible. But we got along; we only got into one altercation. It was like, ‘You’re an asshole.’ ‘I’m an asshole? You’re an asshole.’ And then we kind of just laughed at it after. We were in really close quarters. He was a cool dude; he was a lifer. He got locked for murder in the second degree, and they gave him a life fifteen.

The violence—you become immune to it once you see it so many times. You’re numb to it. There are a lot of dudes in there that are not prone to jail life. I was doing time in there since I was in YO [in youth custody as a young offender], so now I’m accustomed to it, ’cause when I was in YO it got me ready for basically the big house. You know, ‘don’t do this, don’t do that’ was instilled from when I was in YO, so when I got to the adult jail, I already know what I’m doing. The rules are set in stone. Its common sense: don’t spit in the sink; use the pisser for the pisser; the shitter for the shitter. You know. Read the rules when you come in ’cause every jail has different rules. But the main ones are respect, ’cause you have to give it to get it. Simple as follow the rules and you’re good to go; don’t call nobody a goof, ’cause that’s war … Unless you have a problem with somebody and you want a problem with somebody and they won’t fight you, call them that and they have to fight you.

I eventually got myself enrolled in school. I had no credits at all; now I just need twelve to graduate [from high school]. I worked in the kitchen, and my time was just devoted to school, kitchen, and my girl. I’d work out … My original work out partner—he’s a beast, a monster. So I’d work out with him first, then he’d go upstairs, at like 8:30, and my next set of hommies would come downstairs. They’d want to do their workout, which is mainly cardio. Then I’d do that workout until we go upstairs, which is 10:15, 10:30 by then. I’d be pooped and just want to eat, you know. Go upstairs, take a shower, and eat my food, and start the same routine over every day, so I was busy. I wasn’t into politics; politics is fucking dummies’ handiwork. If you get involved in politics, you get involved in getting stabbed or having to stab somebody. Basically, if we’re going to get ourselves problems or get ourselves into trouble, it’s got to be over something good because all of us think the same, and all of us are in the same mindset. So it’s like if somebody fucks with us, they’re getting it; and if we have to do life [in prison], then we have to do life.

When I transferred [to a high-medium facility], it was violent. It’s gotten worse; it’s gotten really bad. There’s a stabbing every two weeks, and it’s like, ‘Wow.’ You know, it’s, ‘What are you doing?’ I guess [if you] don’t have enough money. I mean, it only happens to people that are fucking doing something fucked up, like you have to be not following the code. And there have been suicides; in the last year, there’s been two or three. The one guy just recently hung himself in my old cell.

My workout partner, he’s a white guy, short, stalky, curls eighty-pound dumbbells—it’s fucking retarded—but anyways, he kept me out of a lot of shit, a lot of politics. A lot of people were doing some shit, and he kept me under his wing. He was a lifer. Right now, he’s going through a problem … but he’s never involved [in shit]; he’s a good dude. He fucking kept me out of shit; he doesn’t smoke weed, doesn’t drink. I’m about to go smoke this, and he’s like, ‘Where are you going? What do you need that for? When you get out and you’re on parole and you have to take piss tests, you’re going to go smoking?’ I’m like, ‘No.’ And he’s like, ‘Why the fuck are you going to smoke now? Why don’t you just chill? Get healthy, get used to it.’ [I learned] If you’re high, you’re doing nothing; just sitting in your room watching TV, and, well, me and this dude are doing something productive. So it’s all how you think about it, and I had enough shit in my life. I’m not going back to jail for nothing. I’d rather die straight up. I’m not going back to jail. I’m not seeing those walls again. I’m not trying to see people that left and go back there. I’d rather they put a bullet in my fucking head because it’s mental warfare in there, and it’s a lot of emotional warfare at the same time. I was in there, and I lost my grandmother on [date and time]. She passed, and now I’m out here, and I’m so mentally fucked because I want to call grandma, but I can’t because she’s dead, and it hasn’t sunk in yet. I was in there and time stopped; I got out and I thought it was still stopped, but I have to start everything over. My family relationship, me and my girl; everybody still thinks I’m the same person—same tyrant outlaw I was before I got pulled over by the police. But my past will always haunt me. I’m a better person now. I love what gives me a peace of mind where I’m not thinking about robbing, stealing drug money, et cetera, like that. I rather do this than be involved in that. I still have friends that are involved in the criminal lifestyle, but I don’t pick up the phone and call them.

Beyond the violence, what stands out about prison is losing my grandmother and changing my thought process, too. I did do programs there, and if I didn’t go to jail, I wouldn’t be who I am right now; I would be worse. [Author: Do you think jail was a positive influence then?] Depends who you’re surrounded by. If you’re surrounded by people who want to see good for you, then you’re okay; if you’re surrounded by people that are into bullshit on a regular basis and that don’t really give a shit about the other people around them, then you’re fucked because you’ll end up getting stabbed and killed or get into a street beef ’cause that’s what it is in there. It could be a good thing for certain people or a bad thing ’cause if you go in there and think that you’re not doing nothing wrong, then it’s not good for you; if you go in there and know that you did something wrong, then it’s a good thing. It doesn’t work for everybody, but if you accept you did something wrong and want to change [it could work]. I’m still violent in terms how I would defend myself. I’m not going to be a lamb and, like, let you kill me. I’m going to continue defending myself. But going out robbing and carrying guns and knives, I don’t need to do that. [If I did] it’s the circle of eternity; it’s just a revolving door. When you decide to make the choice to stop doing it, it will stop happening.

