When Larry Nault reads horror stories about conditions at the Sudbury Jail he can only shake his head.
“It shouldn't be like this in 2016,” he said.
Nault has firsthand experience with Canada's prison system, having spent more than 30 years of his life as an inmate, primarily in federal institutions.
When he was released from prison in 2005, the John Howard Society helped him turn his life around.
On Wednesday, Nault was a guest speaker at the 23rd annual Prisoner's Justice Day, to commemorate prisoners who have died of unnatural causes while in jail, and lobby to improve living conditions in Canada's jails and prisons.
“These men and women are going to get out sooner or later,” Nault said outside the Sudbury Jail, where the event took place. “It would be better if they got out with more dignity and less hatred in their systems.”
In December 2015, Nathan Aubin, president of OPSEU Local 617, which represents the Sudbury Jail's guards, told Sudbury.com the jail wasn't fit for animals.
“We've got a jail that was built in the early 1920s and it hasn't changed much since then,” he said at the time. “There have been some renovations done, but we have a mould issue, last year we had an asbestos issue. It just seems to be one issue after another and there's been Band Aid solutions but no actual resolution.
“The conditions inside aren't suitable for animals, but they think it's suitable to house people in. I don't understand why they would continue down that road.”
John Rimore, executive director of the John Howard Society, which works to improve the criminal justice system and support current and former inmates, said people continue to live in unsafe conditions while they are incarcerated.
“We're not asking for prisoners to have hotel accommodations, we're asking for them to be treated like human beings,” he said.
Many prisoners end their own lives, he said, after they are pushed to the edge due to their living conditions and constant threats of violence.
In the 20-year period from 1994-95 to 2013-14, a total of 211 federal offenders took their own lives. But Ontario no longer tracks unnatural deaths in its prisons and jails.
Rimore said there have been many inquests after those deaths, but few recommendations have been followed.
Many jails still have suspension points in cells that allow prisoners to hang themselves, for example.
“People should not have to live in terrible conditions, unsafe conditions in fear of violence, simply because they're incarcerated,” Rimore said. “The incarceration is the punishment.”
