The Fifth Estate exposes the inhumane treatment of Ashley Smith in the documentary Out Of Control
Ashley Smith had everything going against her.
She was a native female with a mental disability.
The Canadian penal system drove her to suicide.
The CBC Fifth Estate program is hard to watch. It’s an emotional body blow to see a teenager driven to suicide by the Canadian government’s mistreatment.
Starting with teenage rebellion, Ashley was imprisoned for throwing a crab apple at a postal worker.
For that, she was put in jail for 3 years of hell. She was put in isolation, tasered repeatedly, put in a cage that makes Hannibal Lecter’s treatment in Silence of the Lambs look tame.
Not every child rebels as much as Ashley. Most knuckle under the pressure from authority to conform. When Ashley didn’t conform, she didn’t receive proper treatment from psychologists or psychiatrists. She was punished and punished with more and more inhumane tortures that are sanctioned by the penal system.
Parents have had to deal with rebellion in teenagers since the dawn of time. Most know it’s natural and hope their children get through it without harming themselves. Most professionals try not a label teenagers with mental illness labels since it is easy to mistake growing up for more serious conditions.
Sometimes the parents are at their wit’s end. Time, kindness and perseverance are the best strategies. It is hard to believe the best-trained people in Canada don’t have common sense and human compassion in dealing with young people.
CBC is re-broadcasting the program on its website. It’s hard to watch but worth the effort.
Parents suing the Federal Government
Ashley Smith’s parents are suing the Federal government for $11 million for the inhumane treatment that led to her death.
“The justice system let my daughter down,” Coralee Smith told the Toronto Star.
In the lawsuit filed in October 2009, the Smiths allege the system failed their daughter. From the Minister on downward, the suit claims Ashley was abused and proper treatment not given.
The lawsuit alleges federal corrections staff – from senior bureaucrats to prison guards – engaged in a “conspiracy” that endangered Smith’s life by “unlawfully” segregating her for nearly a year and not taking proper action after she was declared a suicide risk.
The 19-year-old was known to tie cloth ligatures around her neck, but guards were ordered “not to enter Ashley Smith’s cell if she was breathing,” the claim alleges. She died Oct. 19, 2007. Toronto Star.
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