But I will say, the more people that don’t go to prison, the better. The more people try not to have problems with their loved ones. Like if I never got kicked out, and I worked things out, and had that communication with my family members, and wasn’t so naive, I wouldn’t have went to jail. If I was always surrounded by positive things, not material things, but being busy in terms of sports, work. My family, it’s going to take time for them to realize that. And after all I’ve put them through, I can’t necessarily get mad at them. I just have to take it and compensate for it and be compassionate about it. Have faith. Stay true to myself.

Introduction to Federal Corrections in Canada

Prisons in Canada and much of the Western world are viewed as segregated institutions that house the bad people in society; they are often thought to be geographically and socially isolated from the rest of society. Indeed, many citizens lack an understanding as to what goes on within prison walls, its structure and functioning and the people living inside. This lack of information opens the possibility for prisons and prisoners to become viewed as scary entities in society, both people and places to be feared. Yet in the modern world, many people encounter prisons, whether coming in and out of prison, working at a prison, or having professional or personal relationships with prisoners or former prisoners. Surprisingly, knowledge about prisons and prisoners remains minimal among the majority of citizens. How is this even possible?

In my own personal experiences, too often when I request a taxi driver to drop me off at a nearby prison, I see the apprehension in his or her face. Regularly, I begin to get looks, as I think the driver tries to determine (a) why I am going to the prison and (b) if I am scary or not. I can state for a fact that some drivers have thought I was the daughter, girlfriend, or some sort of relation of a prisoner, while others have thought I was working at a prison in some capacity. I’ve been asked where I work at the prison, why a nice girl wants to go to such a place, if I am visiting a boyfriend (whom I should lose of course, because he must be no good), and if I am scared. Others have simply driven me there in silence—perhaps they thought I was a prisoner out for a change of scenery?—locking the doors as soon as we near the grounds. I also have been questioned about the facility by curious drivers, clearly demonstrating how much is unknown about prisons and prison living. The most common questions are if prisons are safe, if I see criminals, and where the criminals are kept. For example, I recall pulling up to a prison and seeing a man outside the main doors with a small dog on a leash—most likely taking the little guy for a brief walk. As we neared the front doors where the driver would be stopping to let me out of the car, he immediately hit the brakes and locked the doors. He asked me without hesitation, Is that a prisoner? I found it perplexing. Prisoners are in the prison, not walking dogs freely on the grounds, and prison is not a place where one can come and go as one pleases. I would have thought modern television had ensured those facts were known by the public in some capacity. After this particular incident, whenever I am asked how safe one is on the prison grounds, I point out cameras, noting that we can be seen by officers working in control (i.e., central rooms from which officers monitor the grounds and facility), and explain that the green space between the fence (which is huge and intimidating for the most part) and facility is not used by prisoners. I also point out the direction of the barbed wire on the fence—as it slopes outward—purposefully designed to keep people from trying to enter rather than leave the prison—too often a lost fact. I then explain that prisoners do not openly roam around the grounds in most institutions (often pointing out the paved, often tarp-covered, cage that is referred to as the yard, where prisoners are allowed to enjoy the outdoors).

This book is designed to provide insight into the realities of prisoners and prison living for people with interest and those with or pursuing education or careers in sociology, criminology, corrections, criminal justice, social work, law enforcement, or counselling. It does not seek to answer the question of why prisons exist and refrains from seeking to answer the question of whether prisons exist to punish or to rehabilitate offenders. Instead my focus is on life or lived experiences in prison, as I seek to dispel misconceptions of what life is like inside prisons and present realities about living in prisons in the twenty-first century in Ontario, Canada. In this sense, the idea is simply to expose readers to just who prisoners are, the heterogeneity of the prisoner population, and what occurs in a prison. The focus here is on the federal prison experience, where a convicted person sentenced to a minimum of two years to a maximum of life in custody is incarcerated. Beyond the theoretical exploration of the realities of prison living, this book is shaped by the personal narratives of some former prisoners that were open to sharing their experiences in their own words. These narratives include the life histories and trajectories of men with convictions ranging from manufacturing and distributing child pornography to drug manufacturing and distribution, and from armed robberies and endangering lives to murder of diverse degrees. The personal accounts, in the words of the former prisoner himself, will allow readers to determine for themselves who a criminal is, if they are bad people or simply men who erred in life or were the victim of circumstance. I stress that my goal here is not to suggest that all criminals are good people or bad people with socially unacceptable or acceptable values and ethical standards. Rather, I hope to demonstrate that, as with any other group of people who share some common characteristics (here simply the fact that they have been to prison), former prisoners are a diverse group. They should not be judged by their acts, their index crime, which is the crime of the highest severity of which a prisoner has been convicted, their knowledge of other criminals, or who they were years or decades prior when they committed the criminal act(s) in question. The idea is simply to learn about criminality and prison experiences, and in doing so better understand if prison is a humane form of punishment and an effective means of rehabilitation, and if prison policies and the relocation of resources away from offender rehabilitation toward housing more offenders is a movement toward the betterment and safety of the incarcerated population and society as a whole. This book will also shed light on the question of whether policy changes and new legislation (e.g., the Safe Streets and Communities Act, also referred to as Bill C-10) are necessary or will benefit society as a whole. The empirical data presented in this book comes from in-depth interviews with almost sixty former prisoners, most on parole, who served their