By: Alexander McClelland, Jeffrey Bradley, & Lindsay Jennings

Where does the information in the database come from? 

All information is from publicly available sources, including access to information requests, government data portals, coroners’ websites, inquest documents, media articles, and department of justice reports. To gather this information we filed 21 Access to Information and Freedom of Information requests, which came from the Correctional Service Canada, Health Canada, and Justice and Public Safety ministries of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Manitoba, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec. Access our received access to information requests here. 

Screen capture of a spreadsheet, with many cells redacted in black, listing institutions and manner of death for incarcerated people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Redacted Newfoundland and Labrador Access to Information Request

Where the data comes from per jurisdiction (as of August 9, 2024):

Federally: Web scraping government websites (Correctional Service of Canada News releases), online searches, public government reports, media articles, and from 2 Access to Information Requests from Correctional Service Canada received on July 17, 2023 and June 24, 2024 (Note: findings from the June request have not yet been added into the database). Additionally, we received 2 Access to Information Requests related to details on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in federal custody.

Alberta: Online government data portals and online searches, public government reports, and media articles.

British Columbia: Web scraping government websites, online government data portals, online searches, public government reports, and media articles.

Manitoba: Online searches, public government reports, media articles, and from 2 Access to Information Requests received on July 6, 2023 and June 22, 2024 (Note: findings from the June request have not yet been added into the database).

New Brunswick: Online searches, public government reports, media articles, and from 2 Access to Information Requests received on March 1, 2023 and May 8, 2024.

Northwest Territories: Verdicts of Coroners’ Inquests and from 1 Access to Information Request received on May 17, 2024.

Nova Scotia: Online searches, public government reports, media articles, and from 2 Access to Information Requests received on June 6, 2023 and June 3, 2024.

Nunavut: From 1 Access to Information Request received on May 10th, 2024.

Ontario: Numbers of deaths in custody come directly from data requests to Ontario’s Chief Coroner’s office via direct request by email, as well as from searching online government data portals, online research for inquest documents, and media articles. Our team is still waiting on 1 Freedom of Information Request submitted on May 8, 2024.

Prince Edward Island: From 2 Access to Information Requests received on July 6, 2023 and April 24, 2024.

Newfoundland: From 2 Access to Information Requests received on July 13, 2023 and June 10, 2024.

Quebec: Online research for inquest documents, academic reports, media articles, and from 1 Access to Information Request received on January 19, 2024.

Saskatchewan: Online government data portals, online searches, public government reports, and media articles.

Yukon: Sharing Common Ground Review of Yukon’s Police Force Final Report and a direct request to Yukon’s Chief Coroner via email on June 8, 2023 and July 4, 2024.

 

Unknowns

There are many many unknowns in the database. The vast number of unknowns is an indication of the problem accessing information on deaths in custody across Canada. There is an issue around transparency, and no public body has been tracking or analyzing deaths in custody in a systematic way. The amount of unknown information is also due to ongoing investigations that take place, where information may take months or years to be released, and in the end, it may not necessarily be available to the public. The less information we are able to access, the less the public are able to ask vital questions about the causes of deaths in custody and how we can collectively work to prevent future deaths from occurring.

The challenge of unknowns, can be seen in the below chart, which indicates that for deaths that occur after 2012, we have less and less information on the Manner of Death, due to long waits for coroner’s inquests and investigations.

 

What is included in the database? 

The database includes deaths that occur in custody settings since the year 2000 across all provinces and territories in provincial, territorial, and federal jurisdictions.

We define custody as being held in a condition where the right to liberty is deprived by police during arrest or after being arrested, by corrections workers in a corrections facility, or in a care facility under a legal order due to mental health legislation. This can include police cars or police station holding cells, provincial correctional centres for remanded and sentenced individuals of two years less a day, federal correctional centres for a sentence of two or more years, prisoner transportation vehicles, court holding cells, immigration detention centres, youth detention centres, and psychiatric forensic facilities.

We include deaths that occur resulting from natural causes, illness and disease, as well as deaths that occur due to unnatural causes, such as homicide, suicide, due to the use of force, conditions of confinement, as well as deaths that occur due to accident, such as a drug toxicity poisoning, or. The data set will also include deaths that occur in hospitals where someone was transferred from a custodial setting, or was completing their sentence in a hospital setting.

To be included in the data 3 criteria need to be met:

  • Someone died
  • The person was in custody in Canada
  • The death occurred on or after the year 2000

The variables associated with the Tracking (In)Justice data set that provide specific information about every recorded case:

  • Name
  • Date: Date of death
  • Age: Age at time of death
  • Gender: see variables dictionary for more details
  • Race: see variables dictionary for more details
  • Province or territory: Province or Territory that incident occurred in
  • Institution at which the person was held in custody
  • Type of custody
  • Tactical intervention used (if relevant)
  • Manner of death

 

How can people use the database? 

People can search the database using the variables on our website’s Explore the Data page to create their own analysis. For example, to get a snapshot of how many people have died in each institution, you can search the deaths by institution in which they occurred. Or, to understand patterns over time, you can search by date, and manner of death, or other factors such as gender, or type of custody. Custom searches are available for download via the Excel or CSV file button function on the Explore the Data page.

 

For more info on our process, see our data dictionary.

To learn more about our methods and to explore the data, look here.

To see some of our analysis on the data, look here.

To learn more about our project, look here.