CALL FOR INMATE RELEASES BEFORE COVID-19 SPREADS

The number of COVID-19 cases in prisons is rising, spurring Canada’s criminal lawyers and an inmate advocacy group to ask federal and provincial governments to reduce the number of people in the institutions. Cases doubled to at least 42 at institutions in Quebec, Ontario and B.C. this week. At a prison in Mission, B.C., the number has increased to at least 14, and at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Ontario about eight inmates are infected. Quebec has outbreaks at the Joliette Institution, where at least 10 prisoners have the virus, and at the Port-cartier prison, where about nine are sick. The virus has also been diagnosed in at least 49 prison guards at Port-cartier, Joliette and Donaconna institutions in Quebec and in Ontario’s Grand Valley Institution.