‘Flat-out riot’ at Saskatchewan prison leaves perpetrators in cells and seriously injured in hospitals

A more detailed picture emerged Friday about a deadly riot that broke out at a federal prison in Prince Albert, Sask. Jason Leonard Bird, 43, who was serving a 31-month sentence for breaking and entering, died in Wednesday’s rampage at Saskatchewan Penitentiary. Eight other inmates were hurt, two seriously. James Bloomfield of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers spoke to the National Post’s Douglas Quan. How bad did things get?

Dozens of prisoners remained locked down at the Ottawa jail Monday, three days after a disturbance that was set off after several inmates were suspected of drinking jailhouse hooch. A specialized team of correctional officers had to be called in to quell the uprising in the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre on Friday, when prisoners in one of the jail’s minimum security protective custody pods refused to return to their cells.

MEXICO CITY — An hours-long rolling gunbattle at a northern Mexico prison left seven dead and 13 injured before control was re-established Wednesday morning, authorities said. Continuous automatic gunfire was heard late Tuesday at the prison in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the border state of Tamaulipas. The gunfire continued into the morning at the prison, which has been one of Mexico’s most troubled. Authorities reported the facility was back under control in late morning.

REGINA — Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall says there’s one way to avoid prison food — don’t go to prison. About 115 inmates at the Regina Correctional Centre are refusing to eat because of the quality of the food, which included a cold-cut sandwich, coleslaw and soup for lunch. Concerns were first raised by inmates in November, shortly after food services at the jail were switched to a private company called Compass Group. The premier says food provided to anyone in the public system should be high quality and safe.

OTTAWA — Canada’s prisons are so jam-packed with inmates that many are forced to “double-bunk” in shared cells — even though corrections officials recognize this breeds violence and poses a risk to offenders and staff at the facilities. Moreover, although recent construction will resolve the over-crowding in the “short-term,” Correctional Service Canada (CSC) has failed to develop expansion plans for its penitentiaries to properly take into account the growing number of inmates, according to a report released Tuesday by Auditor General Michael Ferguson.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Six inmates snatched keys from three correctional officers at a maximum security prison in Arkansas on Monday and held the officers in an area of the facility for about three hours, the second major disturbance to occur at the penitentiary in less than a month.

TORONTO • Inmates at the maximum security facility in Penetanguishene, Ont., erupted into a random riot Thursday, destroying meal hatch doors, cell doors, phones, duct work and garbage bins in a six-hour incident that was only resolved when a tactical team used pepper spray. The riot began when 45 prison inmates in two separate units at the Central North Correctional Centre refused to be locked in their cells.