“Help”: An inmate at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre sends a message to the outside world on July 17, 2012. Photo by Mike Thomas/Yukon News.

In the winter of 2011 in the small town of Watson Lake, a popular tourist destination near the B.C. border known as the gateway to the Yukon, an arrest warrant was issued for a 27-year-old Tahltan man. He had previous brushes with the law, mainly assault charges. This time, the man was wanted on eight criminal charges, including forcible confinement and assault with a weapon, related to the attack of a 50-year-old woman by knifepoint. It was alleged that he had punched her in the side of the head, dragged her by her hair up several stairs, and forced her inside an apartment. There, he continued to hit her, holding a pocket knife to her throat and threatening that he would kill her and her family.

On December 29, the man turned himself into the RCMP. He entered custody at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre (WCC), the only jail in the territory, located in the capital city about five hours from Watson Lake, the following day.

The name Michael Nehass rings a bell to few across Canada. But in the Yukon, he is a household name. News articles over the years have detailed his numerous charges for violent offences, bizarre outbursts in court ranting about conspiracy theories, and his mistreatment in the justice system. His mugshot often appears in local media: a striking and intimidating figure with a smirk and dark eyes, a distinguishing scar over his left eyebrow and two teardrop tattoos inked near the outer corner of his left eye. Today, the 33-year-old has visibly aged: He’s lanky with shaggy hair, his years in criminal institutions clearly having taken their toll.

Michael Nehass.

Yukon’s most infamous criminal case highlights the most pressing issues in Canada’s justice system. Yukon Minister of Justice Tracy-Anne McPhee has acknowledged that many of those incarcerated in the territory, like Nehass, struggle with mental health issues. Human rights advocates and the Office of the Correctional Investigator have also criticized the use of solitary confinement or segregation for inmates with mental health issues; the Yukon has yet to have an independent review of its segregation practices. Research has shown a high rate of offenders in the territory, too, have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD); preliminary findings from a study released last November showed that 17.5 percent of 80 participating adult offenders were confirmed to have prenatal alcohol exposure. Meanwhile, prisons across Canada have been dubbed by some as the “new residential schools” due to the increasing overrepresentation of Indigenous people. In the Yukon, Indigenous people accounted for 70 percent of adults in custody but only 20 percent of the population in the territory. These issues have been deemed as crises by the federal government. Yet, institutions have continued to work against Nehass, resulting in a six-year battle for justice.

As Nehass languished in prison, activists have begun asking questions: Why has the Yukon justice system failed some of its inmates so badly? More than half a decade since Nehass’s imprisonment, the questions remain unanswered.

***

Michael Nehass was born January 14, 1984, in Teslin, Yukon, a small village home to the Teslin Inland Tlingit, a self-governing First Nation. Nehass lost his mother at the age of three when she died in a car crash. Over the years he had multiple caregivers and placements. He also lived on the streets of Whitehorse as a teen. His father, Russell, says he is also an intergenerational survivor of the residential school system.

Growing up, Nehass endured physical, mental, and sexual abuse, and witnessed drug and alcohol misuse. He began drinking as a preteen and using drugs in his early teens. Psychologists say Nehass was self-medicating as a way to mentally escape his abusive environment. Prominent forensic psychiatrist Dr. Shabreham Lohrasbe notes that by the age of 15, Nehass was diagnosed with multiple mental disorders—not unusual for adults who later develop major psychiatric disorders. During his younger years, Nehass was diagnosed with FASD, a group of conditions that can include physical, mental, behavioural, and learning effects in individuals whose mothers drank alcohol while pregnant; Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, an anxiety disorder that can develop after being exposed to a traumatic event; and attachment disorder, sometimes seen in children with a history of abandonment, neglect, or abuse who are impaired in their ability to develop healthy emotional attachments. Nehass also made several suicide attempts; his first was at age 12.

Since 14, Nehass has spent most of his life in and out of various correctional institutions. He has accrued a lengthy criminal record including multiple convictions for breaking and entering, assaults, assaults with a weapon, and uttering threats. This included a 33-month sentence at a B.C. prison in 2003 for aggravated assault. While high on cocaine and heroin, he and another man tortured a cocaine dealer, Frederick “Mad Dog” Martin, in Whitehorse over unpaid drug debts. They slashed his face, cut off one of his fingers with a meat cleaver, stubbed out a cigarette on his shoulder, and beat him with a hammer and a baseball bat. At his sentencing, Yukon Judge John Fulkner noted, “Mr. Nehass is a seriously disturbed youth in desperate need of treatment.”

As Nehass got older, he continued to act out. In October 2009, Nehass assaulted a peace officer and was sentenced the following June to three years at the WCC. Nehass and his three cellmates became drunk on smuggled alcohol. When a female guard checked on them, Nehass reached out and briefly touched her. Later they flooded their cell and Nehass and his cellmate attacked two responding prison guards. Nehass shoved one of the officers, at one point jumping on him and choking him. He punched another guard in the face, breaking his nose and causing a bone to poke through the skin, which required surgery.

It was clear that the WCC had difficulty managing Nehass. According to the Whitehorse Star, he broke the telephone off the wall of the segregation unit using a plastic chair and smashed several glass panes in June 2013. While correctional officers and jail staff were deciding how to respond, Nehass broke into a utility room. When officers threw a flash-bang grenade into the room to stun Nehass, he climbed into the ceiling saying he was scared. In July, he also spat in the face of another correctional officer when he was refused access to personal photos. Nehass was charged with uttering threats, causing about $30,000 in damages to the jail, assaulting a correctional officer, and attempting to escape the facility.

***

Much of Nehass’s behaviour has been linked to significant concerns with his mental health. During court appearances he would often have outbursts ranting about mind control, conspiracies involving the Yukon government, the Illuminati, and the Bilderberg group, and claims that he endured forced sterilization at the WCC. As of 2016, after five years in custody, he had fired four lawyers and claimed that they, along with judges and the Yukon government, were involved in a conspiracy where they were being controlled by microchips.

But the stipulations of his incarceration only exacerbated Nehass’s mental health challenges. Many of the 2,000-plus days he spent in remand at the WCC were in the facility’s segregation unit for disciplinary reasons or because jail staff were unable to manage him in general population. Nehass’s Toronto-based defence lawyer Anik Morrow says he spent 22 to 23 hours a day inside a nine-by-11-foot cell. When let out of his cell to shower, he was handcuffed and kept in belly chains.

