Voices Inside and Out

Jamaal's Journey: Charged and Transferred to Provincial Custody at Warrant Expiry

Episode Summary

Imagine a situation where you fall asleep on the city bus and don’t wake up until the end of the line, on the other side of town, a long way from home. It might be a little scary, but thankfully you can buzz up an Uber, call a cab, call a friend, or just hop back on a different bus heading the other way. Heck, you might even be able to walk back. Now imagine that sleep you took was a 15-year long nightmare of violence and hopelessness, and instead of being on the wrong side of town, you were in a completely different province with no idea how you were going to get home. Jamaal Desmond spent 15 years in Canada’s federal prison system - the vast majority of that time in maximum-security facilities. Near the end of his sentence he was transferred out of province to New Brunswick to face assault charges surrounding a prison fight he didn’t start. He was eventually released from a provincial facility in New Brunswick with nothing. No parole or probation officer. No finances. No family close by, and no way to get back to his home in Quebec.

Episode Notes

This episodes raises some challenging issues:

•  if guards are letting incompatible prisoners into proximity of each other where they know or ought to know that violence will result, is it right that a prisoner defending himself should be charged with assault?
• what is the liability of the guards if they deliberately or negligently brought incompatible prisoners together?
• why are prisoners perceived to be at high risk not given enhanced programming prior to release back to communities rather than none?
• why would CSC wait until  the charges of assault were being resolved in court to bring forward a year-old weapons charge?
• the prisoner suspects that  his race may have had something to do with this unhelpful release from prison