Oscar De La Hoya is available...

For all of those people who are quick to say how sweet things are in Canadian jails, take the time to read the report on the Fatality Inquiry into the death of Drumheller inmate Jarret Jabs in the midst of a riot in 2001.

http://justice.gov.ab.ca/downloads/documentloader.aspx?id=49154

Here's a quick summary from a CBC report:

Jarrett Jabs, 21, was beaten, stabbed, and finally slashed through the jugular vein in his neck during a riot at the Drumheller Institution in southern Alberta in 2001.

He had locked himself in his cell, but inmates pried off a welded panel and tripped the locking system to open the door — a skill some learned from assisting prison electricians.

The report from a 2007 fatality inquiry into the death was released on Friday. Provincial court Judge Frank Maloney recommended that inmates new to a prison should get an orientation session to the informal rules that govern inmates.

Maloney noted that Jabs, a car thief who was serving time for breaching release conditions, was seen as "weak" and "somewhat naïve to the inmate codes and expectations."

Two days after arriving at the Drumheller prison, an inmate yelled and labelled Jabs "a rat" or an informant. The inquiry heard that because he didn't stand up for himself and fight the name-caller, Jabs set himself up to be bullied by the other prisoners.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2009/07/17/alberta-jabs-inquiry-inmate-rules-drumheller.html


Now, anecdotally, we all know that prison populations are far exceeding the original intended capacities of the buildings, corrections staff are short-handed, and there really never is a government department that couldn't benefit from extra funding.

That said, nobody seems to even believe that there is an available option that would see guards and counsellors be put into an operational position to be able to prevent the next "weak", "naive" inmate from being extricated from his locked cell and brutally murdered.

The best we can come up with is give new guys some lessons in convict ettiquette? So fewer inmates will want to kill them?

While I appreciate that the inquiry judge was trying to note that a little education might help an individual stay safe while in prison (and that this was not his only recommendation), what seems to be missed is that one of the key factors, if not the critical factor, in the targeted killing of this guy was that he was arbitrarily and falsely dubbed a "rat" when some other inmate yelled that at him and he failed to viciously attack his accuser.

What I'm getting at is that if the recommended, "So, You're a Federal Inmate...Now What?" program had already existed, and if Mr. Jabs had been a good student, he would have known to use violence to deal with a potential problem and may well have either got himself killed much earlier in his prison term, or managed to find himself an accused murderer as a result of his being punished for non-violent property crimes.

To me this makes little sense, and in fairness, the inquiry judge did seem critical of an apparent "giving up" by corrections officials in thinking that the Drumheller Institution could even be made to be a less violent place:

With an inmate population in the order of 12,500 nationally, CSC would, if all of the inmates were in one place, be only a small town, yet would be one plagued by a per capita homicide and suicide rate that is eight times the national average. Perhaps such violence is to be expected when troubled individuals are concentrated in one place, but, at times, CSC seems to be almost resigned to the level of violence. When threats are made between inmates, the repercussions are not disciplinary so much as conciliatory, bringing in inmate representatives in attempts to calm the tensions. In short, staff do not seem to be in charge of certain aspects of running the facilities, sometimes leaving inmate control in the hands of inmates. Similarly, some inmates become acutely fearful that they may be targets for such violence and, as a result, historically sought refuge by "checking in" to segregation or protective custody.

Prisons should never be places where "staff do not seem to be in charge of certain aspects of running the facilities, sometimes leaving inmate control in the hands of inmates." The government simply must fix this situation and fix it now...especially as they continue to slash away at the sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code that would allow non-violent offenders to stay out of jail and continue to add mandatory minimum sentences thereby ensuring a huge increase in the number of "rookie inmates" in the years to come.

Being a realist, and knowing the pace of government reform, however, in the meantime I think that hiring quality individuals to do the inmate orientations is the best bet. I mean, if you get called a "goof" or a "rat" and it falls on you to prevent your subsequent murder it would at least be nice to know your government gave you a fighting chance with some Golden Gloves quality training.


Michael Bates
www.ruttanbates.com