VANCOUVER — The Correctional Service of Canada says there's been a recent uptick in violence in prisons involving inmates and guards — some of which advocates say is fuelled by the so-called inmate code.
The service says there were more than 22-hundred assaults in 2021-22, which jumped by about 45 per cent to almost 33-hundred in the last fiscal year.
Reform advocates say a portion of that violence is fuelled by the inmate code, a long-standing and varied set of rules followed by prisoners that leads to beatings and murders.
Advocate Catherine Latimer says she was concerned after a BC judge cited a gangland killer for contempt in December when he refused to answer questions for fear of violating the code and being killed.
As executive director of the John Howard Society, she says inmates and correctional staff take the code seriously, and the courts should be alive to the violence inmates face for breaking it.
John Randle, with the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, says the drug trade in prisons has been the number one factor in prison violence.