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This limitation of function is reflected in the 'Rules and Regulations
respecting Prisons of Isolation' which were promulgated in 1893. Section
1 set out the criteria for admission to Canada's first super-maximum institution:
Any male convict whose conduct is found to be vicious,
or who persists in disobedience to the Rules and Regulations of the Prison,
or who is found to exercise a pernicious influence on his fellow convicts
may be imprisoned in the Prison of Isolation for an indefinite period
not to exceed the unexpired term of the convict's sentence.66
Before a prisoner could be sent to the Prison of Isolation, the warden
was required to transmit to the inspector, for the minister of justice's
consideration, his report of the facts, and the reasons justifying such
imprisonment. The rules also laid down the regime under which prisoners
were to be confined. These included confinement in the special cells;
strict silence; separate exercise for about an hour a day in the presence
of an officer; employment at such labour as may be ordered; restriction
to a special diet for at least three months, subject to the approval of
the surgeon; and no visits or letters for the same period. At the end
of the three months, subject to their good conduct, prisoners could receive
the ordinary prison diet; at the end of three additional months, again
subject to good conduct, they were eligible to return to the ordinary
cells.67 The regulations also provided that
'any convict who had been ordered more than once during the same term
of imprisonment to undergo confinement in the Prison of Isolation shall
be kept there to the expiration of his sentence unless otherwise ordered
by the Minister upon the recommendation of the warden, on account of good
conduct and well assured amendment.'68 Furthermore,
after confinement in the Prison of Isolation, prisoners were not to return
immediately to work in the general population of Kingston; 'as a measure
of prevention, but not punishment' they were to be kept on probation in
separate working gangs for such time as the warden deemed necessary .'69
Finally, 'penal class convicts,' as prisoners confined in the Prison of
Isolation were known, did not receive any remission time.70
The 108 cells in the Prison of Isolation were markedly larger than those
in the rest of Kingston Penitentiary. The cells measured some thirteen
feet long, nine feet wide, and ten feet high, in contrast to the original
cell block in which the cells were ten feet by two feet eight inches by
six feet, a size that on more than one occasion had drawn the condemnation
of visitors to Kingston.71 The larger cell
size was attributable to the fact that prisoners were required not only
to live but also to work in their cells. Although the Prison of Isolation
had been viewed as a place to which other penitentiaries could send their
incorrigibles, it remained, with a few exceptions, a prison within a prison
only for Kingston Penitentiary because of the high cost of transfer from
the other penitentiaries.72
The inspector's annual reports from 1896 to 1903 contain separate tables
listing the names of all prisoners received into the Prison of Isolation
and the length of their stay. Between 8 November 1894, the day the Prison
of Isolation received its first prisoners, and 30 June 1896, sixty- seven
prisoners were received and thirty-eight were discharged, leaving a population
of twenty-nine.73 The length of stay ranged
from three to sixteen months. A review of the tables of admission and
discharge in subsequent years indicates that although a few prisoners
spent up to two years in solitary confinement, the average length of stay
was about six months.74
The Prison of Isolation was viewed by the authorities as a successful
disciplinary strategy. In 1897 the inspector confidently asserted that
'the Prison of Isolation, which is the only institution of the kind in
Canada, has fully demonstrated the superiority of the Belgium system as
regards to treatment of incorrigibles and criminal cranks ...It is evidence
that the extension of the system to the other penitentiaries will enable
the authorities to dispense with the "triangle" and other relics
of semi-civilization.'75 In 1901, he reported
that 'the direct individual treatment which it affords rarely fails to
have the desired effect.'76 Dr Daniel Phelan,
the surgeon at Kingston, was equally complimentary in his views:
Popular ignorance has confounded the solitary system
with the 'separate' or 'isolation' system as carried on here. The 'solitary'
system consisted in shutting up unfortunate offenders in subterranean
cells without light, books, exercise or employment, and as a consequence
mental and physical disease was the result. The fictitious stories regarding
the production of insanity by the separate or isolation system are not
founded on facts and originated from the experiences of the solitary system.
The Prison of Isolation is the best place as a safeguard to mental equipoise.
No case of insanity could so far be attributed to it.77
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