According to Vic Toews, Canada's public safety minister, it's time to stop using prisons as a parallel health-care system for the mentally ill.
According to the Canadian Press, Vic Toews told a Calgary conference Wednesday that 13 per cent of men and 29 per cent of women in jails have some form of mental illness. He calls those numbers "disturbing" and notes prisons aren't able to meet the needs of mentally ill offenders.
"It's a long-standing problem, but it's not getting any better and my concern is whether it is appropriate to be setting up a parallel mental-health system inside our prisons because that's essentially what we're doing," Toews told reporters after his speech to the Building Bridges: Mental Health and the Justice System symposium at Mount Royal University.
It has been a problem for decades and began when a number of mental hospitals across the country were shut down, Toews was quoted as saying. The community approach to care, Toews said, meant to serve as an alternative hasn't worked as well.
A report from the federal prison ombudsman last fall warned serious funding, implementation and accountability gaps are hindering the delivery of mental-health services behind bars. Toews offered no possible solutions and didn't say whether provinces should look at building more mental-health facilities.
The Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union (MGEU) has advocated for years to examine the role that mental health facilities could play in dealing with the overcrowding issue at Manitoba jails. Here in this province, the underutilized Manitoba Developmental Centre provides a perfect opportunity to relieve some of the pressure on our overcrowded correctional centres while providing better and more appropriate attention to those offenders who clearly need specialized care.
Toews is correct in saying that it is time to stop using the prison system as a parallel health system, and that it is disturbing that so many individuals with mental health care issues are being incarcerated in correctional facilities. What remains to be seen is a plan to address the problem, and an announcement on funding that will inevitably be needed.