Ontario premier calls inmate’s 52-month segregation ‘extremely disturbing’
TORONTO — The treatment of an inmate held in segregation for four years is “extremely disturbing,” Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said Monday, but she declined to call it torture.
Adam Capay has been in isolation for 52 months at a Thunder Bay, Ont., jail. Until recently he had been held in a Plexiglas cell with the lights on 24 hours a day, but after his case gained public attention, Capay was moved to a standard cell, with access to a day room, telephone and television, though is still being kept apart from the general population.
Correctional Services Minister David Orazietti said Monday he has asked ministry officials to confirm that no one else is being held in the conditions Capay faced for four years.
Federal correctional investigator Howard Sapers called Capay’s case “troubling,” and said he had never before heard of someone being kept in such conditions. There have been cases, however, in the federal system in which offenders are kept in segregation for years, he said.