If the authorities had not arbitrarily determined that keeping Ashley Smith on segregation status was an appropriate recourse. If she had received the evaluation and follow-up care that her condition urgently required. If someone had paid attention to the cries for help, in the form of recurring, self-injuring behaviour.She might still be alive. Canada's correctional investigator Howard Sapers says in his report released today that
... Ashley Smith's death followed "the inability of federal and provincial health-care and correctional systems to provide her with the care, treatment and support she desperately needed."
"None of the systems, programs and professionals that Canadians would reasonably expect to have been made available to help this young woman were there to adequately respond," ... "Her death, we believe, if not for a series of significant failures, was entirely preventable."
Her death was entirely preventable. If someone - anyone in the system - had listened to her with empathy, instead of judging her incorrigible.
2 comments:
Ashley Smith : "If I die then I will never have to worry about upsetting my Mom again.
I will call my Mom before bed and have one more chat. Somehow I have to let her know that none of this is her fault. I don’t know why I’m like I am but I know she didn’t do it to me. "
How did a New Brunswick teenager arrested for throwing crab apples at a postal worker and stealing a CD wind up spending six years in prison, the last 11 and a half months in solitary confinement, the last month without a mattress or a blanket, before committing suicide at age 19 one month before she was eligible for release?
Five inquiries later ...
This story makes me despair about our society. I listened to a Elizabeth Fry rep who was working with her tonight on As It Happens and the details of her case were absolutely distressing. I'm amazed that the inteviewee didn't loose her composure because she was certainly enraged.
Post a Comment