The study group distinguished between those prisoners who are temporary threats to the good order of the institution and those who represented persistent and serious threats to staff and other prisoners. For those prisoners who could be viewed as temporary threats, the report recommended that all institutions should maintain their own segregation units. For those prisoners who were persistent threats, the study group considered two confinement models: the ‘dispersal’ model, which would have those prisoners remain in the institution that was responsible for their confinement before they were segregated, and the ‘concentration’ model, which would place all prisoners requiring long-term segregation in one institution or a few institutions on a regional basis. The study group saw problems with both models. They felt that the dispersal model would not be in the best interests of prisoners requiring long-term segregation. This opinion was based on the view that in the existing penitentiaries the staff must focus their attention on the majority of prisoners and not on the small minority of segregation cases. There was the additional danger that if all maximum-security institutions were responsible for long-term segregation cases they would tend to be organized with a view to providing security for those cases, thus subjecting other prisoners to unnecessary restrictions.6 They saw the concentration model as problematic because of the dangers involved in confining large numbers of difficult cases in one institution, completely isolated from other prisoners, with no influences on their behaviour from anyone except prisoners with similar attitudes. The study group recommended a compromise between the two models, which it called a ‘limited dispersal’ model.

A limited dispersal plan means that only certain select maximum security institutions would be responsible for the custody and treatment of potentially long term segregation cases. Such a plan should utilize purpose-built institutions -institutions that are designed, at least in part, to provide programmes for the persistently disruptive inmate. This plan differs from the dispersal model in that all maximum security institutions would not have the responsibility of long tern segregation ...Therefore, those institutions which would not have long term segregation facilities would benefit from this plan in that the removal of the persistently disruptive inmates could have a settling or stabilizing effect on the population and would further enhance the development of progressive and meaningful programmes in these institutions ...The limited dispersal model differs from the concentration plan in that those institutions used to confine long-term segregation cases would not be used exclusively for that purpose. Therefore, within the nor- mal population, this plan would provide for programmes designed to reintegrate the segregation cases into the population.7

The study group made a series of recommendations on staffing,living conditions, and routine in segregation units. They recommended that there be two phases in segregation: phase one would approximate the type of segregation that already existed and which would be used for as short a period as possible; phase two, limited association, would be an attempt to introduce the prisoner in a controlled manner into the population or at least into association with other segregated prisoners. All prisoners in segregation should be entitled to the same amenities as all other prisoners so far as was reasonable, except for the privilege of association. To the study group this meant that basic cell conditions should not differ from general population cells in size, furnishings, lighting, or temperature; prisoners should have adequate exercise time and should maintain library, correspondence, visiting, canteen, and smoking privileges. The study group recommended that because of the risk that hobbycraft tools might be used for weapons, decisions regarding access to hobby materials should be made on an individual basis.8

The study group also addressed the vital matter of the process of segregation. It recommended that the authority to segregate should remain with the director, and that this authority should continue to be exercisable ‘on suspicion, even in the absence of hard evidence, that an act had been committed or planned by a particular inmate. ‘9 However, the prisoner should be advised in writing of the reason or reasons for his segregation within twenty-four hours of the director’s decision. The study group proposed a new review structure for the segregation of prisoners, the overarching feature of which was the establishment of a Segregation Review Board comprising the director as chairman, the assistant director of security or socialization, the classification officer or psychologist, and the security officer in charge of segregation. Under the proposed scheme, the Segregation Review Board must review the case of a prisoner within five working days of the director’s decision to segregate and at least every two weeks thereafter if the decision to segregate is upheld. Although the prisoner was to be advised in writing of the board’s decision after each review, the study group recommended that he should not be present at the review unless requested to attend by the board. No rationale for this exclusion of the prisoner was offered beyond the statement that ‘we do not consider it essential, nor necessarily in the best interests of the inmate, that he be present when his case is being reviewed.’10

The study group further recommended that the Segregation Review Board, after assessing the prisoner’s situation, develop a plan to reintegrate him into the population as soon as possible; monitor that plan during subsequent reviews; maintain written records on the substance of each review; and forward reports to the Regional Classification Board.11

The Vantour Report was greeted with mixed feelings by the plaintiffs in McCann. To the extent that it afforded additional confirmation of the conditions and effects of segregation in the British Columbia Penitentiary, it was welcomed as an additional spur to changes in those conditions. Also well received were the recommended reforms in the process of segregation, particularly the requirement of written notice of reasons and an ongoing review process aimed at reintegration of prisoners into the general population. However, in the minds of the plaintiffs the Vantour Report did not go far enough. I have already criticized the report’s attempt at a rationale for segregation. Because of the nature of that rationale, the study group was content to leave the authority to segregate untrammelled by any substantive criteria, with the result that their recommendations left the basis for the decision as vague and unprincipled as it had always been.

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