Nehass was held in one of seven identical cells in the Whitehorse segregation unit. They’re similar to those in the general population, but the toilet and sink are stainless steel, not porcelain, and there are no ligature points. Outside of the cells, there is a shower and main area with a plastic bin filled with paperback books. In the corner, there is a small cement “airing court”—the only place inmates like Nehass can get fresh air through a window exposed to the elements.

In most jurisdictions, including the Yukon, prisoners can end up in segregation for administrative or disciplinary reasons. Howard Sapers, Canada’s former correctional investigator and the current independent advisor on corrections reform for Ontario, says many problems occur in administrative cases because systems often rely on segregation to manage medical issues, including mental health, when there is not proper infrastructure. “I have found all too often that people who do have intellectual disabilities or behavioural disorders or mental illness end up in segregation,” Sapers says. “It’s not a healthy, therapeutic, or even safe environment, particularly for people suffering from mental illness.” In jails across Canada, he adds, this is where 50 percent of suicides take place.

Nehass spent 22 to 23 hours a day inside a nine-by-11-foot cell. When let out of his cell to shower, he was handcuffed and kept in belly chains

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, more commonly known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, also prohibits indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement, defined as more than 15 consecutive days. The rules also dictate that solitary confinement should only be used in exceptional cases as a last resort. It further prohibits the practice for prisoners with mental or physical disabilities when confinement would exacerbate these conditions.

The WCC asserts that it doesn’t use solitary confinement like other jurisdictions, instead preferring the terms “segregation” and “separate confinement.” (Experts define solitary confinement as any period when prisoners are kept in cells alone for up to 22 hours with little social interaction.) According to statistics from the Yukon Department of Justice, 70 people were separately confined at the WCC in 120 incidents in 2016 alone. This accounted for 1.6 percent of bed days, or 526 out of 32,155.

But in 2014, there was an inmate who spent over 81 days straight in segregation.

All the while, Nehass was not receiving adequate mental health services, despite a wealth of psychiatric reports and clearly disordered behaviour at the jail and in court. A transfer to a mental health facility was considered as early as December 2013, but it was never acted on.

***

In January 2014, Nehass was forced to appear before a judge naked. Three guards in riot gear held him naked and shackled to the floor of his cell in the segregation unit for a court appearance via video. During the case management conference, Justice Leigh Gower waited 15 minutes before having Nehass removed. The judge later issued an apology for not acting faster.

After his appearance, Justice Gower ordered a psychiatric assessment to determine Nehass’s fitness to stand trial on the June and August 2013 charges of assault and damage to the WCC. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Lohrasbe prepared two assessments. Lohrasbe found that the most likely primary diagnosis for Nehass was Bipolar I Disorder. He said that Nehass’s psychosis “manifest[s] through paranoid and grandiose delusions” and that he could not meaningfully participate in the legal process. In May 2014, Judge Michael Cozens ultimately ruled that Nehass was unfit, finding “his delusional thinking and his tendency to be drawn back into this thinking would be a threat to his rational participation in the criminal proceedings.”

But in a surprise decision, the independent Yukon Review Board panel, based upon the same evidence, found the opposite. Fitness under the law is complicated and depends on a three-part test of whether the accused understands the nature of proceedings, the possible consequences, and whether they can communicate with counsel. While Nehass was clearly struggling with mental health issues, he is also highly intelligent and could understand and participate in the court process, the board found.

The Review Board sent the matter back to the territorial court and Judge Cozen’s ruling still stood. But in November 2014, Nehass, who was self-represented, pled guilty to the 2013 charges. Four months later, he was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment, which he had already served. “To say that the Whitehorse Correctional Centre had difficulties managing this offender would be a gross understatement,” Judge Donald Luther remarked during the hearing.

Following a two-week trial in May 2015, a 12-member jury found Nehass guilty of all of the 2011 charges save for a charge of uttering threats.

At that point Nehass had already spent more time in jail than any sentence he would have received. Nevertheless, Crown prosecutor Terri Kaur said she intended to seek a longterm or dangerous offender designation for sentencing. Nehass faced an indeterminate sentence of incarceration or a long-term supervision order.

***

With continued concerns about Nehass’s mental health, Justice Scott Brooker ordered a psychiatric assessment in late 2016 to determine his ability to participate in the dangerous offender hearing. Through court order, Nehass was transferred to the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby for assessment and treatment. (There is no forensic psychiatric centre in the Yukon due in large part to limited resources in the territory and the relatively small population. Clinicians do assist inmates at the WCC but for those that require a greater level of care they may be transferred to mental health facilities in the provinces.)

At the facility, Nehass was assessed by two doctors, Dr. Chantal Wong and Dr. Derek Pallandi, who submitted reports about his mental health. “It is likely that Mr. Nehass has been either on the cusp or frankly unfit for a lengthy period of time prior to the present evaluation,” Dr. Pallandi found. Pallandi also diagnosed Nehass with Schizoaffective Disorder.

This left Justice Brooker in a difficult position. There is nothing in the Criminal Code that allows for an offender to be found unfit after they have already been convicted. So, at the fitness hearing, Brooker relied on common law from the 1800s to declare that Nehass was unfit. In R. v. Dyson (1831), the English court stated, among other things, that if after trial a man “becomes of non-sane memory, he shall not receive judgment.” The Ontario Court of Appeal also stated in 1910 that “no person can be rightly tried, sentenced, or executed while insane.” Brooker said to proceed with the dangerous offender hearing “would be fundamentally unfair and would offend the dignity of the judicial process.” It was the first time in Canadian history that a person was found unfit after standing trial. Under the Criminal Code, when a person has been found unfit they are usually required to undergo treatment until they are well enough to face trial. Doctors testified that Nehass could become fit after 60 days of treatment, including the use of antipsychotic medication. Brooker, however, declared a mistrial in the case.

Despite the lengthy case and its many problems, the Crown opted to retry the charges, setting the case back at square one. Defence lawyer Anik Morrow, who is based out of Toronto, said she intended to file a stay of proceedings in the case due to delays and charter rights infringements. Nehass, meanwhile, remained at Ontario Shores receiving treatment, including medication. Justice Brooker noted that his health appeared to have improved. During court appearances Nehass was visibly healthier, engaging with his lawyer and the judge though remaining mostly silent.

With further court proceedings looming, Nehass was freed from the Yukon justice system on September 8, 2017, when Crown prosecutor Eric Marcoux filed a stay of proceedings at a hearing for the defence’s judicial stay application. Marcoux told the court the Crown stay was based on a review of the public interest and safety, finding that Nehass no longer posed a risk. But Morrow seemed less than pleased with the last-minute decision after preparing for the judicial stay application for months. She didn’t mince words when she called the stay a “manoeuvre” by the Crown that effectively put a gag order on the issues of the case.

