#archambaul report

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“What of the Penitentiary Report?” Ottawa Citizen. December 27, 1939. Page 10. ---- Unrest again "seethes" in Vincent de Paul penitentiary according to a Montreal newspaper, the Standard. It says the inmates are smarting under grievances that have arisen since the Royal Commission on the Penal System was appointed, and goes on to suggest that the report of the commission. might be acted upon.

Little has been heard of the Archambault report in recent months. The government is occupied with more important things just now, of course, but if it has decided to shelve all the recommendations contained in the report until the end of the war it reveals a lack of appreciation of the urgency of the situation.

It more riots break out in the near future there will be the usual complacent demands in a section of the newspaper press for sterner discipline and condign punishment for the ringleaders. But that will not affect the established fact that the riots will be the outcome of defects in the Canadian penal system. Just as the riots which gave rise to the royal commission were.

There have been reports of "unrest" in other penitentiaries besides St. Vincent de Paul. They have been attributed to notorious and degraded criminals who agitate among their more innocent fellows. Again it needs to be said that, even so, the unrest has its roots deeper than the cunning of case-hardened convicts. But the wall of silence about penitentiary affairs appears to have grown up again and there is no knowing what is happening - if anything.

The British government has inaugurated radical prison reforms since the Archamhault report was issued. Canada ought at least to carry out some of the recommendations made by the commission, war or no war. Even if the idea of a prison commission is rejected until after the war (although less needful projects have been sanctioned) there is no reason why such measures as the reorganization of the headquarters administration, the reconstruction of the pentantary personnel and the establishment of a training school for penitentiary officers  would not be put into effect.

“Démenti formel” Le Droit (Ottawa). December 23, 1939 ---- L’hou. Ernest Lapointe, ministre de la justice, vient d'opposer dementi formel aux ru meur de nouveau troubles parmi les bagnards du pénitentier Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, pris de Montréal. En effet, ersqu'on a soumis à l'attention du ministre de la Justice cent article de journal à ce sujet M. Lapointe a déclaré que la regrettable publicité résultant d'u tel article n'avait aucun fonde. “La situation à Vincent-de-Paul est normale et paisble", precisa-t-il. "Il est deplorable, surtout à l’heure atuelle, qu'on fasse et publie de sembables rapportes.”

#montreal #laval #ottawa #st vincent de paul penitentiary #prisoner protest #prisoner unrest #prison strike #convict revolt #prisoner demands #royal commission #royal commision to investigate the penal system of canada #archambaul report #ernest lapointe #canada during world war 2 #crime and punishment in canada #history of crime and punishment in canada #penal reform