Newfoundland jail death renews calls for accountability in provincial corrections

Unlike the federal corrections system, there is often no independent oversight of provincial jails in Canada.

It was shortly after another death was confirmed at a notoriously harsh Newfoundland jail that Bob Buckingham wrote to his fellow defence lawyers to ask what they could do to better advocate for inmates.

The August death, which sources say was a suicide, was at least the seventh death since 2017 inside jails in the province, which between 2010 and 2020 had the highest rate of inmate suicide in Atlantic Canada.

Judges in Newfoundland and Labrador have recently reduced sentences for at least two inmates at Her Majesty's Penitentiary in St. John's in scathing written decisions condemning the 164-year-old prison's rodent and mould infestations and its crumbling infrastructure. Buckingham wants lawyers to raise those conditions more often during pleadings and thus give judges more opportunities to take a stand, which he hopes will pressure the provincial government to make changes.

"There has to be a political will, to do something to change the change how things operate, and to bring principles of fundamental justice into the prison system with respect to inmates," Buckingham, who is based in St. John's, said in an interview. "They have to have a fundamental opportunity to challenge what's happening, to challenge the poor conditions."

Unlike the federal corrections system, there is often no independent oversight of provincial jails in Canada. Federal prisons are monitored by the Office of the Correctional Investigator, and Correctional Service Canada publishes statistics on inmate deaths. The agency alerts the press whenever an inmate dies, and deaths that are not from natural causes are investigated by a four-member team and reported on.

In provinces including Newfoundland and Labrador, the provincial Justice Department will often only publicly confirm an inmate death if the media request information. The public often only learns of suicides behind bars if the family speaks out.

And only some provinces, including British Columbia, launch automatic inquests into inmate deaths that are not obviously from natural causes.