In Canada, one out of every four prisoners in the federal prison system has spent some time in solitary con finement. At any given time, there are as many as 1,800 people in solitary confinement in federal or provincial prisons.

The BC Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society of Canada have launched a constitutional challenge to the use of solitary confinement in Canadian federal prisons. Solitary confinement, called “segregation” in the prison system, is the practice of confining a prisoner to a cell and depriving him or her of meaningful human contact for up to 23 hours a day, sometimes for months and years at a time. Support and spread the word about this issue and challenge.