“Mr. Nehass is cut free from what we would call the umbilical cord of the justice system, but he is unceremoniously dumped on the sidewalk in Ontario,” she said. Through a variation of the court order that sent Nehass to Ontario, he was transferred to a civil mental health facility in Kamloops, B.C., to continue treatment outside of the criminal system.

***

Over the years it seemed as though Nehass would waste away at the WCC indefinitely. No one has taken responsibility for the man who grappled with deteriorating mental health and slipped through the cracks of the system. The Crown, courts, review board, jail staff, and government all had a role to play in the case.

Last September, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Ron Veale issued a memorandum in the case—a rare document to come from a judge—to “highlight the events that took place and to bring them to the attention of the public.” He called the case a “sad state of affairs for the Yukon.”

But some recent changes have improved WCC policy when it comes to segregation. A limit of 15 consecutive days has been set to align with best practices. And the amount of time inmates are allowed out of their cells has increased to two hours, up from one hour, daily. The territory is also one of the few jurisdictions in Canada that has an independent adjudication process when it comes to segregation. Plus, there is oversight from the Investigations and Standards Office.

A door leading to segregation at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre. This photo was captured during a media tour when the new facility opened in 2012. Photo by Mike Thomas/Yukon News.

Yukon Minister of Justice Tracy-Anne McPhee has also acknowledged the potential harms of segregation in the legislature. “I think the research is clear that separate confinement should be used in the rarest of cases,” she says. On the other hand, she says she has “no concerns whatsoever” with how it is used at the WCC. “I have full confidence that the segregation unit cells are safe places and that they were used on a minimum basis,” the minister says. McPhee also announced her intention to order an inspection of the WCC under a “never-before-used” section of the Yukon Corrections Act. It will focus on how the facility deals with inmates with mental illness, including a review of the issues in Nehass’s case. Last November, the government appointed David Loukidelis, Queen’s Counsel, to inspect the matters at the WCC.

Not everyone is satisfied that this is adequate—and they say that problems are already clear. The justice system needs to calibrate its response and not criminalize people with mental illness, Howard Sapers says, including earlier assessments, offramps, and not blocking treatment. He notes that segregation is part of a complex correctional environment and is a symptom of other problems in the system.

The Council of Yukon First Nations and Kwanlin Dün First Nation have also spoken out about the need for changes in the Yukon Justice system. They have pointed out the need for better cultural and reintegration programming as well as a formal system for Gladue reports, outlining an Indigenous offender’s personal history with colonial oppression.

But the Yukon Party, which was in power between 2002 and 2016 for much of Nehass’s time spent in jail, has been deafeningly silent on the issue. “The Official Opposition supports a justice system that protects the rights of inmates while ensuring the safety of our community as a whole,” wrote Yukon Party justice critic Brad Cathers in a statement. “We have confidence in the dedicated staff at the Department of Justice, including staff at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre.”

***

While Nehass was seemingly free from the criminal justice system, he was arrested on a peace bond application by the Crown in Lower Post, B.C., on October 20, 2017. The Crown is seeking that he is placed on 22 bail conditions despite not facing any criminal charges, based on an informant’s statement that there is fear Nehass will commit a serious personal injury offence.

Nehass was released following a bail hearing on November 3. Anik Morrow, who is currently assisting Nehass pro bono, said she was told the peace bond hearing won’t be for another year due to limited resources in the small northern town.

Many who hold tough-on-crime attitudes don’t understand why people are so interested in and outraged by the case. They feel that Nehass is a violent, dangerous offender who should be locked up and have the key thrown away. But what they don’t understand is that incarceration is not rehabilitative and mistreating offenders doesn’t assist in public safety. While offender’s rights may be limited in terms of movement, they still have human rights protected under the law.

Sapers puts it best in the preface for the Independent Review of Ontario Corrections, released in March 2017. While victims’ rights are important, he writes, it’s also important to concern ourselves with offenders: “After nearly 40 years of working in the system I have come to realize there is often only a thin and blurry line between victim and offender…. Meeting the needs of offenders often amounts to meeting the needs of victims,” he writes. “‘Offender bashing’ conditions of confinement does nothing to assist victims of crime or make our communities safer.”

with the gore and the glass and the reek it is towed to town,
the wrecker breaking down before a schoolyard
and the children all come running forth to see the dead
within: Bonnie’s lip near severed from her mouth,
Clyde with his head blown open,
the hum of heat and the insects never yielding

the car comes to rest in the town of Arcadia, home to 1,000 souls
and a herd of 16,000 try to get an up-close view:
one man tries to harvest Clyde’s fine ear, another wants his trigger finger,
bits of Bonnie’s hair and dress are snipped away,
Clyde’s body is a smear of red, wet rags,
Bonnie has hearts tattooed upon her thigh,
beer sells for two bits and you can’t get a thin ham sandwich at any price

there are 17 entry wounds in Clyde, 26 in Bonnie,
they are photographed frail and naked on the gurneys,
they are sent to separate funeral homes
where someone offers Henry 10 grand for his son’s body
and Emma Parker can no longer hide her hatred for the boy

meanwhile the Ford V8 flathead sits in the Arcadia impound lot
pocked by 167 bullets, filthy, with an engine smooth as silk,
the posse think that it belongs to them, sweet ambush booty
along with all the guns and cash and trinkets from the ride

Ruth Warren disagrees: that damn car was stolen from her place
April 29 in Topeka Kansas and she comes to drive it home,
then rents it out to Charles W. Stanley who loads the car
upon a flatbed truck and tours it round the land for free,
though a dime per person would help towards expenses

Cumie Barrow and Emma Parker join the car on tour
in March of ’35, a paycheck is a paycheck after all,
Henry had a job and Marie would handle ticket sales
for the show entitled Crime Does Not Pay,
not long before they head back home to Dallas

Stanley ran the Death Car Tour well into the 40s
people fell upon their knees and wept to see it
arguments broke out and lawyers made their fees
the car moved hand to hand from state to state
and rests today upon the floor in
Whiskey Pete’s Casino, Primm, Nevada

the car they lived and died in, a little like a shrine:
damn you Henry Ford and your knack for slick design.

Doukhobors stage a mass nude protest in Langham, Saskatchewan, in 1903.

