There are those who firmly believe that if you do the crime, you do the time, and it doesn’t matter if the prison time you serve is cruel and inhumane; in fact, the worse it is, the happier they are. If you’ve broken the law, they believe, you deserve whatever you get. The worse the punishment, the less likely you’ll be to reoffend. 

Never mind research that’s shown not only that prison time doesn’t work as a deterrent but that people tend to come out more likely to offend than when they went in; or that racial and cultural minorities are significantly over represented in prison systems; or that disproportionate numbers of prisoners (compared with the general population) suffered child abuse or neglect, including sexual abuse, undiagnosed and untreated concussions, learning disabilities, and ADHD than in the general population. Many people still believe prisoners get what they asked for by committing crimes and that should be the end of that. 

Except it’s not, because it’s one thing to deprive people of civil rights and something entirely different to deprive them of human rights. And when you deprive them of basic human rights for long enough, eventually they will fight back—and the consequences could be dire. 

Catherine Fogarty’s (class of 2018) Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary (Biblioasis, 2021) details exactly how dire the consequences were on April 14, 1971, when prisoners at Kingston Pen decided they’d had enough and started a riot to protest their living conditions. Fogarty writes in the Introduction:

The early 1970s was a time of great political and social upheaval, and what was happening in our prisons reflected that change. Deteriorating prison conditions and the increasing awareness of basic human rights were creating a combustible penal environment … Prisoners wanted to be treated like humans instead of numbers and they were demanding to be heard.

But what began as a rallying cry to the outside world for prison reform and justice quickly dissolved into a tense hostage taking, savage beatings and ultimately murder. For four terrifying days, prisoners held six guards hostage as they negotiated with ill-prepared prison officials and anxious politicians, while heavily armed soldiers surrounded the prison and prepared for an attack.

The deadly ingredients had been brewing long before that fateful night in April. The warden … had alerted his superiors in Ottawa that the prison was dangerously overcrowded and understaffed. … But the danger signs were not heeded, and the years of mistreatment, bitterness and distrust ultimately created a human volcano … 

“When the rebellion finally erupted,” Fogarty continues, “it made headlines around the world” ultimately costing the lives of two men and changing the lives of many more. 

Canadians often think of our history as “boring,” but Fogarty’s telling of this pivotal event is anything but. Researching and writing the book took five years, numerous trips to Kingston, hours in Ontario’s provincial archives and Queen’s University archives, interviews with dozens of retired correctional officers and family members of those who had died, and even interviews with some of the surviving prisoners. 

The year 2021, when the book was published, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the riot, yet fifty years after prisoners demanded to be heard and treated humanely, she asks, “what have we learned? Our country still struggles with fundamental questions related to incarceration and basic human rights. Cruel injustices continue to happen in our prisons every day.” 

Fogarty’s book offers “a peak behind the curtain of a correctional system that is still deeply flawed in its philosophy and practices. The Russian writer Dostoyevsky once said: ‘The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.’ But how are we to judge” she asks, “if we are still not even allowed to see inside?” 

In the tradition of University of King’s College Professor Emeritus and award-winning historical true crime writer Dean Jobb, Murder on the Inside is a page-turning historical account that is unflinching in its honesty, compassionate in its motives, and yet another beautifully written book to emerge out of the Master of Fine Arts program at University of King’s College. Whether you are an afficionado of historical true-crime nonfiction or have never read a word of it, this is a truly worthwhile read. 

Other not-so-great moments in Canadian history:

Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, by Jessica McDiarmid.

Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion, by Tyler LeBlanc.

Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys, by Jenn Thornhill Verma.

Fifteen Thousand Pieces: A Medical Examiner’s Journey Through Disaster, by Gina Leola Woolsey.