“Too wicked to die”

This chapter provides the contemporary use of segregation practices in federal Canadian penitentiaries. It analyses how solitary confinement is articulated as an acceptable and appropriate mode of confinement premised on a particular understanding of "the human" and how the motivation to isolate penal subjects is endemic to the historical rationality of the penitentiary in Canada. The Correctional Service of Canada's response to its critics, independent inquiries, and the Ombudsman notably reaffirmed its legal authority to use segregation and its necessity in managing the prison population. The chapter shows that legal attempts that rely on the discourse of humanism to limit the state's use of segregation actually legitimize the practice as necessary to the security of the institution. Because solitary confinement is rooted in humane penal reforms, it demonstrates the limits of legislative and policy efforts that mobilize human rights violations to challenge solitary confinement.