In Canada, public nudity is allowed so long as you don’t “offend against public decency or order.” In fact, nudity is considered a political crime, one of the few offences that requires the Attorney General’s approval to lay charges. So, letting it all hang out among thousands of like-minded souls at the Pride Parade? You’re probably safe. But going for a naked jaunt to your local A&W—not so much. Brian Coldin, of Bracebridge, Ontario, currently faces five charges for his repeated clothing-free visits to fast-food restaurants located near his naturist resort. Coldin is fighting the charges, calling Canada’s nudity laws unconstitutional. A judge is expected to rule this fall. Until then, here’s a full-frontal look at our country’s long history of public nudity.

1918 First Canadian nudist club founded in Welland, Ontario.

1931 The Criminal Code first defines nudity as an offence in response to mass nude anti-conscription protests by radical Doukhobors, a Russian pacifist religious sect. The following year, 118 Doukhobors are arrested and sentenced to three years each for their naked protest.

1939 The Van Tan Club is founded in Vancouver by Ray Connett, the self-dubbed “Father of Canadian Nudism.” Today, it’s the oldest nudist club in Canada.

1947 The Canadian Sunbathing Association is formed. This and similar euphemisms are employed to make advertisements acceptable to newspaper and magazine publishers.

1953-54 The Criminal Code is amended to remove Doukhobor-related “parading” references. Criminal charges remain rare, however, as Attorneys General prove reluctant to prosecute. Those going clothing-free are instead usually charged with mischief or indecency.

1991 Gwen Jacob, 19, takes off her shirt in Guelph, Ontario, and is charged with indecent exposure and fined $75. In a recent interview with The Naturist Living Show, Jacob reflected on the episode: “With my hands shaking furiously, I took my shirt off and jammed it down the back of my shorts and I can’t tell you the freedom that entailed in that moment … I was scared to death, but there was a nearly euphoric sense of taking control of my own body.”

1996 The Ontario Court of Appeal rules that Jacob’s “indecent exhibition” did not pose a “risk of harm” as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada and therefore could not be the subject of criminal charges. The conviction is overturned and Jacob gets her 75 bucks back.

1998 Evangeline Godron swims topless in a Regina pool. After she declines to either leave or put on a top, police are called and she is charged. Godron is convicted of mischief a year later, and subsequent appeals are thrown out.

2011 Brian Coldin challenges the constitutionality of Canada’s nudity laws. His case is pending.

Creative Commons photo by flickr user ecstaticist.

“It has been some time now that I have wanted to speak to you about the youth gang. Since July there has been much conjecture about how the youth gang started, and when, and where, and what exactly the youth gang is, and who belongs to it, and whether its members wear ‘colours,’ and which weaponry they carry, and how to best protect ourselves—Kevlar vs. chainmail, house alarms vs. hounds, landmines vs. prayer— and whether the youth gang represents a simple gap in generational understanding, or a malevolent shudder in the collective morality of humankind, or the death of love, or a mirror, or a warning, or the end.

“But here we are, October, with no real progress or understanding to speak of. Three months of terror have passed and still the youth gang holds us in its clutches. And while we continue to ask how, when, where, even what, no one in our close-knit multicultural community, in which not a soul wants for anything and everybody knows your name, has ever asked why we have a youth gang. And before you go throwing your hands up in despair, Mrs. Heinz-Mercer, and muttering to one another, Sheikh al-Shabazz and Mother, about who the heck does this woman up there think she is, I pose a further question, one that requires serious introspection, analysis, and honesty. Consider: Who created the youth gang if not all of us?

“Grumble, fine! Sometimes the truth is difficult to hear. Although to those, Father Power and Rabbi Berkowitz, preparing to storm out in a huff, hold on. I am willing to acknowledge—okay, confess—something you’ve no doubt been waiting for. (Though have you never considered that I’ve wanted to say it, too, but merely lacked the courage, or the impetus? And sure, maybe yesterday’s tar-and-feathering of the entire security force at the factory outlet mall has provided exactly that.) A solution begins, I think, with each of us accepting responsibility. In that spirit, let me be the first to do so.

“Listen to me now: the youth gang is largely, if not entirely, my fault. Had I not founded the youth group, no youth gang would have ever mutated out of it. It is that simple. And I’m sorry.

“Thanks, Sardarji, nice to see you sitting back down— you, too, Nakamura-san. So there it is, what I’ve wanted to get off my chest since the BuskerFest swarming back in July. Mea culpa. But fault me not for good intentions! Honestly, I believed it was the right thing—following consensus, reached at a town-hall gathering very much like this one, to get the youth off our streets.

“But now I wonder: were the youth ever on our streets? Prior to the first youth-group meeting at the recreation centre, weren’t they mostly in our basements with computers? And also, technically, this subdivision doesn’t even have streets. There’s an abundance of crescents, courts, and cul-de-sacs, two wide and beautiful tree-lined boulevards, a trail, a path, and I for one live on a place, and there are other places and drives and avenues and ways and passes and even roads—but streets? No. Not one.

“So we had a logistical or at least semantic problem from the get-go. But, people, streets or no streets, it’s insignificant now, when every night our chimneys are being stuffed with fertilizer and the word PWNED burned into our lawns with bleach. What matters is how to stop the menace—the menace of the youth gang. And to do this we need to come together. Now, I know that several of you (Mestre Appleton-Bannerjee, the Honourable G. A. Sabatini, Comptroller Choi, others) have booked the Hall tonight at 8:00 for capoeira practice, so I’ll do my best to be brief. And I’m sure the members of our local roda would appreciate it if everyone helps stack the chairs on their way out. Thanks!

“I’ll add, too, that what follows is not meant as an affront to the Nguyen-Orloffs, whose Reading Instead program happens weekdays from 3:30 to 6 p.m. in the Bookmobile. I see a lot of confused faces. Really? No one knows about this? You’ve never wondered about the repurposed RV up on blocks in the cemetery parking lot? Well, it’s a fine, fine initiative, with as many as six kids diverted, or at least temporarily distracted, from joining the youth gang. As you may have noticed, an empty salsa jar is making the rounds for donations. Please give generously, and now you know what they’ve been up to, let’s give Minh and Jack a round of applause for their efforts.

“Great. Now—Mother, stop muttering—everyone, please listen: in times of communal confusion, truth gets lost amid the clatter of voices—each straining to be heard, each deaf to one another. (You and your research fellows heard me, Dr. O’Connor; no need for the eyebrow raising.) This is how gossip becomes mythology. Much of what you think you know about the youth gang—that they sleep in caves underground and eat small dogs—is spurious and absurd. Remember the

hysteria about the youth gang recruiting babies from the natal ward at Jewish General? In truth only one baby was approached before the youth gang realized they could make their own babies, babies born into the youth gang and as such members for life—though this is perhaps equally worrying, for different reasons.

