More than six years after Ontario signed a landmark human rights settlement, segregation — a highly controversial practice recognized to be especially harmful to mentally ill inmates — “remains a common practice in Ontario provincial prisons,” according to a new independent review by an Ontario judge.

The critical report, which was quietly posted on the Ministry of the Solicitor General website late Friday, is the latest development in a years-long legal battle that stems from the treatment of Christina Jahn, an Ottawa prisoner with a mental illness and cancer who was kept in solitary confinement for over 200 days.

Jahn’s complaint — which alleged she experienced “brutal and humiliating treatment,” was beaten, and denied access to treatment for mental illness and cancer — ultimately mandated the province in 2013 to agree to changes aimed at improving conditions for inmates, especially those with mental health issues.

But in an extensive review of Ontario’s progress to date, independent reviewer Justice David Cole found the province has fallen down on central aspects of the joint agreement, including remedies intended to reduce the use of segregation, and a commitment to fulsome data collection and reporting.

“It cannot be ignored that the ministry’s failure to commit itself fully to and implement the various Jahn remedies has now been going on for nearly 61/2 years,” reads Cole’s report, which drew on the expertise of Kelly Hannah-Moffat, the report’s independent expert on human rights and corrections.

Greg Flood, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Solicitor General, said in an email Friday night that the report will “inform our ongoing and future work,” noting that “all 31 of the time specific deliverables … were successfully implemented by the ministry in a timely fashion.”

“We are working with all of our partners, including our front-line correctional staff and justice partners to make correctional services in Ontario safer for all our staff and those in our custody,” Flood said in an email.

In response to recommendations requiring legislative change, the ministry said in the report, which was dated Feb. 25, that it would “consider” them and implementation would “depend on direction received.”

After two years of study, the authors wrote that they found the ministry far too “insular” and were “troubled” that many of those drafting policy in its corporate headquarters “have never experienced the realities of institutional corrections for adults in any sustained way.”

In their opinion, “this lack of knowledge of ‘corrections on the ground’ all too often seems to be compounded by the fact that within the ministry’s corporate offices, advisers who are, by virtue of their ‘field experience,’ presumed to have particular ‘expertise’ are simply outdated in some of their understandings of criminal law and Ontario’s privacy legislation.”

To address what Cole and Hannah-Moffat called the province’s “continuing deficiencies” in implementing the remedies, the experts recommend that external oversight mechanisms be “immediately instituted across the ministry.” That includes a call for a correctional inspector general and the creation of an advisory committee on the treatment of mentally ill inmates.

The recommendation of a correctional inspector general repeats a call made by Howard Sapers, a former federal correctional investigator who advised Ontario on jails, a change that was passed in an act by the previous Liberal government. The authors urge the province to make it happen and give the office a mandate to independently oversee Ontario provincial corrections.

“For reasons that have never been made clear to either of us,” reads the report, “there seems to be reluctance to proclaim in force those portions” of the law “that relate to the establishment and adequate staffing of this new … office.”

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Cole’s report includes a detailed analysis of the use of segregation, finding Ontario “has not substantially reduced” the practice to date. Between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019, there were 24,220 segregation placements; of those 1,969 or eight per cent were for 30 continuous days or longer, and 63 per cent of these placements involved inmates with mental health alerts on file.

“Overall, this data shows that prolonged segregation (15 days or longer) remains a routine practice for individuals with mental health and/or suicide risk alerts on file,” according to the report.

Being segregated for periods longer than 15 days should be banned, according to the United Nations, because of the proven psychological damage it can cause.

John Struthers, president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, said Friday that the use of “intolerably cruel solitary confinement of the mentally ill” has to end, calling it “totally unacceptable in a modern and compassionate society.”

“A society is judged by how we treat the least fortunate,” Struthers said Friday. “We have a failing grade. There must be meaningful oversight to end this.”