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On an application to quash decisions transferring a model prisoner to
administrative segregation and then to the SHU on the grounds, among others,
that such detention violated s12 of the Charter, it was held that the
initial imprisonment was not arbitrary but mandatory. Prisons are created
by society for its protection and that penitentiaries’ set up SHUs to
protect guards and other inmates against dangerous inmates and often the
prisoners themselves. Life in a penal institution is certainly a penalty
that the inmate must suffer. This did not mean that it amounted to a violation
of this section of the Charter. The modern definition of “cruel and unusual
punishment” in penal law goes beyond “barbaric physical punishments” and
includes “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain… without penological
justification.” The phrase must be understood in terms of “standards of
decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” The true purpose
of the penal function is “to punish justly, to deter future crime, and
to return imprisoned persons to society with an improved chance of being
useful, law-abiding citizens.” On the facts, the applicant was not a victim
of arbitrary and unjustified cruelty or of unusually harmful or outrageous
treatment. The cell occupied and schedule of activities followed is essentially
the same as other inmates except for the isolation of which he was being
gradually relieved as he progressed on the road to rehabilitation.
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