“Rumours cloud judgment and preclude reason. Please allow me to detail an accurate history of how the youth gang formed and evolved, and explain where they are now in their organization. I’ll conclude with a potential course of what I’m calling ‘proaction,’ contrasted with a picture of what the future may hold for our community if things continue on their current trajectory (i.e., more incidents like the urine-balloon bombing at last Sunday’s Fall Harvest Festival.)

“Here’s how it all began, last June, at the rec centre. About 15 minutes into the first youth-group meeting, through diversionary tactics and trickery, the youth locked me in the supply closet and, commandeering a staple gun, affixed the head lifeguard, Florian Henderson—hi, Florian—to a spinal board by his trunks. That led to a handful of youths unleashing a skunk into the retirement home next door, while another faction spray-painted a lurid mural of male genitalia, mid-climax, in the library parkade; still others stormed CROG FM and, holding the hosts at bay with gardening tools, broadcast a burping contest for the entirety of Rick and Tina’s Commuter Hour.

“Sure, there had been signs of dissent. The youth group was no happy commune, all smiles and sunshine—actually, if anything disorients the youth, it’s sunshine. When I first herded them out of their basements into the Youth Group paddy wagon, generously donated by Captain N’diaye’s 32nd Precinct, they staggered like so many pubescent moles into the light of midday summer, blinded and lost. For a moment my heart leapt at the sight of them, so vulnerable and confused— that is, until I discovered a note (I’m a try-hard fatty) affixed to my back with chewing gum. Oh, that’s just great—laugh it up, Mother. Everything’s so hilarious to you, isn’t it?

“Since June I have dropped 17 pounds, most of it over those traumatic four days locked in the rec-centre supply closet, subsisting entirely on powdered sports-drink concentrate and unpopped popcorn kernels. Through a ventilation shaft I listened to the youth, over a succession of daily ping-pong tournaments, morph from group to gang. By the time I was rescued by the centre’s long-time caretaker, Donato DiFruscia (who promptly fled for the ‘old country’), the youth, in a horde of all-over print hoodies, were descending upon BuskerFest— an episode the talented singer-songwriters whose CDRs were stolen, recorded over with flatulence, and promptly returned, will never forget.

“I don’t think I need to detail the humiliating months that have followed: the toilet paperings, the drive-by Slurpeeings, the teabaggings, the hijackings of decency and Segways. We have learned things. If, for example, a flaming paper bag appears at your front door, get the hose. A sign announcing ‘Free Beer’ accompanied by a series of chalked arrows leading to an alleyway is best ignored. For those duped out of their RSP savings by the space tourism/all-you-can-eat surf ’n’ turf scam, my heart goes out to you.

“But enough, I say: enough! Enough shame and terror. Enough peeking out at the world through our mail slots and doggie doors. Enough flights of journalistic fancy such as—with due respect, Karen—Miss Behaviour’s op-ed of September 12, ‘Anyone Know a Good Exorcist?’ Enough tribunals and sanctions, which only waste community picnic funds. Enough vigilante posses prowling the neighbourhood in backcatcher masks with rolls of quarters in their fists—yes, Mme. et M. Letourneau, I’m looking at you. Enough booby-trapping the woods. People, the youth gang don’t even go into the woods; they abhor nature and distrust trees.

“Let’s admit our complicity. We put the youth in tennis lessons, and what was once a forehand buggwhip is now a tire iron smashed through the windows of Fetisov’s Ceramics Boutique. We paid for the karate classes that equipped the youth with the very roundhouse kicks used to destroy, to use a convenient example, the entire back stock of Fetisov’s Ceramics Boutique. How worrisome, then—for all of us, not just you, Mr. Fetisov!—that the video games we bought the youth teach strategies for storming buildings with assault rifles and gunning down rooftop snipers. Thank God for our community’s strident firearms laws—at least for now.

“Friends, neighbours: how can our creation also be our enemy? The youth gang comprises our sons and daughters, our grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, our paperboys and girls; these kids used to bag our groceries and flip our burgers, rip our tickets at the movie theatre, and, sometimes, even fill the classrooms of our schools. (Where are they now, you ask? God knows. They may even be in this room— it’s impossible to tell, since the hide-and-seek we encouraged has made them so adept at subterfuge.) My point is this: as its architects, aren’t we also part of the youth gang? In this war against the youth gang, whom are we fighting, essentially, if not ourselves?

“Quiet, please. I’m not finished. So what then, some of you ask, if not a punitive response? I suggest talks, dialogue, tolerance, patience, understanding. I have faxed one of the youth gang’s representatives, and she seems willing to negotiate— though who knows for what, and under which terms. But a lull in hostilities is the first step to reconciliation and, perhaps, even a truce. What does the youth gang want, besides crafting scenes of prurient orgy with our garden gnomes and sailing looted futons down the river? Does anyone know? This was a rhetorical question, Mother; please put down your hand. You are a thousand years old. There is no way you have any idea.

“People, we have one week until Halloween—that means Devil’s Night will be upon us in only six days. Does this worry anyone except me? Oh, wow, everyone? I’ve got a whole page here of ‘worst-case scenarios,’ but maybe—right, I’ll skip it. Okay. I hope we can turn anxiety into action—or proaction, as I mentioned earlier. And quickly. If I can broker talks, everyone here needs to participate, albeit, of course, calmly, without shrieking or finger-pointing or the petulant feet-stomping that certain also-rans in last spring’s 5k Jog for the Cure seem to think passes for sportsmanship. And, please, people, no spitting. This has never, ever been okay. Do you hear me? Ever.

“I thank you for your time. Let us do the right thing, let us extend the olive branch—and be prepared that we might be handed roadkill in return. We must persevere. The youth gang is our doing. It is all of our faults. And it is up to us, as those responsible, to work with the youth, to show them the way out of their misdeeds, toward a new path. And as for what this path might be…”

The speaker trailed off. Looking out over the crowd, she flipped through her notes. The room was silent. Everyone waited for her to conclude, to provide definitive and clear instructions. The air had gone brittle with expectation. But instead of saying anything, with shaking hands the speaker plucked from behind the lectern a bottle of Vitamin Water, which she tipped back and drank—the entire thing, rapidly, in a single, open-throated gulp.

Dear Progressive Detective: I heard police arrested a man at the Pearson International Airport in Toronto after receiving a tip from Canada’s Suspicious Incident Reporting System, which alleged the man intended to join a Somali terrorist group. I’m concerned: what is SIRS, and how might the Government’s security efforts affect my civil liberties and right to privacy?

