CBC Forum: When should Canada's correctional system use solitary confinement?

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is callingon the province to end the use of solitary confinement.

The recommendations were among10 the commission made to the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services,which is conducting areview of the practice known officially as "segregation."

Solitaryconfinement means keeping a person locked in a small cell for up to 23 hours a daywith few or no privileges. The United Nationssays that more than 15 consecutive days of solitary confinement amounts to a form of torture.

• Solitary confinement reform in Canadian jails hindered by secretive system
• Restrict segregation behind bars, prison experts urge
• Isolation of inmates rising in crowded prisons
• Ontario sued over youth in segregation

Ontario's Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services says solitary confinement was used at least 1,600 times in a five-month period, though those numbers include separate occasions when the same person was placed in segregation.

What do you think? When, if ever, should Canadian prisons and provincial jails use solitary confinement?

Let us know in the latest CBC Forum a live, hosted discussion about topics of national interest.

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