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.