Mohamed Hersi was arrested in March as he was preparing to board a plane for Cairo to study Arabic. The 25-year-old security guard’s employer had submitted a Suspicious Incident Report based on web browsing it deemed “suspicious.” Charged with attempting to participate in a terrorist activity and counseling another person to do the same, Hersi’s case is still before the courts. Though out on bail, he’s hardly free—Hersi can’t apply for a passport or access the internet. He must be accompanied by a surety at all times.

The RCMP describes SIRS as an online service allowing operators of certain companies in sectors such as transit, finance, and energy to file reports on any suspicious activity they witness. The Mounties, CSIS, and other relevant agencies are notified upon a report’s submission. RCMP spokesperson Greg Cox says SIRS allows the RCMP to “develop crucial partnerships, support investigations, and maintain continuous dialogue with internal and external partners on shared national security concerns.”

But according to civil liberty and privacy experts, information sharing may be cause for worry. The government is collecting information about people who have yet to—or may never—commit a crime. Micheal Vonn, of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, calls this connecting the dots before knowing if those dots will be useful. To her, such “info grabs” are counterintuitive. “If you’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” she says, “these systems provide more hay, not the needle.”

Vonn fears the fate of Maher Arar, deported and tortured because of “suspicions” he associated with alleged terrorists, will be repeated. “Information sharing has ramifications for privacy,” she adds, “and the sense that we aren’t being assessed as people, but by our data shadow.”

To its credit, the RCMP is fairly transparent; SIRS is monitored by the Privacy Commissioner. But any sighs of relief may—for now—be premature. As Sukanya Pillay, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, stresses, civil liberties and privacy must be respected. “Concerns arise when these liberties are chipped away,” she says. “That’s when a country starts to change.”

Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Null Value.

“We do not use statistics as an excuse not to get tough on criminals.” That was federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s astonishing response to Statistics Canada’s finding in July that crime rates in Canada now stand at the same level they did in 1973. Don’t bother us with the facts, was Nicholson’s meaning, our minds are made up. We’re going to get tough on crime—despite the fact that the criminals have gone soft on us.

Stephen Harper’s new majority government vowed last spring to pass an omnibus crime bill during the first 100 sitting days of the new parliament, a deadline that is fast approaching. The bulk of the bill is dedicated to introducing new mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offences. For instance, the last incarnation of the bill (it was never voted on before the last election and could change) specified a minimum one-year sentence for any drug crime on behalf of a gang or involving a weapon. The minimum raised to two years if the crime was committed near a school. Producing a drug nets a mandatory three years if the production posed a threat to minors or public health.

You don’t have to condone criminality to see that mandatory minimums, especially for drug-related crime, are the kind of cynical laws that play well on voter doorsteps and fail miserably in almost every other context. They don’t make the general public any safer; they harden minor criminals in the crucible of prison; and they cost a fortune.

Judges don’t like them, since they tie their hands and leave no room for context or, well, judgment (Justice John Gomery calls such legislation “a slap in the face” to judges). Prosecutors seldom like them, since they provide defendants no incentive to plead guilty in exchange for a lesser punishment. Corrections officials’ feelings are mixed at best; their budgets inevitably swell, but overcrowding causes greater problems.

Even the United States—the world capital of magical thinking on drug crime—is backpedalling on mandatory minimums for drug cases. A CBC report found a dozen states— Republican- and Democrat-run—that are repealing mandatory minimums. They cite a comprehensive array of complaints, from abstract doubts about the constitutionality of the practice, to practical, bottom-line problems with out-of-control policing and corrections costs.

The facts show that Canadians are safer than they have been in two generations, yet the Harper government is plunging ahead anyway. This policy will inflate the government’s corrections budget to $3.1 billion in 2012–2013 (including $466 million just to build new prisons). For that price tag you’d hope to bag the kingpins—but of course, that’s not what this is about. Instead we will victimize and incarcerate the most impoverished and desperate small time crooks and call it justice. If you believe that poverty reduction, alternative sentencing, addiction counselling, and evidence-based policymaking are better ideas, this government has one word for you: tough.

A suspect wanted for questioning by Vancouver police following the June 2011 riot that erupted after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup playoffs. The law is still grappling with how to track crime in the age of social media and ubiquitous cell phone cameras. Image courtesy Vancouver Police.

After the sheer surprise of Vancouver’s Stanley Cup riots had dissipated, Canadian commentators tried to figure out what it all meant. Most beat their usual political drums—months later we’re blaming the pinko anarchists, capitalist pigs, and beer companies for making their products so darn tasty and portable.

But this being 2011, many who broke windows with one hand held camera phones in the other. And as myriad pictures and videos of the event began to circulate, another worrying spectre emerged: social-media vigilantism. Images of those involved in violence and property damage spread quickly around the Web, often with the explicit intention of shaming, catching, and even punishing the perpetrators with acts of “citizen justice.”

“We have seen Big Brother and he is us,” portentously intoned social-media expert Alexandra Samuel to the Globe and Mail. And really, who could blame her? Anyone who has ever taken public transit or gone to a movie knows our fellow Canadians can’t always be counted on to be fair, or even terribly nice. But if our mistakes and trespasses used to be judged by the mostly neutral bodies of the State, this new technology means we now run the risk of being tried and even convicted by the body politic.

This speaks to a phenomenon increasingly difficult to ignore, as centuries-long practices of law and social norms, whether privacy, ownership, knowledge, or even statecraft, are threatened by new technologies. These are worrying prospects to be sure, partly because they’re just so new. But here’s a radical idea: rather than throwing up our hands, or simply calling for the use of less technology, we need to spend time thinking about how we will reshape our legal and social institutions to deal with the inevitable change that is on its way. To protect the relative freedoms of liberal society, we need to build policing of technology right into our legal structures.

After all, it’s not as if what we’re experiencing now doesn’t have some precedent. Take the telephone, for example. Though it was an incredible leap forward in communication, it also presented the rather sticky problem that your communication could be recorded and put to unintended ends. Similarly, having a point of communication in your home meant that people could contact you at any time, whether you happened to be eating dinner or not.

Our legal structures responded by enforcing laws about the conditions under which telephone calls could be made, recorded, and submitted for evidence in a legal trial. Maybe just as importantly, we also developed social strictures around the phone, including general rules about appropriate times for calling and the right way to answer. Like most social norms, some people follow them and some don’t, but at least legally speaking, our rules around the telephone generally seem to work.

