Tony Doob, Professor Emeritus, C.M., FRSC, and former CrimSL Director, will deliver the 2024 Distinguished Lecture of the Windsor Yearbook Access to Justice on February 8, 2024. His talk is entitled "Learning from the study of the Government of Canada’s apparent attempt to end solitary confinement: The 'Structured Intervention Units' in Correctional Service Canada institutions."
When Parliament created “Structured Intervention Units” in 2019, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) took the position that the new legislation had abolished Administrative Segregation and they no longer practiced solitary confinement. Four years later, it is clear that the term Administration Segregation is no longer part of the official toolbox for CSC, but the practice of solitary confinement is alive and well in Canada’s penitentiaries. After over four years of examining Canada’s approach to solitary confinement, it is clear that there are two separate, but related topics that can be examined. The first is straightforward. It involves the understanding of what is happening in Canada’s penitentiaries in the area normally referred to as solitary confinement. The second is more complex. It involves using the study of “Structured Intervention Units” as a tool for understanding how Correctional Service Canada operates its institutions for all prisoners.
— Abstract, "Learning from the study of the Government of Canada’s apparent attempt to end solitary confinement: The 'Structured Intervention Units' in Correctional Service Canada institutions," Anthony Doob.
Doob says that related to this lecture topic is the work that he carries out as part of the Public Safety Canada's Structured Intervention Unit Implementation Advisory Panel. The advisory panel has released five reports since October 2021, and will soon be releasing a sixth.
He notes that CrimSL alumna Jane Sprott, PhD, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, also serves on the advisory panel. Together, Doob and Sprott published four reports on the topic of Canada's Structured Intervention Units in 2020-2021, all of which are available on the CrimSL website.
