Information on inmate deaths should be made public, says John Howard Society

The John Howard Society says the P.E.I. government should provide more information to the public about deaths of people who are incarcerated, saying there's an "important public interest" in doing so, and that it could lead to improvements within the correctional system.

The John Howard Society reviews, evaluates and advocates for changes in the criminal justice system.

The society's comments come in light of a freedom-to-information request by CBC News for documents related to the death of an inmate that occurred in February 2018. CBC also requested incident and investigation reports relating to any other deaths of P.E.I. inmates that may have occurred, over a three year period.

The P.E.I. Department of Justice not only refused to release the documents — it also refused to confirm whether any such documents exist, arguing that "disclosing the existence of the information would be an unreasonable invasion of third parties' personal privacy."

CBC News has appealed the department's decision to withhold the information to P.E.I.'s privacy commissioner.

Inmate died February 2018

In February 2018 the department confirmed to CBC News that an inmate had died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital after being taken there for health issues. No official public notice had been provided. 

The department would not confirm the name of the inmate, the date of the death or the cause.

"It's important to know how people have died in custody," said Catherine Latimer, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada. "I think there's a real public interest in knowing information about the actual death so that we can move to prevent them or ensure that there's adequate health care being provided," within the correctional system, she said.

Some provinces provide information on deaths in custody as part of routine disclosure. Nova Scotia posts information on its website on all major incidents in its provincial jail system, including deaths. It also posts the results of investigations into those deaths including the name of the inmate, cause of death, and details on any actions taken to try to prevent similar deaths in the future.

In New Brunswick, the Department of Public Safety notifies the public of a death in custody by issuing a media release within 24 hours.

The P.E.I. Department of Justice now says it will be releasing statistics on deaths of those in custody — going back to 2017 — but that that information is "not yet available." 

'Greater public interest,' says society

Latimer said from the perspective of the John Howard Society, privacy issues should be secondary.

"We value the privacy of individuals but we think that there's probably a greater public interest in ensuring we know why people have died behind bars," she said. "Whether we have the individual's name is incidental. But it's important to know the cause of death."

Latimer said even if the death was entirely by natural causes, it's possible there could be improvements to the system by exploring how the person died.

"Were they receiving adequate health care in the facilities? Could there possibly have been an opportunity for the person to be paroled by exception so they could have died with their family and with dignity in the community?" Latimer said.

"So getting information about these things really strengthens the possible policy reaction or response to these kinds of issues."

No inquest in inmate death

Under P.E.I.'s Coroners Act an inquest is considered mandatory after an inmate dies unless the investigating coroner is satisfied the death, "was due entirely to natural causes and was not preventable."

The province confirmed Thursday, after CBC News inquired, that the inmate who died in the 2018 case, died of natural causes, and therefore an inquest "is not required."

In April 2018 a coroner's inquest was held into the death of Catherine Shirley Gillis. The 69-year-old had been a patient at Hillsborough Hospital when she died by suicide eight years earlier.

Because she was an involuntary patient at the psychiatric hospital, that inquest was considered mandatory under the Coroners Act. But no inquest was ordered until after CBC News called the chief coroner to ask about the case, six years after Gillis died.

More P.E.I. news