ASHLEY SMITH HEARING TAKING FOREVER

Last Thursday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Date set for Ashley Smith hearing". The time frames and delays are of course intentional. It is not in the government's interest nor in the interest of our judicial and penal systems to look into the facts surrounding this tragedy. Ashley Smith was a nineteen year old girl originally arrested at age thirteen for throwing crab apples at a postal worker whom she thought had intentionally delayed delivering a cheque to a welfare recipient. She spent most of her teenaged years in custody, courtesy of our political, judicial and penal systems.

Her time in custody had nothing to do with her original "criminal" behaviour and everything to do with her reaction to spending her teen years in jail and huge amounts of that time in isolation. Isolation is a nasty and brutal way of punishing those already being punished with the loss of their freedom and everything else. Isolation is all about power and control and human beings in positions of power and authority need it to be constantly validated. This is done by abusing their authority routinely with those who are powerless and under their control. It is by demanding acknowledgement of their superiority and control at all times.

Canada should be ashamed of how they treated Ashley Smith. Our authorities certainly are not. They continue their attempts to manage this crisis with no remorse and no incentive to avoid it happening again. All they want to do is prove that they played by their stupid rules and that no one in particular behaved in a negligent fashion. They will probably succeed in "proving" that a teenaged girl held in captivity and isolation for years and months was the author of her own misfortune. That their rules permitted, indeed demanded that the guards stand there and watch her suffocate to death will be glossed over. There should be at a minimum manslaughter charges laid against the responsible persons and that means not only the ones at ground zero but especially those in charge; making and enforcing inhumane rules.