Abbotsford, B.C. – October 23, 2012 – Deaf prisoner Michael Mickelson has filed a grievance against the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) for nearly a decade of failing to provide basic accommodation for his disability. He was released from prison last week.
Mickelson was denied parole and spent 92 days in solitary confinement in the last year alone, he says, because the CSC ignored his repeated requests for an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter – the most basic accommodation for his disability. Mickelson, 38 and deaf since birth, uses ASL as his first language and has only a rudimentary understanding of written English.
