By Laura Stone
Global News
TORONTO, Canada — The family of an inmate who died after repeatedly cutting himself in prison is taking the Correctional Service of Canada to court, as the system grapples with mentally-ill prisoners and a huge increase in self-harm behind bars.
The $10-million lawsuit, which also names the federal public safety minister and top CSC officials, comes in the midst of a high-profile Ontario coroner’s inquest into New Brunswick teenage inmate Ashley Smith, who choked herself to death in 2007 as guards stood outside her cell on orders and watched. The inquest has heard that Smith repeatedly choked herself throughout her 11-month incarceration.
“There isn’t simply one or two Ashley Smiths in the system,” Toronto lawyer Julian Falconer, who is representing both families, said in an interview.
“There is an endemic inability on the part of the Correctional Service to be able to manage people with serious mental health issues and what we see time and again is people needlessly suffering, stuck in a system never designed to support them and ultimately hidden away out of public view.”
Full story: Family of dead inmate suing Corrections Canada for $10 million