HALIFAX — Canada's correctional investigator says families with relatives who die in federal jails aren't consistently getting the full story of what happened, often waiting for a year or more for heavily censored investigation reports.
Howard Sapers provided some of the preliminary findings from his year-long study today during a talk at the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law meeting being held in Halifax.
He told the international gathering of judges and lawyers that his investigators looked at uncensored investigations and compared them with what families receive, and concluded that most of the information should have been provided in writing or through briefings.
Last year 65 people died in Canadian federal prisons, including 39 from natural causes, nine suicides, five overdoses and eight from undetermined causes.
The investigation was started in response to three separate complaints to his office from families dissatisfied with the information they received after deaths of relatives in prisons.
The full report is expected early next week, and the Correctional Service of Canada said in an email it plans a response at that time.
