Pubdate: Fri, 14 Dec 2007
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Mark Bonokoski
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)

AN ALARMING NUMBER OF ONTARIO PRISONERS ARE ACTUALLY SERVING WHAT 
AMOUNTS TO A DEATH SENTENCE IN OUR PENITENTIARIES

Judging by the number of in-custody deaths as compiled by the Office 
of the Chief Coroner of Ontario, all of which require formal 
inquests, a cynic might think there should almost be a body wagon 
parked permanently outside the province's penal facilities.

In 2004 alone, for example, 51% of the 57 inquests conducted in this 
province were dealing with in-custody deaths, 29 in total.

While not too many inmates are dying to get into prison, a goodly 
number have died to get out -- some 240 in all between 1999 and 2004, 
as documented by the coroner office's latest report.

The next inquest probing into an in-custody death was supposed to 
have begun last week in Napanee, but it was postponed in late 
November with no new date scheduled. It will involve the death of 
David Campsall, a 40-year-old man who was pronounced dead in hospital 
last May following a transfer from the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee.

The inquest, when held, is expected to last one day.

At the time of his death, Campsall, who reportedly had been hooked on 
drugs since a young teenager, was being held for breach of probation 
charges in the segregation unit of the Napanee's maximum-security 
holding institution, and had stopped breathing after being subdued by 
guards for "acting out" in his cell.

Look for crystal meth to raise its ugly head when the inquest finally 
gets under way.

The Quinte Regional Detention Centre houses people from across the 
region who are awaiting trial. It also houses short-term offenders 
and offenders awaiting transfer to provincial or federal institutions.

Recently-convicted Toronto cop-turned-killer, Richard Wills, for 
example, had an overnight stay at Quinte on his way to the Kingston 
Pen to begin a life term for the first-degree murder of his lover.

The last reported death at Quinte, however, was in 2003 when 
motorcycle gang kingpin William (Wild Bill) Hulko was found alone and 
unconscious in his cell by another inmate who was delivering breakfast.

An inquest into his death found that the 59-year-old Hulko, once 
president of the Kingston chapter of the Outlaws motorcycle gang, 
choked on his own vomit, and foul play was ruled out.

Of the 240 in-custody deaths compiled by the chief coroner -- the 
inquests into them having all been completed, and some of them going 
back to 1999 -- 32, by my count, were attributed to suicide, 
including one at the Toronto (Don) Jail, one at the Toronto West 
Detention Centre, as well as a notorious suicide at the now-defunct 
Toronto Youth Assessment Centre in Mimico when 16-year-old David 
Meffe hanged himself in October, 2002, starting a chain of 
politically-motivated events that led to the controversial facility 
being shut down permanently.

The majority of in-custody deaths, however, were attributed in the 
end to natural causes, meaning that 67 were taken into custody for 
whatever varied reason, and ended up leaving either the jail or a 
hospital in the back of a body wagon, and on their way to a mandatory 
autopsy to harvest information for an eventual inquest.

An inquest last March into the in-custody death of a 68-year-old Don 
Jail inmate, for example, eventually indicated he died from bladder 
cancer after finally being transferred to Humber Memorial Hospital -- 
leading the inquest jury to recommend that the provincial ministry of 
community safety and correctional services "implement a working group 
of experts to develop a protocol for delivering palliative care to 
inmates as humanely and compassionately as possible."

A search for a ministry press release indicating the jury's 
recommendation has been implemented came up empty.

If there are still those naive enough to believe drugs in prison are 
not problematic, however, then they should visit the coroner's office 
and peruse the list of inmates who have died from drug overdoses 
and/or the accompanying complications that arise from drug abuse.

These deaths are called "accidents."

And there have been 32 such accidents, with drugs like cocaine, 
methadone and morphine playing their role in many.

If speculation holds true regarding David Campsall's death, it will 
be one of the first attributed to crystal meth, already a scourge on 
the streets and now a cause for concern within prisons.

One of the more curious deaths, for those who read between the lines, 
was the death of a 27-year-old Millhaven Penitentiary inmate named 
Yvan Blanchette who died on the morning of Aug. 26, 2003.

Blanchette, who was serving 10 years in connection to two home 
invasions in Chatham, as well as the robbery and assault of a 
pregnant woman, died near the end of five-day conjugal visit with his 
common-law wife.

As his widow told the Chatham Daily News, she performed CPR and 
called for help when she discovered Blanchette wasn't breathing.

She then told her local newspaper that she frantically pushed a panic 
button in the trailer where they were staying, but no one appeared, 
and that no one answered her call for help on the trailer's one-way phone.

"I want to know why nobody came," she said. "I feel like they let him 
die. (Now) I want to know how he died."

So how, then, did Yvan Blanchette actually die?

Well, according to the five-person inquest jury that met nine months 
later, Blanchette's death was attributed to an "accidental" overdose 
of morphine.

It recommended several things, including better response procedures 
at Millhaven, as well as providing defibrillators for the first 
responders to the scene.

Perhaps more key, however, was the jury's recommendation that 
detector dogs be used to search all visitors before they head off to 
the private family visitation units.

After all, someone got the drugs to Blanchette.

Inquest juries, however, no longer have the mandate to assess blame, 
or to therefore name names.

They can only write what can be read between the lines.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom