A 48-year-old male inmate was found unresponsive in his cell at the Regina Correctional Centre Wednesday morning. Following unsuccessful attempts to revive him, he was pronounced dead at 9 a.m.
He had been in remand for “a couple of months” facing weapons and drug charges according to corrections spokesperson Drew Wilby. Next of kin has not been notified.
Now police and the Provincial Coroner’s Office will conduct investigations. The Ministry of Corrections and Policing will also perform its own internal investigation. Wilby said it is too early to determine if the death is suspicious.
“The inmate was in a cell by himself, but of course police will look at all angles of that, as will our internal investigation,” Wilby said.
“I can’t release what the cause of death was, because at this point we still don’t know.”
The standard protocol is that units are checked hourly. Ensuring these checks took place will be part of the internal investigation.
The correctional centre was placed on a lock-down while the initial investigation took place.
“We’ll seal that cell, we’ll seal part of that unit as well to make sure we’re able to do interviews to ensure we’re able to get as much information as possible to what may or may not have occurred,” Wilby said.
“Once police have finished their investigation and we’re confident that this is just isolated to this incident we’ll release that unit back to normal programming as quickly as we can.”
Two deaths have occurred this year in Saskatchewan’s correctional facilities. Two occurred last year and five occurred between 2015 and 2016.
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