Fix for suicide risk in Stony Mountain cells — identified two decades ago — expected by 2029

New measures meant to stop Stony Mountain prison inmates from using ceiling pipes in their cell to hang themselves won’t be fully implemented for several years, even though the issue was first identified at least two decades ago.

At least seven inmates at the federal prison north of Winnipeg have died by suicide in that manner over the past 20 years.

A provincial court judge identified the problem as early as 2005.

The Correctional Service of Canada is now developing a plan to address the electrical conduit pipes, along with other Stony Mountain cell features from which inmates could hang themselves.

Risky spots in other federal prisons across the country are also going to be addressed after a “comprehensive assessment” over the past few years.

Stony Mountain officials have a site project scheduled to assess structural, operational and safety factors to reduce “suspension points,” with implementation expected in the 2028-29 fiscal year, federal corrections spokesman Jeff Campbell said.

But Ontario Sen. Kim Pate, a longtime prison-reform advocate, called the timeline “absolutely atrocious,” given how long federal corrections officials have been aware of the dangerous electrical fixtures at Stony Mountain.

“It’s unconscionable, quite frankly, that they have not addressed the issue,” said Pate.

“There have been far too many deaths in custody, and part of the challenge is that often you find out from the report that comes out from the judge or the jury… that nothing’s been done.”

Campbell said Stony Mountain officials intend to eliminate a gap that allows someone to tie a rope or sheet around the electrical conduit.

Other items identified as potential suspension points may be removed or replaced.

University of Winnipeg criminal justice Prof. Michael Weinrath, who has extensively studied Canadian jails and prisons, said that addressing various suspension points will require extensive work.

“It’s a significant renovation… and Stony Mountain, particularly because a lot of the cells are older, it can be difficult,” said Weinrath.

“If you want to suicide-proof the cells, then you have to get rid of the suspension points — and you have to put some money into that.”

He said there are a lot of different needs in the federal prison system and there’s often much debate about where to put funding.

“There are competing priorities for those types of monies, but it’s pretty cold comfort to family members who have to hear about a loved one going to prison and then taking their life,” he said.

In a 2005 inquest report on the 2003 hanging death of Alan Nicolson, a 34-year-old serving a robbery sentence, now-retired provincial court Judge Fred Sandhu first recommended the electrical fixtures on the ceilings of cells be retrofitted to prevent their use as “fixed points for hanging.”

“There are competing priorities for those types of monies, but it’s pretty cold comfort to family members who have to hear about a loved one going to prison and then taking their life.”

Sandhu’s 2005 inquest report marked the first public acknowledgement about the dangers of the electrical conduit pipes.

Despite a federal corrections official telling that inquest a change would be possible, nothing has been done.

“If the courts have known since then, presumably the prison had known before that,” said Pate.

The conduit has continued to be used in suicides as recently as 2019, when 34-year-old Indian Posse gang leader Tyson Kane Roulette hanged himself with a bed sheet from the pipe eight years into a life sentence for manslaughter and attempted murder.

Pate said the federal corrections system lacks judicial oversight — and recommendations and findings are frequently ignored.

She introduced Tona’s Law in the Senate, which is meant to increase oversight of the use of structured intervention units in federal prisons.

If passed into law by the House of Commons, it would force the Correctional Service of Canada to seek court orders to allow confinement of prisoners in the units for more than 48 hours and to send any inmates with “disabling” mental-health issues to hospitals instead.

Structured intervention units replaced solitary confinement — which the United Nations declared to be torture if it lasts 15 days or more — in 2019.

The units are supposed to give inmates “meaningful” contact with other people every day, but critics argue some federal inmates are still experiencing forms of solitary confinement.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca