Editor,
Re: B.C. involuntary care guidelines 'instill fear' as Surrey beds set to open
Nothing says that the discredited “war on drugs” (more accurately a war on drug users) is alive and well quite like the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre being the site for the provincial government’s new involuntary “treatment” program for drug users and people with severe mental health issues.
This is wrongheaded and cruel in so many ways they cannot be addressed in a letter. Firstly, jails and prisons are not sites of care. They are, by definition, sites of punishment, retribution. Secondly, despite the claims of Dr. Vigo that “involuntary treatment can be a tool to preserve life,” we know that jails and prisons are dangerous places, not only in terms of violence, but because of disease contraction and submission, and dubious living conditions.
In 2024, the BC Coroners Service reported that inmate deaths in the province have been increasing in the decade from 2013 to 2023. Notably, Surrey Pretrial had the second highest number of fatalities among provincial institutions.
Ironically, the Correctional Service of Canada reports that over the three-year period from 2017 to 2020, overdose deaths were the second most common type of non-natural death.
Finally, there are the concerns over “involuntary treatment” itself. Numerous public health studies show harms of involuntary treatment, including well-being, self-worth, and care experience.
We need to reconsider this entire approach.
Dr. Jeff Shantz
Department of Criminology
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Surrey
