69 inmates died in Canadian prisons during 2023

Last year, I was combed through media releases from the Government of Canada to collect data on inmate deaths announced by Correctional Services Canada in 2022.

I was curious to see how many deaths occurred in Canadian prisons during 2023, so I browsed through them all again, and here’s what I found.

In total, 69 inmates died in custody in 2023.

Of those, 26 died of what CSC called “apparent natural causes”, one of which was specifically from an illness. There were also 2 inmates who died after being assaulted.

The majority of the deaths, however, didn’t have a cause listed. A total of 41 inmates fell under this category.

At the bottom of virtually every media release was the following statement:

As in all cases involving the death of an inmate, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) will review the circumstances. CSC policy requires that the police and the coroner be notified.

Ontario had the highest number of inmate deaths, at a total of 20. followed by Québec at 16, and British Columbia at 14. Alberta had the lowest number of inmate deaths of all provinces that had inmates die in custody, with just 2 deaths.

The deaths occurred at 26 institutions, 9 of which saw only 1 death. Regional Psychiatric Centre, which is located in Saskatoon, was tied with Archambault Institution in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec, for the highest number of deaths. Each of them saw 6 inmates die in custody.

Stony Mountain Institution in Stony Mountain, Manitoba, had the second highest number of deaths, at 5, with the following institutions all having the third highest number of deaths, 4:

• Pacific Institution (Abbotsford, BC)
• Mountain Institution (Agassiz, BC)
• Millhaven Institution (Bath, ON)
• Federal Training Centre (Laval, QC)
• Dorchester Penitentiary (Dorchester, MB)
• Bath Institution (Bath, ON)

January, April, September, and December saw the highest number of deaths in a single month, with each of them seeing 8 deaths. The lowest deaths seen in a single month was 3, which occurred in May and October.

Nearly all of the inmates who died were in custody because of pretty serious crimes, including murder, assault, arson, robbery, sexual assault, and kidnapping. Only 4 were in prison on trafficking charges.

There were 63 deaths of inmates reported by CSC in 2021, 3 of which were specifically classified as COVID-19 deaths, and 54 were reported in 2022.

You can find a list of all the inmates who died in 2022 and 2023, including sentencing and the crimes they were convicted on, here.