What we need, then, is a similarly measured response that institutes civic and legal codes for how surveillance technology can be used, whether that is encouraging social sanction for inappropriate use, or articulating under what circumstances public footage can be submitted for legal evidence. In the same vein, it would also mean the legal system has to deal with the dissemination of information for vigilante purposes, and ratchet up consequences for those who take the law into their own hands. It would involve the tricky process of the law considering intent and context, but given the different degrees in murder charges and Canada’s hate-crime laws, that kind of legal subtlety seems to make our system better, not worse.

Implementing these changes will take decades, not years, because the changes here are huge, involving how the State exercises its authority, but also how we as members of a society relate to one another. Yet the purpose of the legal system has always been to police out those two aspects of our lives. And rather than only decrying the downsides of mob mentality, the unfettered exchange of private information or the Web’s detrimental impact on established business, we need to think about preserving the good in this new technology.

Because there’s another worry looming here too, and it also is about historical precedent. In the 19th century, the rise of printing technologies and cheap reading materials drastically altered how ideas were spread. The State responded by instituting literary study into the then-new school curriculum so that the young might “learn to read properly.” Certainly, there were upsides: national cohesion, shared values, and proscriptions against anti-social behaviour. But it also meant that the radical element was contained and made safe, as youth were taught to think usefully, not dangerously.

We sit at the cusp of a similar moment in the history of information, and it’s certainly true that it occasionally feels like a riot— out of control and of our very basest nature. The fitting response, then, is much like the delicate dance of riot-policing done right: a reaction that enforces some order on chaos, while still protecting the rights and privileges such acts are meant to restore.

That was on July 21, 2011. And the irony was likely lost on De Young and his executioners that, only days before this execution was filmed in the interest of scrutinizing lethal injections, Canada was entering its thirty-fifth year without the death penalty.

On July 14, 1976, the House of Commons voted to strike capital punishment from the Canadian Criminal Code. The road to abolition had been a long one. The first time an MP had introduced an anti-capital punishment bill was 1914, and several more such bills would be shot down over the following decades. After 120 years, and 710 executions, Canada’s capital punishment laws were pretty well-ingrained into judicial society.

It wasn’t until 1956 that Parliament even considered removing the death penalty as a punishment for youth offenders. But by the end of that decade, politicians and the public alike had begun to question the humanity of capital punishment and its effectiveness as a deterrent. Anti-death penalty protesters had started picketing executions, serving as foils to the rabid crowds who had once gleefully swarmed public hangings.

As resistance to capital punishment grew, the death penalty was removed from several crimes, including rape and some murder charges. By 1963, it had become de facto policy for the federal government to commute death sentences and, in 1967, a moratorium was placed on capital punishment for all crimes except the murder of on-duty police officers and prison guards. Nine years later, total abolition was made official. The vote on the hotly contested bill, which had prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau himself to take the floor and make a plea for abolition, transcended partisan lines, and split Canada’s MPs 131 to 124.

Canada, post-death penalty

Thirty-five years on from that landmark legislation, and nearly 50 years after the last executions were carried out, debate over the death penalty in Canada still rages on. Public opinion has almost always favoured the death penalty in theory, if not in actual practice. A poll conducted by a private research firm this past January found that 66 percent of respondents support capital punishment in some cases, though only 41 percent of Canadians surveyed actually want to see the death penalty reinstated. Those figures are still astonishing considering how long Canada has been without capital punishment, and that the only attempt to reinstate it was defeated in 1987, 148 to 127, an even greater margin than the one in the original abolition vote.

Is there an empirical reason for the continued support of the death penalty, or the need for harsher sentences in Canada? The numbers would suggest not. Canadian murder rates have been on a steady decline since their peak in the mid-1970’s, the years leading up to abolition. As of 2009, the murder rate was at its lowest in 40 years. There has never been any conclusive evidence that abolishing the death penalty directly results in lower murder rates, but the trend debunks the theory that capital punishment is necessary to keeping murder rates low. What’s more, according to Amnesty International, the conviction rates for first-degree murder cases doubled, from 10 percent to 20 percent, within ten years of abolition, the implication being that the high stakes of capital punishment actually got in the way of justice.

And yet support for the death penalty remains. Amongst the cohort of Canadians who believe in capital punishment is Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, during an interview with CBC earlier this year, said he “think[s] there are times where capital punishment is appropriate.”

Although the PM also insisted he has no intentions of trying to reinstate capital punishment, his remarks sparked a minor furor during the recent election, as members of the opposition suggested that a Conservative majority would push the death penalty back into the lawbooks. But the most notable controversy surrounding the PM and his stance on capital punishment has been over the case of a Canadian fighting his own death sentence in the United States.

A Canadian on death row

In 1999, Alberta-born Stanley Faulder was put to death in Texas, becoming the first Canadian in almost 50 years to be executed south of the border. In the run-up to his death, the Jean Chrétien government tried to have Faulder’s sentence commuted, but the appeal was rejected by Texas’s then-governor, George W. Bush. Today, with another Canadian facing the death penalty in the States, the government is less interested in helping.

Ronald Allen Smith, of Red Deer, Alberta, has been on death row in Montana since 1983. His death sentence has been overturned three times and, each time, he has been resentenced with the same outcome: death by lethal injection. Just as they did in Stanely Faulder’s case, the Chrétien government went to bat for Smith. Throughout the early years of his appeals, Canadian officials had stayed in constant contact with Smith’s council, and made a formal request for clemency on his behalf in 1997.

Clemency requests for Canadians sentenced to death in foreign countries had been standard government policy at the time. But Harper’s Conservatives, who took power in 2006, changed that policy, announcing that they would not seek clemency for multiple murderers convicted in democratic states. They withdrew their support for Smith in late 2007, prompting Smith and his lawyers to appeal to the Canadian Federal Court. A judge there determined that the government had to follow the old policy until a suitable replacement was enacted, and Harper finally complied, and the Canadian government resumed its talks with Montana officials. Smith has currently been granted a stay of execution while he fights a civil court battle against lethal injections, which he argues are unconstitutional.

Looking ahead

Thirty-five years after it abolished capital punishment, Canada continues to soldier on without it, in spite of the opinions of 41 percent of its populace, and even the personal opinion of its prime minister. The U.S., meanwhile, continues to hand out death sentences in all but 14 states.

But American capital punishment laws are being challenged, as some people look to revive the brief ban on executions that existed between 1972 and 1976.

