Women prisoners kept in ‘zombie-like’ state on meds

Canada’s Corrections watchdog has launched an investigation into the increasing “over-medication” of female prisoners — some into a perpetual “zombie-like” state while incarcerated.

One Native woman is believed to have gone into a coma because of being drugged by authorities.

With Aboriginal women making up a disproportionate number of those incarcerated across the country, advocates say it will take significant and deep change before the injustice is addressed.

The announcement that Correctional Investigator of Canada Howard Sapers will probe why 60 per cent of federal women inmates are reportedly on at least one psychotropic drug — up from 42 per cent in 2001 — is being praised by prisoner advocates with the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. But the group remains cautious after decades of unmet reform promises.

“We’re very happy to see it’s being investigated,” executive director of Kim Pate told Windspeaker. “The challenge will be whether the practices will be changed.

“It’s a huge concern, especially when you consider how many women enter prisons with all kinds of trauma. Zombifying, putting them into zombie-like states, is not appropriate.

Essentially, it’s a way to not have emotional reactions from the women, to have them basically not in any way be a challenge to the administration.”

Pate cited data that 91 per cent of all Aboriginal women serving federal sentences (those longer than two years) have histories of physical and sexual abuse before incarceration. But with many women undiagnosed upon being jailed, powerful antipsychotic medications like Seroquel are being used “off label” as a sleeping pill, despite health warnings against using the medication for unintended purposes.

Despite making up only two- to three per cent of the Canadian population, Aboriginal women make up 34 per cent of prisoners, a number which could reach a full half this decade, Pate said. That figure is already more than double the national average in the Prairie provinces, where the numbers of psych drugs also skyrocket.

In an email to Windspeaker, Correctional Service Canada disputed the number of women being treated with psychiatric medications, despite previous media reports finding that there was no CSC data collection on the drugs’ prescriptions to inmates. As of April, a spokeswoman said that federally 54 per cent, or 298, female inmates were “receiving at least one psychotropic drug.”

The emailed response stated that prescriptions were administered only by health professionals and the practice meets “professionally accepted standards.”

“The Correctional Service of Canada has a legal mandate to provide essential health care to inmates and mental health care that can contribute to the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders,” the email read. “Treatment of psychiatric illness is established on a case by case basis, based on offender need, and may include psychiatric medications.”

But advocates argue that sedating women prisoners in such high numbers amounts to an extreme reliance on “chemical restraints” to make women more compliant, something some call a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

On top of that, a high number of female prisoners are locked up for either an escalating cycle of administrative or non-violent offences, or for acts of self-defence against their abusers, according to Pate.

“We know there’s an increased use of restraints overall in prisons,” she said. “When I ask (correctional) staff what makes women difficult to manage, many will talk about emotional responses like crying or being upset, not posing a danger to anyone else.

“Let’s face it. Anyone in prison for 20 to 30 years will have mental health issues – often created by the prison environment, even if it was sparked by residential school.”

Like many issues in Indian Country, the dark history of the racist schools, up until the last one closed in 1996, looms large in understanding today’s crises.

“Many of the women impacted by this have previously been in residential schools,” she said, citing several cases of women who were already in jail within a year of leaving the notorious schools.
“It’s a tragedy. People had no access to their family, culture and communities. It’s not a surprise that when they were thrown out of school they ended up figuring out how to survive on the streets. Many ended up in abusive relationships, among the missing and murdered women, or in prison.”

She said that many women she works with behind bars were only categorized as “dangerous” in jail after their first assault charge inside prison itself. But she cited several cases where women were charged with assault for trying to defend themselves from inappropriate or abusive strip searches and interventions from guards.

One prisoner repeatedly defended her right to fair treatment, Pate said, which led to her being drugged repeatedly into submission because she was viewed as combative towards authorities.

“The response was always more punitive punishment towards her instead of correcting the actions of staff,” she said. “What gets characterized as ‘mental health problems’ in prison are often circumstances of people’s reasonable reactions to unreasonable situations.

“It’s not unreasonable for somebody to be depressed when they’re suddenly institutionalized. When you talk about the legacy of residential schools, these women had to resist authority, quite frankly in order to survive, and many have had to survive in increasingly marginalized circumstances because of income and abuse.”

Elizabeth Fry Societies want to end over-prescriptions, particularly for off-label uses akin to forced sedation — and instead boost the services and support for women struggling with mental health issues such as depression behind bars.

For instance, helping connect them with family members and community, even if through access to internet chat services like Skype, would go a long way towards healing and rehabilitation. Likewise, improved counselling services available at all times would also improve things.