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Ms. Smith, 19 when she died, faced her first criminal charge in 2001 when arrested for assault and causing a disturbance.

While on probation, she was arrested again for making harassing phone calls to a member of her school staff. From there, a litany of other charges, including assaulting a peace officer, disturbing public transit, and trespassing repeatedly brought her before the courts and into psychiatric observation.

From the age of 14, she was in and out of custody, most of it in isolation cells, known as “the hole” in prison jargon.

n October 2003, Ms. Smith, from Moncton, was arrested for throwing crabapples at a letter carrier. After her release from a 60-day sentence in a youth facility, she was sentenced to another 50 days for pulling a fire alarm. Then came her arrest for stealing a CD.

In prison, she was obstinate, abusive and threatening.

In response, staff at the New Brunswick Youth Centre placed her in “the wrap:” binding her with belts, starting at her feet and winding up to her shoulders; a hockey helmet was placed on her head to both protect her from a fall and staff from a bite.

She was kept immobile like that for 50 minutes, picked up by staff and carried away to an isolation cell, where she was kept 23 hours a day on a concrete bed with an indestructible mattress, a place the institution called the Therapeutic Quiet Unit.

She was sent for psychiatric assessments where she spoke of self-harm. She banged her head against a wall and cut herself to calm herself, she said.