The execution of Andrew Grant DeYoung, was filmed in order to determine the effectiveness of the drug pentobarbital in sedating condemned criminals during lethal injections. The video will be used in the appeal of another inmate on Georgia’s death row who, much like Ronald Allen Smith, is fighting his death sentence on the grounds that execution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

These men’s appeals will bring before American courts the same question that was put to Canada’s legislators 35 years ago. Is the death penalty fair and just in a liberal democratic country? At the end of that long debate, it was Pierre Trudeau who, as was so often the case, provided the most eloquent, definitive answer:

“I do not deny that society has the right to punish a criminal, and the right to make the punishment fit the crime, but to kill a man for punishment alone is an act of revenge. Nothing else. Some would prefer to call it retribution because that word has a nicer sound. But the meaning is the same. Are we, as a society, so lacking in respect for ourselves, so lacking in hope for human betterment, so socially bankrupt that we are ready to accept state violence as our penal philosophy? … My primary concern here is not compassion for the murderer. My concern is for the society which adopts vengeance as an acceptable motive for its collective behaviour. If we make that choice, we will snuff out some of the boundless hope and confidence in ourselves and other people, which has marked our maturing as a free people.”

Alyssa Manning. Photo by Robin Hart Hiltz.

Not every punk-rock high school dropout grows up to become a refugee lawyer, but Toronto-based attorney Alyssa Manning isn’t exactly ordinary. Barely into her 30s, Manning has made a professional niche for herself by working with U.S. war-resister files, defending such high-profile clients as Jeremy Hinzman, James Corey Glass, and The Deserter’s Tale co-author Joshua Key—American soldiers seeking sanctuary in Canada because of their refusal to serve in Iraq on moral grounds.

As a sharp street kid in Kingston, Ontario, a city of seven prisons, Manning observed glaring flaws in the Canadian justice system through her daily interactions with on-again, off-again inmates. This spurred an interest in criminal justice, and eventually led her to law school. It was a placement at Parkdale Community Legal Services in Toronto that ultimately steered her toward immigration and refugee law, where one of her first files happened to be a war-resister case.

“It was sort of an intersection of a couple of different things that I’d studied in my past,” says Manning. Her interest in the criminal justice system—which is, for civilians, what the court-martial system is for military personnel—was an added bonus.

Manning finds her work rewarding and stresses that “people who are aware of the war resisters’ situations are supportive.” However, there is the occasional misconception that war resisters “‘should have stayed in the States and fought it in their own countries.’ Unfortunately, there really isn’t an opportunity for them to do that.”

The reason, Manning explains, is the United States’ outdated court-martial system that refuses to hear testimony of human-rights violations on the ground in Iraq in cases of desertion. In other words, war resisters have little choice but to flee to Canada to avoid imprisonment and, arguably, to receive a fair trial. As such, Manning believes the deportation of war resisters results in a violation of both Canadian and international law.

“Under the international law that’s applicable to refugees,” she explains, “someone is entitled to refugee protection if they are refusing to participate in actions that would be considered breaches of the Geneva Convention or International Human Rights Law. So technically, refusing to participate in Iraq, whether or not the war itself is illegal, but just based on what’s actually happened there, all of these men and women that have done that are entitled, and arguably required, to do so.”

Manning makes no attempts to conceal the respect and admiration she feels for her clients: “Their dedication to have made the sacrifices that they did, leaving behind their homes and their families to stand up for something that they really believed in—I really find that admirable.”

— Kelli Korducki

The SlutWalks are challenging that vocabulary of oppression. On April 3, hundreds of women took pride in their pleasure and walked through the streets of Toronto (note that they walked for all kinds of different reasons). Inspired by them, a march followed in Boston on May 7. Now self-proclaimed “sluts” and their allies are taking to the streets all over the world in response to the falsehood that sexual assault is linked with promiscuous attire.

It’s an old idea, and one we should be long rid of. There may be other definitions involving a woman’s barely-there clothing or willingness to cheat, but “slut” in its most powerful and oppressive form is inextricably linked with rape.

Patricia Douglas

Patricia Douglas made headlines after she was raped by an MGM director.

Who exactly is Patricia Douglas?

In 1937, she was a 19-year-old dancer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – you know, the film company with the iconic roaring lion. On May 5 of that year, she answered a call to a “film set” at an isolated ranch outside of Los Angeles. She and 119 other girls were required to wear cowgirl outfits. Patricia didn’t notice there were no movie cameras at the ranch. Present at what turned out to be an MGM sales convention party were nearly 300 salesmen, directors and producers. Throughout the night a film director pursued her, as they often did, asking her to teach him a popular dance. The director, David Ross, offered her champagne and whiskey, but Patricia had never tasted liquor so she refused. He and another patron forced the alcohol down her throat. When she ran outside to vomit, Ross followed her. He then violently raped her in a field near the barn.

Today we would hope such an act would be condemned and such a man would be brought to justice. But the 1930s were different. The word “rape” was rarely used. Instead the newspapers printed the word “ravished.” Women who were sexually assaulted didn’t often press charges. If they did, it was likely they would be publicly shamed. Only “sluts” had sex before marriage, whether or not they willed it.

As former MGM extra Peggy Montgomery said in a documentary I just watched about Patricia:

“I remember two words that I learned — one was ‘rape,’ which was an extreme disaster, and the other one that usually was in the same conversation was ‘tart’ – ‘well she’s a tart.’ … The whole vocabulary of ‘ bad woman’ – slut, tart, tramp – came up immediately if anybody mentioned, ‘she was raped.’”

It’s still a pervasive idea. If a girl sleeps around, she must have wanted it. If a girl is wearing suggestive clothes or makeup, as a Manitoba judge recently said, she must be asking for it. If on the other hand she doesn’t dress like a slut, as a Toronto police officer recently recommended, then she will prevent rape.

Patricia pressed charges against Ross. It was a brave move. Even today, attacking the credibility of a rape survivor is a valid means of undermining his or her testimony. Patricia was up against a financially powerful spin-machine. If MGM could show she had questionable morals – if she had casual sex, for example – the movie giant stood a better chance of winning the case. The movie studio circulated a form asking about the girl’s morals and whether she had been drinking on the night of the party. It aimed to establish that Patricia was a slut. If she was a slut, she couldn’t have been raped. But Douglas had been a virgin at the time, so MGM used another defense. “Look at her,” the prosecutor commanded: “who would want her?”

Rape was and still is linked with desire according to folk psychology. But this is an oppressive idea. Rape is all about power. Rapists perceive their “victims” as weak, which is why many sexual assault centres have shifted to calling them “survivors.” In a linguistic sense, this new word takes some semantic power away from rapists.

And what would happen if the word “slut” lost its power too? What if it bestowed strength rather than shame upon its subjects? Thanks in part to the SlutWalks and the debate they have launched, we may at last find out.