In prison terminology a dry cell is a room that prisoners are placed in that lacks any plumbing facilities such as a toilet or shower. In the

Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...

, a dry cell can be used if a prisoner claims to be unable to urinate for a

drug test A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen, for example urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, or oral fluid/saliva—to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major applications of drug ...

under direct visual supervision. Prisoners are also sometimes placed in dry cells if they are suspected of having swallowed contraband. The idea is that they will eventually excrete all the contents of their digestive system, and lacking any toilet, they will be unable to dispose of it and thereby prevent prison officials from acquiring the evidence.

Laws

Canada

In Canada, the practice of dry celling is regulated under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act: In November 2021 it was announced that Justice John A. Keith of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court had struck down the law allowing the practice, saying that it violated the

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms The ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the ''Charter'' in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part o ...

and discriminates against women, and had called on

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

to draft new legislation. Earlier in the same year, the Correctional Services division of the Nova Scotia Department of Justice had suspended their use of dry celling. Justice Minister

Mark Furey Mark Ignatius Furey is a Canadian politician and retired police officer, who was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly in the 2013 provincial election. A member of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, he represented the electoral district of Lu ...

announced that the use of body scanning technology had eliminated the need for dry cells.

References

{{Authority control Prisons Penal imprisonment Penology __FORCETOC__