Disabled woman put in solitary confinement for over a week

There's growing outrage after a young woman with a severe intellectual disability was arrested and spent eight days in solitary confinement.

The Quebec government is “deeply shocked,” advocates for people with disabilities are “ashamed” and an investigation is open after a young woman living with a significant intellectual disability found herself in solitary confinement at the Leclerc Institution for eight days.

*Florence (not the young woman’s real name) spent around two years bouncing between her care home, police custody and hospitals before she wound up in a women’s prison alone and in deplorable conditions.

The information was first revealed in an investigation by La Presse.

‘Somebody who’s very kind’

Lawyer Kaven Morasse explained that the 24-year-old woman has the mental capacity of a child and has a unique condition that led to her fleeing her home repeatedly to find food.

She is not dangerous in any way, he said.

“It’s not a mild intellectual disability,” said Morasse.

“As an example, she cannot read, she cannot write, she has a hard time remembering her age sometimes … She’s like a child in an adult body, and she needs constant help on an everyday basis for our personal hygiene care and stuff like this.”

Morasse said that she also lives with Prader-Willi syndrome, which causes those with the condition to be hungry all the time, as the brain does not register when one has eaten enough. As a result, she often fled her group home to find food.

“She’s also somebody who’s very kind,” said Morasse. “She’s not dangerous at all. Apart from her obsession with food, she doesn’t have any malice.”

It was her quest for food that led her to breaking into neighbour’s homes and subsequent police intervention, Morasse said.

Home not equipped for Florence’s needs

Florence was living in a private group home, overseen by the intellectual disability rehabilitation centre (CRDI) of the Montreal centre-south health and social services board (CIUSSS).

Staff are not allowed to prevent or stop anyone living at these homes from leaving the premises, according to Morasse.

“What happened to Florence is that she was placed in such a home because her mother, who did her best to take care of her for 22 years, couldn’t take it anymore,” he said. “She said it was it was too much for her.”

Despite her non-dangerous personality, Morrasse explained that the home she was placed in was not appropriate for Florence’s needs, but authorities could never find an appropriate place.

He detailed multiple calls to police when she fled and an eventual arrest for breaking and entering after she entered a neighbour’s home and began eating.

“When she appeared at court to even tell the crown or the defense lawyer that took the case in the first few days about her situation, she was kind of up and down. She was left alone in the judicial system, which is, I think, the big problem to this whole thing,” said her lawyer.

“There wasn’t anywhere to put her… What they said is, they said that we cannot take her, and there’s no way we can guarantee that she will not repeat that again ... and there’s no way we can help her for any psych evaluation.”

After attempts failed to place her at the Philippe-Pinel Psychiatric Institute due to no space being available, she was ordered to be detained in a women’s prison and quickly wound up in solitary.

‘Ashamed’ and ‘deeply shocked’

Steven Laperrière is the general manager at Rapliq, an organization that supports and assists people with disabilities who are victims of discrimination.

“I was ashamed that something like this happened in our Quebec, our country,” he said.

He added it doesn’t make sense to him that no one down the command chain thought the young woman didn’t belong in jail.

“We need to do something, but jail is not the option. But everybody let that happen?” he said. “God! What are we doing.”

“What infuriates me is that it will happen again, because nobody is held accountable for actions like that.”

Morasse said that “for her own safety,” she was placed in solitary confinement. He said the whole ordeal should never have got to that point.

“I think people with intellectual disabilities, disabilities like this, should never be sent to court,” said Morrasse.

Quebec Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant and Public Safety Minister François Bonnardel issued a joint statement about the case.

“Like everyone else, upon reading this morning’s article [in La Presse], we were deeply shocked,” the statement reads.

“It raises questions, and investigations will be conducted. It is very clear that people living with intellectual disabilities have rights that must be respected at all times and that they require care adapted to their condition.”

The statement adds that the courts made the decision to send Florence to Leclerc and that staff at the institution have no choice but to accept the judge’s order.

“As the case is before the courts, we will not be making any further comments at this time,” the statement concludes.