These are important questions. To answer them it is necessary to consider
how the criminal-justice system outside the prison seeks to reconcile
the tension between the exercise of coercive state power and the need
to protect the individual against its abuse. Herbert Packer has argued
that this reconciliation is sought through the interaction of two competing
models of the criminal process,7 the due
process model and the crime-control model. These two models represent
separate value systems that compete for priority in the operation of the
criminal process. The due process model emphasizes adherence to legal
rules and reliance upon formal, adversarial, and reviewable adjudicative
processes. It gives a high profile to the role of the lawyer in invoking
the rules designed to limit state power and protect the rights of the
accused. The crime-control model, by contrast, emphasizes speedy, informal
resolution of cases and has its centre of gravity in the early administrative
fact-finding stages. Accordingly, it gives a high profile to the role
of the police and their ability to investigate crime with minimal interference.
One model sees its media mirror image in 'Perry Mason,' the other in 'Hill
Street Blues.'
The thrust of much of recent criminological research is that the criminal-justice
system in operation in Canada and the United States leans toward the crime-control
model, particularly in the lower criminal courts where the great majority
of cases are resolved.8 The typical case
is disposed of by a guilty plea negotiated between defence counsel and
the prosecutor or the police or both. Defence counsel do not typically
see themselves as defenders of liberty and protectors of freedom, but
as professionals involved in what Richard Ericson calls the 'ordering
of justice.' They usually have 'one-shot' relationships with their clients,
and recurring relationships with other professionals in the system -prosecutors,
detectives, and probation officers. Because of overburdened court dockets
and underfinanced legal aid tariffs, there are strong institutional pressures
to process rather than litigate cases and professional pressures to compromise
and reach agreement on what is a just and justifable outcome.9
The accused, who is usually dependent on his lawyer for information about
the range of options and possibilities for compromise, may have good reason
to agree to a guilty plea rather than go to trial. Doing so may mean spending
less time awaiting trial in the appalling conditions that exist in most
jails; it may result in a less severe sentence than would otherwise be
imposed if he went to trial and was found guilty.
The Segregation Code, in its reliance on specific rules and a hearing
process that gives the prisoner the right to counsel and the right to
challenge the institution's case, accords with the due process model of
criminal justice. Will the right to a hearing become in practice little
more than the negotiated acceptance of segregation under the guiding hand
of counsel in the service of the crime-control model? I believe there
is good reason to think not. While there may be some cases in which prisoners
do not contest the factual allegations used by the prison administration
to justify segregation (for example, where a prisoner is caught in the
act of trying to escape), judging by my experiences with prisoners in
the British Columbia Penitentiary and Kent, it seems likely that the institution's
allegations will be challenged in a high percentage of cases. But apart
from any dispute about the facts, there still remains the issue of whether
the facts justify segregation under the criteria set out in the code,
and if so how long such segregation should last. Prisoners in maximum
security, faced with the severest sanction the prison administration can
impose, will not submit to its imposition without protest. There are no
compelling reasons for the prisoner to waive his right to protest. He
will already be in segregation at the time of his hearing before the independent
chairperson. There is nothing to be gained by willingly submitting to
further segregation. Prisoners, who are more knowledgeable about the nature
of the prison decision-making process than the typical accused in the
criminal process, will not easily defer to a lawyer's view of a just and
justifiable result.
It will be crucial to .the successful implementation of the Segregation
Code that lawyers respect their clients' assessments of the severity of
the segregation sanction and the legitimacy of their wish to challenge
its imposition. Because the code seeks to change the rules under which
the prison has traditionally operated, it is vital that the prison administration
be compelled to justify its actions within the context of the new rules.
The systematic questioning of the administration's authority is fundamental
to the operation of the code as a control on the abuse of that authority.
Such questioning is most likely to come from the young lawyers and law
students upon whom the weight of prison legal work is likely to fall.
That is not to say that it should be their burden alone.
In this analysis I have been concerned with a single cluster of issues
surrounding the penitentiary's ultimate power. Many other issues require
a similar analysis. The Segregation Code is but one part of a prisoners'
rights code that is necessary to bring corrections into the mainstream
of the criminal-justice system. For this to happen in the area of segregation,
or in any other area, it will be necessary for the legal profession as
well as the courts to rise to the challenge that is thrown up to them.
Let us be quite clear about this. Prison work is neither glamorous nor
profitable. To ensure that the role of lawyers becomes entrenched in the
administration of prison justice, law schools, law societies, and the
legal aid authorities must understand both the history of the challenge
and the implications of its rejection. John Howard and his Canadian successors
understood clearly that only through rules and the vigilance of outside
inspection would penitentiaries fulfil their purpose of legitimizing the
pain of imprisonment. The stark record -and the evidence of Jack McCann
and his brothers in solitary is as critical to our understanding of present
carceral practices as John Howard's writings are to those of the eighteenth
century -leads ineluctably to the conclusion that the rules themselves
must have the legitimacy of law, and the inspection process must have
the commitment of the legal profession and the courts. Inscribed in stone
over the entrance to the law school at which I teach are the words 'Let
Justice Be Done Though the Heavens Fall.' Doing time in one of Canada's
maximum- security penitentiaries is about as far removed from the heavens
as can be conceived. It is, as the parliamentary subcommittee condemned
it, 'the most individually destructive, psychologically crippling and
socially alien- ating experience that could conceivably exist within the
borders of the country.'10 If Canadians
are prepared to take the motto outside the law school seriously, and if
this book has done its job of demonstrating the motto's critical relevance
inside the prison walls, we might begin to stop the crippling and destruction
of prisoners' lives. The screams in the night might begin to recede from
our collective memory.
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