Lawsuit over solitary confinement in Ontario jails certified as class action
TORONTO — A lawsuit alleging the Ontario government violated the rights of inmates by placing them inappropriately in solitary confinement can proceed as a class action, a Superior Court judge has ruled.
The province did not oppose certification of the $600-million action whose representative plaintiff maintains his already fragile mental health was exacerbated by stints in segregation.
The suit includes inmates diagnosed with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or psychosis who served time in segregation in provincial facilities since Jan. 1, 2009. Other inmates put in the “hole” for 15 days or longer since that time are also included in the class.
“Every day, prisoners in Ontario’s correctional institutions are subjected to conditions of torture, and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,” the suit alleges in its amended statement of claim. “Segregation, or ‘solitary confinement’ as it is more commonly known, is grossly overused on a systemic basis throughout Ontario’s correctional system.”