Deaths while in custody spike

Seven prisoners have died in 2018 — compared to 5 for all of last year

More inmates died in Alberta jails in the first half of 2018 than in all of 2017, according to the province.

Statistics provided by Alberta Justice show that the three recent deaths at the Edmonton Remand Centre bring the total number of people who have died in provincial jails so far this year to seven.

Internal reviews of each of the seven deaths are being conducted, and two have been completed, Alberta Justice spokesman Dan Laville said in an emailed statement.

But the findings of the reviews will not be made public “due to privacy and (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) considerations, along with safety and security information that could potentially put staff, inmates, visitors and the facility at risk in the future,” Laville said.

The office of the chief medical examiner is also investigating each death, but those findings are protected by privacy legislation as well, Laville said.

Information about how people die in jail can come to light through public fatality inquiries, which are held after all in-custody deaths unless the death was entirely the result of natural causes and was not preventable, or “if there was no meaningful connection between the death and the nature or quality of care or supervision being provided to the deceased person.”

However, the public inquiries are often held years after the person has died.

So far in 2018, three people have died at the Edmonton Remand Centre, three at the Lethbridge Correctional Centre and one in the Calgary Remand Centre.

In all of 2017, a total of five people died in provincial correctional institutions.

The Edmonton Remand Centre is the only provincial institution where at least one person has died every year for the past five years.

Laville said that between January 2013 and December 2016, autopsies confirmed six in-custody deaths were the result of drug overdoses. That number was determined in September 2017 and may change as other case files are concluded, Laville said.

Carol Lee Bivand was the first of the three people to die after being found unresponsive in a cell in the Edmonton Remand Centre this year.

Bivand died on May 5, just one day after a court-ordered psychiatric assessment completed at the jail. A judge had ordered the evaluation on May 1, and the report recommended she be found mentally unfit to stand trial. However, according to transcripts of court proceedings recently obtained by Postmedia, that assessment was never brought to court for a judge to make a ruling on her fitness because she died before the matter could be returned to court on May 11.

The transcripts also confirm Bivand was being held in the jail’s mental health unit, and that she refused to participate in some of her own court hearings.

Bivand’s family is still reeling from news of her death, her brother David Hill said in a telephone interview from Ontario this month.

After learning about the escalation of his sister’s drug addiction issues before Christmas 2017, Hill, who lives in Toronto, tried to get her to come stay with him after she spent a week in a detox program and was waiting to get into a rehabilitation centre.

She didn’t come, and he didn’t know she’d been arrested until he learned of her death, he said.

The family is planning a gathering to mourn Bivand at a remote lake in northern Ontario where she lived with their mother for a time.

Hill said his sister had a troubled life, but it makes him feel “awful and angry” to know she died while in custody. He wants to understand how it could have happened.

Two weeks after Bivand’s death, a male inmate died after being found unresponsive in his cell. His identity remains unknown.

On June 15, another woman died in her cell. A series of criminal charges against Alyssa Evert was withdrawn in Wetaskiwin provincial court Thursday after it was confirmed she had died, Evert’s lawyer Kenneth Sockett said in a telephone interview Friday.

Court records show that in April, Evert was sentenced to 545 days in jail for several criminal convictions that ranged from assault to breaching release conditions. When she was sentenced on April 24, she had 212 days left to serve after being given credit for time spent in pretrial custody.

Sockett confirmed Evert died in remand earlier this month. He said he’s “appalled” his client died in the jail, and that it’s very sad. “My heart goes out to her family,” he said.