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Edmonton Institution building bruising legacy as inmates allege abuse

Five inmates at Edmonton Institution have filed a lawsuit against prison guards, officials and the Canadian government.

A maximum security prison in Edmonton has been named in five lawsuits launched by inmates who allege security personnel and staff members were responsible for the abuse, neglect and mistreatment of those placed in their custody.

CBC News reports that five inmates have alleged they were beaten and abused at the hands of prison staff, including guards as well as the warden, manager and supervisor.

The lawsuits allege inmates were ordered to fight one another, had their food tainted and beds doused in liquid.

CBC News writes:

In separate statement of claims, James Wigmore, Arafat Fatah, Terrence Naistus and Lance Regan all claim they were beaten, abused and faced degrading treatment at the hands of the warden, Kelly Hartle, manager Chris Saint and supervisor Chris Spilsbury. Several guards and other staff are also named in the actions, which were filed in Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench.

The Edmonton Institution is a maximum security facility capable of holding about 230 of the region's most hardened criminals. It has earned itself a reputation since first opening in 1978, and is often referred to simply as the Max.

It recently made headlines when it became the new home of Omar Khadr, who was transferred from an Ontario institution in May amid death threats.

There have been at least three deaths inside the prison walls this year alone. Edmonton police are currently investigating the death of 32-year-old robbery convict Ryan Holteen, who was found dead on the evening of Sept. 26.

Mason Montgrand also died inside Edmonton Institution in 2011, which the inmates behind the lawsuits suggest came after he was purposely isolated alongside a member of a rival gang.

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The union representing Canadian correctional workers complained recently that the Edmonton Institution is above capacity and has seen its population trend toward young, more violent inmates who are harder to manage and more likely to have gang affiliations.

Many people attribute the problem of violence to overcrowding and the practice of double bunking — meaning convicted criminals are entering the system without beds to put them in. The Max is not alone, a recent Canadian Press report found that half of Ontario's prisons were above or beyond maximum capacity and that Canada's prison population reached an all-time high of 15,097 federal inmates last year.

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A recent study opposing the practice of double bunking suggested the population would reach 18,684 by next March.

The closure of the Kingston Penitentiary, Canada's oldest and most notorious federal prison, has done nothing to ease that tension. Its population was moved to other maximum security prisons, with high-profile inmates Paul Bernardo and Russell Williams moving to Quebec.

But all that is secondary to these allegations of abuse and impropriety at the hands of prison guards.

Last year, the Office of the Correctional Investigators received some 270 complaints from inside the Edmonton Institution. Edmonton lawyer Tom Engel told CBC News that he felt there was a "mentality of street justice" inside the prison.

"If a prisoner or a group of prisoners pisses off the guards then they just think the best way to deal with it is to visit violence on them, or to lock them up or treat them in very cruel ways," he told the network.

Engel said more lawsuits may be coming from inside the walls of the prison. Meantime, the Max's reputation gets worse and overcrowding continues to put pressure on the system.

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