OTTAWA — Alia Pierini says she still suffers from anxiety as a result of the time she spent in solitary confinement.
The 31-year-old from Chilliwack, B.C., says she panics when she ventures out in public alone — traumatized from the effects of having been held periodically in a segregation cell, a place she calls a "cage not meant for a human."
Pierini, who served 44 months for drug and assault charges, was on hand at a news conference today where prisoners' rights advocates called on the Liberal government to take steps to reduce the number of women behind bars.
Kim Pate, the longtime activist newly recommended for the Senate by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, says she was "heartened" to see Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould given a mandate to restrict the use of solitary confinement and improve the treatment of prisoners with mental illness.
That would mean implementing recommendations from the inquest into the death of Ashley Smith, an emotionally disturbed 19-year-old who died behind bars in 2007 after tying a strip of cloth around her neck. Guards who were ordered not to intervene stood watch outside her cell.
Pate says three years after the release of that report, she wants to see action in those areas as quickly as possible.
