August 3, 2017 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Reuters
Nearly 270 people have died in Canadian provincial jails over the past five years. Two-thirds of them were legally innocent.
Canada’s jailhouse secret: Legally innocent prisoners are dying
Howard Sapers
Feds closing 500 acute-care beds for sick inmates
March 5, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Federal prisons are losing 515 acute-care beds, which are being transferred to provide “intermediate” psychiatric care as Corrections Canada struggles to cope with a crisis of mental illness among offenders.
Canada’s failing to prevent inmate suicides, watchdog finds
September 10, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Canada’s federal prisons are continuing practices known to make inmates more likely to kill themselves – and then failing to properly measure or report these suicides, a watchdog report finds.
Ottawa ‘delisting’ hospital beds at prison treatment facilities
June 5, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
The federal government plans to “delist” psychiatric beds in its prison treatment facilities, designating them as more general beds for housing inmates.
Ottawa considers closing some prison psychiatric beds: Watchdog
June 2, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Ottawa is considering closing psychiatric beds in federal prisons barely a month after announcing a new strategy on inmates with mental illness, the federal prison watchdog says.
At the same time, it has cut back on nursing hours, even as federal prisons are seeing more assaults, more injuries and more use of force – medical incidents that corrections officers, even ones trained in first aid, aren’t prepared to handle.
Mental illness overwhelms prisons, police: ‘We have an urgent problem’
May 13, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Abbotsford Police routinely spend the night dealing with people who aren’t criminals.
They’ll spend hours, Chief Constable Bob Rich told a parliamentary committee, in emergency rooms waiting for individuals they’ve apprehended to see a doctor.
Years after Ashley Smith death, little action on women inmates
May 1, 2014 – Global News
What if there were a way to prevent more mentally ill women inmates from dying, and no one grabbed it?
Senator Bob Runciman has spent years pushing the federal government to adopt the strategy he pioneered as Ontario’s Public Safety Minister a decade ago – “with modest success, to say the least,” he smiles.
Alone with their thoughts: Why put sick people in solitary?
May 1, 2014 – Global News
Rick Raemish spent 20 hours in solitary confinement – exhausted, unable to sleep and bored out of his mind – because he wanted to.
Canada’s sickest inmates are locked in its deadliest prisons
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May 1, 2014 – Global News
Kinew James died alone in her cell, pushing a button to call for help.
She died at Saskatoon Regional Psychiatric Centre, where more inmates have died in the past seven years than any other federal prison in Canada.
Corrections Canada responses to budget queries
I was confused about Correctional Service Canada’s budget and sent the department a bunch of questions (and annoying follow-up questions). These are the responses I got to the latest barrage, received around 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, Aug. 23 – about 10 days after I sent them.
Long story short, the answers are non-answers.
a business of misfits 