Numerous reports and commissions of inquiry have documented the need for oversight and accountability mechanisms to redress illegalities and rights violations in Canada's women's prisons. This article examines the recent troubled history of women's imprisonment in which the calls for meaningful accountability and oversight have arisen, outlines the necessary criteria for any effective oversight body within this correctional context, and measures some of the key recommendations against those criteria. The authors conclude that the judicial oversight model and sanction proposed by Justice Louise Arbour in 1996 is the proposal that best meets the criteria and therefore ought to be implemented.

This paper draws from the wrongful convictions of women to interrogate the limits of dominant conceptions of wrongful conviction. Most North American innocence projects turn on a conception of demonstrable factual innocence. The paper argues that this focus is problematic as a matter of criminal law principle and presents particular difficulties for women. The paper identifies that family violence forms the primary context for both the conviction of women for violent crimes, and for women's wrongful convictions. Taking two key examples of family violence – child homicide and intimate partner violence – we illustrate that the prevailing focus on demonstrable factual innocence fits awkwardly with identified wrongful convictions in these areas, and argue that this focus may deflect attention from unidentified miscarriages of justice. We suggest that focusing on factual innocence undermines the criminal justice system's proper focus on state responsibilities, including the responsibility to protect women and children from harm, and the asymmetric burden of proof that applies in criminal cases.

This paper considers the role that litigation might play in ending the human rights crisis of solitary confinement in Canada while also examining the relationship of prisoner rights litigation to broader, anti-carceral social movements. The paper proceeds in four parts. The first section provides a brief overview of the widespread use of solitary confinement in Canada's federal prisons and in provincial and territorial jails. Next, current litigation seeking an end to solitary confinement in the federal prisons system is located in the context of a long history of prisoner rights litigation in both the US and Canada. The third section considers the possibilities and challenges of pursuing prisoner rights litigation with broader critiques of the carceral state in mind. The paper ends with examples of anti-carceral lawyering efforts and identifies some elements of a prison abolitionist lawyering ethic.Keywords: solitary confinement, prisoners' rights, prison abolition, social justice lawyering, human rights Résumé Cet article porte sur le rôle que pourrait jouer le contentieux judiciaire pour mettre fin à la crise des droits de la personne liée à l'isolement cellulaire au Canada. De plus, il se penche sur la relation entre les litiges ayant trait aux droits des prisonniers et les mouvements sociaux anti-carcéraux. L'article est divisé en quatre parties. La première présente un bref aperçu du recours très répandu à l'isolement dans les prisons canadiennes fédérales, provinciales et territoriales. Ensuite, il situe l' état actuel du contentieux judiciaire visant à mettre fin à l'isolement dans le système des prisons fédérales dans le contexte de la longue histoire des litiges liés aux droits des prisonniers aux États-Unis et au Canada. La troisième partie porte sur les possibilités et les défis des litiges relatifs aux droits des prisonniers et s'inscrit dans une critique plus globale sur l' état carcéral. Enfin, l'article se termine sur des exemples d'efforts déployés en matière d'exercice du droit anti-carcéral et met en exergue certains éléments d'une éthique de la pratique du droit qui serait abolitionniste.Mots clés : isolement, droits des prisonniers, abolition des prisons, droit et justice sociale, droits de la personne

, a judge of the Saskatchewan Provincial Court dismissed an application by the Crown to have Marlene Carter declared a Dangerous Offender. 1 Marlene is Cree, a member of the Onion Lake First Nation. She experienced horrific physical and sexual abuse as a child. At 13, she tried to shoot herself. Since then, she has attempted suicide several times, once by stabbing herself in the stomach. She has spent much of her adult life in prison, having received her first custodial sentence for robbery of a convenience store at the age of 17. Like too many Indigenous women, she accumulated numerous new charges from incidents in prison, thereby lengthening her sentence. In seeking the dangerous offender designation, the Crown relied on numerous charges of assault, all committed while Marlene was in prison. Only one of the assaults resulted in serious injuries. In corrections-speak, Marlene has very poor "institutional adjustment," meaning she did not become compliant in prison, but rather, engaged in resistance including repeated acts of self-harm. 2 She has a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Her mental health deteriorated sharply in prison to the point that Marlene compulsively bangs her head violently. Correctional staff use force, restraint, and extended periods of segregation to control her. As reported by the CBC on the day of the Provincial Court decision, Marlene "appeared via video link, strapped in a chair to keep her from harming herself. There was also a square patch of gauze covering her forehead. At one point, [she] used a free hand to remove the gauze. Beneath it there was a large red sore." 3 After the court ruling, Marlene was transferred to a psychiatric hospital 1 R v Carter, 2014 SKPC 150 (Whelan J). A person who is designated a Dangerous Offender by a sentencing judge, in accordance with the requirements of s. 753 of the Criminal Code, receives an indefinite prison sentence with limited eligibility for parole. It is an extreme sanction and only a handful of women have been declared Dangerous Offenders since the provision's enactment in the 1970s. See Dominique Valiquet, "The Dangerous Offender and Long-term Offender Regime,

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