You can ask a guard the time, if there is one around, but my experience was that they won’t tell you. The approach of police towards prisoners in their custody was, as far as I could tell, to behave as if you weren’t really even there — unless they need you for something, such as being transported to a jail.
As you continue your journey through the criminal justice system, you realize that depriving prisoners of knowledge of time is a consistent strategy. In the provincial jail where I was held twice, there were also no clocks, though you could tell if there was daylight. I suppose it’s possible to make a case for taking people’s watches, though it’s not an obvious one, but there’s no evident reason why there couldn’t be a clock in plain view when people are being held against their will.
No clocks in the court buildings
The same is true in the holding cells in court buildings where you wait for a bail hearing or other court process to take place. No clocks anywhere. If you are taken to court from a jail, you are wakened in the jail at an unknown time; transported to the court in a van — for who knows how long; and then placed in a holding cell where, again, you are not told and cannot find out what time it is. Why?
There were also no clocks anywhere in the federal assessment unit, nor were prisoners allowed to have watches. Where I was held there were windows, so you knew when the sun came up and set, and you could estimate other times of day by the prison routines — cell doors opening, being locked up again, meals being served — though these things often did not happen when they were supposed to.
In the assessment unit, though, prisoners could purchase TV sets (though not radios) for use in their cells, and that gave them access to the time. Most prisoners in assessment did not have TVs; it was a long, cumbersome and expensive process to get one. So it was common for prisoners to shout requests for the time into the corridor, which those with TVs would usually answer. The blackout on time was not as complete.
This changed when I went to a minimum-security prison. I got my watch back. There were clocks in the houses where we lived. And we were mostly free to move around. In regard to time, as in quite a few other ways, minimum security is a more normal environment, though it is still very much prison.
The importance of time
Being unable to tell the time is especially challenging because the experiences of arrest and incarceration are so wrapped up in considerations of time. An arrested person can only be held for so many hours without charge, for so many hours without access to a lawyer, for so many days before a bail hearing. For all these reasons, knowing the time matters.
But the greatest effect is at an existential level. You are in a horrible situation with no idea of how long it will take, of what will happen next and when it will happen. Especially in those first hours and days, one’s sense of time is badly distorted. Hours seem like weeks. When you are sitting in a cell, your whole future crumbling in front of you, having no sense of how long you have been there or how long you will be there is hugely stressful.
Considerations of time dominate the whole criminal justice process. How long will it be until charges are settled one way or another? During that time, many accused are held in jail — more than 70 per cent of prisoners in Canadian provincial jails are on remand — or, if released, have severe restriction on their life. I had nearly two years between arrest and final disposition, a period that did not count as part of my sentence yet was hugely disruptive to my life and those around me.
Criminal sentences are mostly about time also: the number of days or years you must spend incarcerated. If on a federal sentence, it matters how long you have to spend in the assessment unit. The point at which you can apply for parole is a north star for many prisoners, not to mention the end date of one’s sentence. Every day it matters when you get out of your cell or are put back in, when you might get a visit.
The joy of punishment
Why deprive prisoners of knowledge of the time? It’s hard to see a reason for this other than a desire to make people more uncomfortable, to keep them off balance, to make them feel less than fully human. This same intent, to humiliate and dehumanize, pervades every aspect of prison life. Behind the excuse of security concerns is the constant treatment of prisoners as lesser beings who do not deserve even the most basic respect. It’s all of a piece with horrible physical facilities, no privacy, strip searches, random searches of cells, arbitrary confiscation of materials, opening mail, turning down even innocuous requests from prisoners, monitoring phone calls, making prisoners wear humiliating clothing, providing no internet access, insufficient and poor quality food, imposing arbitrary rules and then not following even these.
The Supreme Court of Canada has said that deprivation of liberty is the punishment and there should not be additional ones beyond that. Or as the old saw goes, you go to prison as punishment, not for (additional) punishment. The ruling is comforting, perhaps, but the reality is the opposite. Our jails and prisons are designed to make prisoners’ lives harder in many ways that have little to do with safety or order and much to do with treating people as an inferior class of being. The effects, while perhaps pleasing to the strong human desire for vengeance and power over others, work against public safety and building strong communities.
David Dorson is the pen name of someone who went through arrest, case disposition, imprisonment and parole in Ontario a few years ago. Law360 Canada has granted him anonymity because he offers a unique perspective on a subject that matters deeply to many readers, and revealing the author’s identity would make re-establishment in the community after serving his sentence much more difficult than it already is.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
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