KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – This weekend we feature a short 2014 talk by poet and scholar Ardath Whynacht, on the trauma that puts so many on a trajectory to crime and prison at a very early age, and why building ever more prisons and escalating punishment is not the answer.
The last couple of weeks we have been covering the story of a young man who is being held in what is effectively solitary confinement for over a year now at the Northeast Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Pictou. While in Pictou he is deprived of the therapeutic treatment the judge ordered as part of his sentence, and his mental health is suffering.
The 19-year old, incarcerated for killing a man when he was 15, was moved to the adult institution after attacking and injuring staff at the Waterville Youth Facility. Staff at Waterville have gone on record saying they don’t want him back unless additional protective measures are put in place.
Several commenters on the Nova Scotia Advocate Facebook site and elsewhere suggested we throw away the key and be done with it.
Here is Ardath Whynacht on why we should work towards a country where the prisons are empty instead.
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