A B.C lawyer says she hopes a recent settlement between the Federal government and a Saskatchewan woman signals the end of administrative segregation.
Raji Mangat works for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
She says administrative segregation is reserved for prisoners in jails that staff members believe won’t interact well with the rest of the general population.
As a result prisoners can be locked away in isolation for several months at a time.
This apparently happened in the case of Bobby-Lee Worm.
The 26 year-old woman filed a lawsuit against the government in 2011.
Ottawa has settled with her for an undisclosed amount.
Mangat says the challenge appears to have reduced some of the protocols jails were using to facilitate this type of segregation:
“It’s a way of sort of operationalizing the legislation that allows for administrative segregation. So one of the victories we perceive from this lawsuit is that the fact that this management protocol no longer exists and no other women are going to be subject to that particular program of solitary confinement.”
She adds this doesn’t mean prisoners can’t be segregated anymore, but it won’t be through the same process Worm went through.
Mangat says Worm is now out of jail and hopes to reunite with her family in Regina.