BC Involuntary Treatment Taking Place in a Solitary Confinement Unit

The British Columbia government is moving ahead with involuntary substance use disorder treatment for people held at a pretrial detention center. This follows the September 2024 decision by the governing BC New Democratic Party (NDP) to expand involuntary treatment for specific categories of people who use drugs. 

While renovations are being completed on a permanent space, the treatment is currently being housed in Surrey Pretrial Centre’s solitary confinement unit, as local media reported.

It’s not clear how the treatment will be run in the segregation unit, nor how much time detainees will get to spend with others.

“Nobody thinks it’s a good idea.”

But the move has drawn objections from people who use drugs in BC, who say solitary confinement—officially termed “administrative segregation”—would, for many people, exacerbate the mental health conditions that often co-occur with substance use disorders.

“Nobody thinks it’s a good idea,” Dave Webb, a board member with the Surrey Union of Drug Users, told Filter.

“How is putting somebody in segregation good for somebody who’s already mentally unstable?” he asked. “I thought in treatment we were supposed to reconnect with our loved ones and family and friends to break the cycle. But if we’re putting somebody in segregation, how is that going to work?”

In voluntary treatment, patients will often have access to peers and counseling. Webb noted that a solitary unit likely isn’t equipped for that kind of socialization.

“In segregation, you’re going to be there with your own thoughts. And that’s probably the worst thing that you can have at that period of time,” he said.

Webb has questions about how people will be treated, including during withdrawal from benzodiazepines, which can require medical expertise, in the solitary confinement unit.

He also wants to know how they will be treated after they are released—whether people will simply be returned to the same conditions they were living in that drove their mental health and substance use issues in the first place. 

“You can’t just treat somebody, then throw them to the wolves again, because they’re right back where they started from,” he said.

Filter reached out to the BC public safety and health ministries for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

“Ideally, we’d have voluntary treatment because, as we know, involuntary treatment doesn’t work.”

Experts agree that involuntary treatment, whether coerced or forced, is ineffective and often harmful, even before the impact of potential segregation is factored in.

“Ideally, we’d have voluntary treatment because, as we know, involuntary treatment doesn’t work,” Webb said. “If you force someone to go and they’re not ready, it’s not going to work. As soon as they get out, they’re going to go back to their old ways.” 

You’re more likely to fatally overdose after attending treatment, he noted. “You’ve got way better odds when you’re voluntarily trying to get better yourself.”

Webb called the provincial government’s April announcement rushing the implementation of involuntary treatment beds a “knee-jerk reaction.” He noted that it came the same day police announced that a man accused of attacking a tourist in Stanley Park, Vancouver, was released on bail.

Political discourse around bail has grown in recent years, with conservative politicians and police suggesting that Canada’s rules amount to a “catch-and-release” system, or a revolving door for repeat offenders.

That includes the BC NDP, which has called for the federal government to introduce stricter bail conditions.

Webb said he is concerned that implementing involuntary treatment in remand centers is a way to circumvent the right of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime to not be incarcerated.

The Ontario Court of Appeal specifically noted that “those with mental illness should not be placed in administrative segregation.”

Though the BC Mental Health Act is currently subject of a constitutional challenge, the legislation provides the ability to detain a person indefinitely, raising yet more questions about how the treatment will be conducted in segregation units.

While there hasn’t been a court case over BC’s provincial segregation, courts decided in two separate 2019 cases that indefinite segregation in federal prisons was unconstitutional.

In fact, the Ontario Court of Appeal specifically noted that “those with mental illness should not be placed in administrative segregation” in a case brought by the Ontario-based Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

That case ended with a finding that administrative segregation in federal prisons for longer than 15 days violated Section 12 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

The other case brought against federal administrative segregation, brought by the BC Civil Liberties Association, was successful in the BC Court of Appeal, which found indefinite segregation violated the liberty and security of the person guaranteed under Section 7 of the Charter.

The court noted that “prolonged and indefinite segregation inflicts harm on inmates subject to it and ultimately undermines the goal of institutional security.”

Photograph by Édouard Hue via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 3.0