If the trend continues, suicide attempts and inmate suicides will increase at Quebec’s 18 prisons this year compared to last year.
Posted at 5:00 am
Daniel Renaud LaPresse
While there were 47 attempted suicides and 5 suicides throughout 2021, 45 attempted suicides and 5 suicides were recorded between January 1 and August 9, 2022, according to statistics from the Quebec Public Safety Department.
“I’m in no way surprised,” says Me Nadia Golmier, an attorney specializing in prison law. She says the endless hours — often 22 or 23 hours a day, she says — inmates spend in their cells explain the increase in suicide attempts and suicides this year.
“I have many clients in Bordeaux and Rivière-des-Prairies. They tell me: “I can’t take it anymore, I’m going crazy, I hear voices.” It’s regular. You are in a state of significant psychological distress. They stay in the cell for very long hours, have the feeling that their state of health is deteriorating, they have anxiety attacks,” says the defense attorney.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, THE PRESS
Prison Rivière-des-Prairies
a process
“People who are a bit fragile, it’s inhumane to leave them like that, locked in their cell for two, three days, sometimes four, with an hour break. At some point you’ll go nuts if you don’t have reading material or anything to do with it. I can understand people flinching,” added Jonathan Blanchette, who was released from prison on July 29 and says he has witnessed two suicide attempts.
The ex-con spent 10 months in Bordeaux, an “ordeal,” he says. He kept a log of the time he spent in the cell.
In 10 months, Mr. Blanchette spent 2,600 hours in deadlock (locked up in a cell), the equivalent of almost four months. In 305 days of detention in Bordeaux, he had access to the external court for 72 days.
Another former detainee, who asked not to be identified, spent more than three months in what he calls an “asylum” facility in the province last spring.
He says that the prison had no doctor available for several weeks and that he had asked to see a psychologist to no avail.
“They sent me to a social worker. I had to bring in an out-of-town private psychologist that I paid for and had an hour-long virtual consultation with. Not all inmates could afford that,” he said.
Twice as much with RDP
In 2020, the year that marked the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were a total of 13 suicides and 63 suicide attempts. The situation, which improved somewhat last year, seems set to deteriorate again in 2022.
The prisons that have recorded the most suicide attempts since the beginning of this year are Rivière-des-Prairies (RDP) with 16, Quebec with 7, Bordeaux (Montreal) with 6 and Leclerc (Laval ) with 5.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Bordeaux prison
In Bordeaux and Rivière-des-Prairies, most of these attempts have been made in recent months; 5 of the 6 trials at Bordeaux have taken place since May and 12 of the 16 trials at the Rivière-des-Prairies facility since June.
The 16 suicide attempts at RDP represent 35% of all suicide attempts that took place in Quebec’s 18 prisons in 2022.
This is due to the lack of staff
If prisoners spent so much time in their cells at the beginning of the pandemic, according to Mr. Golmier, it was due to sanitary measures. She believes that in 2022, it’s due to understaffing and the pressure tactics used by correctional officers.
” [Les agents correctionnels] will not necessarily do everything possible to get people out of their cells. Since the beginning of the summer, I have frequently seen people coming into detention with the same clothes on their backs for 20 days,” she said.
“These are not leverages, but yes, due to staff shortages, inmate services have to be cut back, as is the case with the health network, for example,” replies Mathieu Lavoie, president of Quebec’s Union of Peace Officers in Correctional Services.
We are in a massive recruitment campaign to hire staff, but it will take months and even years to get back to the levels we were at before the pandemic.
Mathieu Lavoie, President of the Union of Peace Officers in Correctional Services of Quebec
The Department of Public Security confirms that the pandemic has led to an increase in suicides and attempted suicides in prisons, but cannot explain this increase in 2022.
In particular, he emphasizes that each of the 18 facilities has a suicide prevention program in place and that systematic suicide risk screening is carried out upon admission.
A ministry spokesman adds that last March additional measures were taken at the Rivière-des-Prairies facility to improve suicide prevention measures.
“Employees at the Rivière-des-Prairies institution are alert to warning signs of distress. The figures show that without reducing suicidal acts, the measures taken in March clearly helped save several lives,” this spokeswoman wrote to us.
“I think we’ve reached the point where maybe we should consider alternatives to incarceration. Which? I do not know. But inside the walls these are currently conditions worthy of the Third World,” concludes Mr. Golmier.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514.285-7000, extension 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the La Presse mailing address.
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46 Number of suicide attempts in Quebec prisons in 2018
5 Number of suicides in Quebec prisons in 2018
Source: Quebec Department of Public Safety
34 Number of suicide attempts in Quebec prisons in 2019
8 Number of suicides in Quebec prisons in 2019
Source: Quebec Department of Public Safety